Article One by Bob Rae
Biography & Books

ighty years ago, just as the First World War was ending, a book appeared in Ontario. It was entitled The Clash! - A Study in Nationalities. Its author, a young student of Canadian history and politics, was one William Henry Moore. My copy is the fifth printing in six months: it must have sold well.

The book was written in the midst of great tension at home and abroad. The war had generated a political crisis at home: Borden's Union government had insisted on passing the Military Service Act. Laurier had refused to join the national coalition and his Liberal Party was reduced to a rump. In Ontario, the Tories passed a regulation under The Education Act - the now notorious Regulation 17 - banning French as a language of instruction and insisting on the folly of "bi-lingual education".

The theme of the book is the paradox of Canadian history itself. We pride ourselves on being a thoughtful, generous, tolerant people. Political bromides reinforce the image every day. The reality is a little different: at our best we have learned to appreciate harmony in diversity, but much of our story is about intolerance and conflict.

Over two hundred years ago the British

Parliament debated the Quebec Act. Two speeches stand out. The first from Sir Edward Thurlow, then Attorney General:

"You ought to change those laws only which relate to the French Sovereignty, and in their place substitute laws which should relate to the new sovereign...but with respect to all other laws, all other customs and institutions whatever, which are indifferent to the state of subjects and sovereign, humanity, justice and wisdom equally conspire to advise you to leave to the people just as they were."

It was in this same debate that Edmund Burke said, "I consider the right of conquest so little, and the right of human nature so much, that the former has little consideration with me."

The Quebec Act, the creative partnership between Baldwin and Lafontaine, the Proclamation of 1763, the Confederation Debates, the generosity of spirit exhibited by Laurier and Lester Pearson in attempting to deal fairly with minorities: this is the line of partnership and tolerance.

Yet there is another as well: Durham's disastrous, but fortunately shortlived, report; Macdonald's decision to hang Louis Riel; Ontario's move to restrict the use of French in the early twentieth century; the isolationist appeals to race from a burgeoning Quebec nationalism; the deeply conflicting emotions aroused by deep crises over conscription in two World Wars; the increasingly sterile and fruitless confrontations of the 1970's, 1980's, and now 1990's, with the tragic slaying of Pierre Laporte forever marking radical separatism with deep and permanent dishonour. This is also our history.

The recognition of the identity of nationalities within Canada and the concomitant spirit of partnership is about freedom itself. The modern state can never be co-terminous with "the nation" without a brutal exercise in ethnic cleansing. Our founding principles are diversity and unity: Canada is a federation, not just a nation, and that says it all.

Thomas D'Arcy McGee, the great advocate of Confederation, once said, "Federalism is a great principle that speaks to the very foundations of human nature." One of Canada's great orators, McGee knew that a pure and simple ethnic or religious nationalism could not bring a lasting solution to the problems of the Ireland of his birth, a view which led to his assassination in 1868 at the hands of Fenian nationalists. Tens of thousands of deaths later, Irish discussions continue the effort to waken from a nightmare of remembered - sometimes real, sometimes exaggerated, sometimes imagined - grievance.

McGee was right about Ireland. He also was right about Canada. McGee understood that Canada's diversity required a different public philosophy from its colonial past.

In our wiser moments, we have listened to voices like Burke and McGee. Treaties have been signed with rights to both sides. Clear limits have been placed on what any temporary majority could do. From the very origins of these first encounters we have had to learn that rights can belong to groups, as well as to individuals, and that pure and simple majority rule cannot be the only principle of civilized political community.

"Events stronger than advocacy; events stronger than men" (to borrow McGee's words) produced the drive to federal union. But it was not, on any terms, a drive to a unitary state. Quebec could best "be for itself" within a federal Canada.

Today there is great need for us to be clearer and more emphatic across the country on the benefits and the meaning of the federalism which we have been building not just for 125 years, but, I would argue, since 1774 and the Quebec Act. There is a lot of misunderstanding with respect to the meaning and the essence of federalism in the province of Quebec, but there is an equal level of misunderstanding and misrepresentation in other parts of the country.

Those who argue that Canada is made up of ten provinces which must be treated exactly the same - a cookie-cutter approach to equality - are arguing in defiance of Canadian history. Such an approach may fit one person's theories of federalism, but we have seen the danger of governing in the name of a theory, whether it is Lord Durham's, Pierre Trudeau's or Preston Manning's.

Federalism takes different forms in different countries at different times. There is not one magic definition of federalism. There is not just one way in which one can be a federalist. There is not one, and only one, federalist constitution. There are a range of constitutional possibilities. Above all, in making constitutions, we should have respect for and knowledge of the institutions, the culture, the language and the history of our own country.

Those outside Quebec whose voices have rejected the notion of distinct society are ignoring an important part of Canadian history and Canadian reality. For generations, people outside Quebec kept on asking the typical media question, "What does Quebec want?"

I think Quebec is now entitled to say, "Well, we have a pretty good idea of what we want. We told you what that was in Meech Lake. We've given you some sense of the direction we want to go in." There's clearly a strong majority of opinion in Quebec not in favour of separation, but certainly in favour of recognizing the particular quality of Quebec institutions. Now Quebec is entitled to say to English Canada, "What do you want?"

Whatever the results of the next referendum in Quebec - if there is one - certain common realities must be confronted. Political relations can always be improved, but a common currency and shared values clearly imply co-ordination and reciprocity, as they are doing in Europe.

These in turn will require common political institutions, like parliament and courts, with some powers independent of the member governments of the federation and common to all citizens. These common federal institutions can always be reformed. The appointed Senate will be abolished. Our relationship with the monarchy will be reassessed. Parliament itself can usefully change. But for all these changes, an underlying truth remains: the idea of Canada, a nation and civil society with a history of partnership and solidarity, remains as strong and vibrant as we care to make it.