A leading Canadian constitutional expert is “flabbergasted” at the lack of pushback on Quebec’s Bill 96 and believes the federation is in trouble..On May 15, Quebec Premier Francois Legault announced he would amend the constitution to make his province a nation within Canada and French its official language..Donald Savoie, Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Governance at the University of Moncton, was less surprised by the announcement than by how little pushback it received..“What I find amazing, truly amazing is the rest of Canada – it’s like a big yawn. Twenty years ago, that would have been front pages, that would have been top of the news, that would have been debated. This time around, it’s like a big yawn. Oh, go ahead, do whatever you want to do. I think there’s fatigue in this country with those issues. I don’t think Canadians understand fully,” Savoie said in an interview with Western Standard..“It may have resonated in some quarters in Western Canada, but certainly in Atlantic Canada, you don’t hear an outcry…You don’t see it in the province of Ontario. It’s like…Quebec is doing that, what else is new, Quebec always wants to play at the margin and kind of push the envelope as much as it can.”.Savoie believes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stands in opposition to his father who spoke passionately against special rights for Quebec..“I suppose his son would say Canada has evolved and they will evolve with Canada and we can’t refer to Mackenzie King or Pierre Trudeau. I don’t think you can deal as easily with language rights or cultural rights, human rights as easy as that. You either have you either apply human rights or you don’t,” he said..Savoie, who was born in 1947, said the fact Canadians don’t care about what the Quebec premier announced suggests they may not care to save Canada itself if another referendum were held..“If I were sitting in Ottawa, I’d say there’s an alarm bell here. We need to worry. Because Atlantic Canada and Western Canada, they say, ‘Well, you fix it the way you always fix things. We don’t have the say,’” he said..Savoie, the founder and executive director of the Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development, says this is “the old story that you impose a cow on the map of Canada. It eats in Western Canada, it’s milked in Ontario and Quebec, and it s—- on the Atlantic provinces.”.It’s rare commentary for an alumni of the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation..“Western Canada has, since the dawn of confederation, has had the short end of the stick. There’s no question that Western Canada has and continues to be screwed. No question about that,” he said..The ignorance was illustrated for Savoie by a recent debate in the House of Commons..“David McGuinty, a Member of Parliament for Ottawa, got up in the House of Commons and accused Alberta MPs of being too regional in their perspective because they want to talk about the energy sector. Now, let me tell you what the energy sector means for Newfoundland, for Nova Scotia, for Saskatchewan, for Alberta, British Columbia, and certainly for New Brunswick. But [he said] that’s regional. And then he talked about a national issue, the auto sector. The auto sector is only present in Ontario, but that’s national [in his mind],” he said..Savoie believes the unwillingness for Wilfrid Laurier to create the province of Buffalo as a western Canadian rival to Ontario shows that this country has long favoured central Canada..“We are the only Federation in the world that doesn’t have an upper house to speak on behalf of the regions….And yet, we have the second largest country in the world…Australia has the Westminster model, and they have an upper house to speak on behalf of the regions,” Savoie pointed out..“No other federation in the world would put up with that… this country being designed for Ontario and Quebec by Ontario and Quebec, with the public service centered in Ottawa… I could go through a whole litany that Western Canada frankly has been taken advantage of.”.Harding is a Western Standard correspondent based in Saskatchewan
A leading Canadian constitutional expert is “flabbergasted” at the lack of pushback on Quebec’s Bill 96 and believes the federation is in trouble..On May 15, Quebec Premier Francois Legault announced he would amend the constitution to make his province a nation within Canada and French its official language..Donald Savoie, Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Governance at the University of Moncton, was less surprised by the announcement than by how little pushback it received..“What I find amazing, truly amazing is the rest of Canada – it’s like a big yawn. Twenty years ago, that would have been front pages, that would have been top of the news, that would have been debated. This time around, it’s like a big yawn. Oh, go ahead, do whatever you want to do. I think there’s fatigue in this country with those issues. I don’t think Canadians understand fully,” Savoie said in an interview with Western Standard..“It may have resonated in some quarters in Western Canada, but certainly in Atlantic Canada, you don’t hear an outcry…You don’t see it in the province of Ontario. It’s like…Quebec is doing that, what else is new, Quebec always wants to play at the margin and kind of push the envelope as much as it can.”.Savoie believes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stands in opposition to his father who spoke passionately against special rights for Quebec..“I suppose his son would say Canada has evolved and they will evolve with Canada and we can’t refer to Mackenzie King or Pierre Trudeau. I don’t think you can deal as easily with language rights or cultural rights, human rights as easy as that. You either have you either apply human rights or you don’t,” he said..Savoie, who was born in 1947, said the fact Canadians don’t care about what the Quebec premier announced suggests they may not care to save Canada itself if another referendum were held..“If I were sitting in Ottawa, I’d say there’s an alarm bell here. We need to worry. Because Atlantic Canada and Western Canada, they say, ‘Well, you fix it the way you always fix things. We don’t have the say,’” he said..Savoie, the founder and executive director of the Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development, says this is “the old story that you impose a cow on the map of Canada. It eats in Western Canada, it’s milked in Ontario and Quebec, and it s—- on the Atlantic provinces.”.It’s rare commentary for an alumni of the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation..“Western Canada has, since the dawn of confederation, has had the short end of the stick. There’s no question that Western Canada has and continues to be screwed. No question about that,” he said..The ignorance was illustrated for Savoie by a recent debate in the House of Commons..“David McGuinty, a Member of Parliament for Ottawa, got up in the House of Commons and accused Alberta MPs of being too regional in their perspective because they want to talk about the energy sector. Now, let me tell you what the energy sector means for Newfoundland, for Nova Scotia, for Saskatchewan, for Alberta, British Columbia, and certainly for New Brunswick. But [he said] that’s regional. And then he talked about a national issue, the auto sector. The auto sector is only present in Ontario, but that’s national [in his mind],” he said..Savoie believes the unwillingness for Wilfrid Laurier to create the province of Buffalo as a western Canadian rival to Ontario shows that this country has long favoured central Canada..“We are the only Federation in the world that doesn’t have an upper house to speak on behalf of the regions….And yet, we have the second largest country in the world…Australia has the Westminster model, and they have an upper house to speak on behalf of the regions,” Savoie pointed out..“No other federation in the world would put up with that… this country being designed for Ontario and Quebec by Ontario and Quebec, with the public service centered in Ottawa… I could go through a whole litany that Western Canada frankly has been taken advantage of.”.Harding is a Western Standard correspondent based in Saskatchewan