Some people argue that any move towards a more autonomous or independent Alberta will be economically ruinous. They say defending the province from Canadian centralism will create political instability that scares away businesses and talented people..The example cited as evidence for their point is Quebec, after the election of the Parti Québécois (PQ) in 1976. The PQ is a separatist party with a stated goal of making Quebec independent. In the years immediately following its election, tens of thousands of people left Quebec along with many businesses, resulting in severe economic decline. Supporters of the status quo say that an assertive Alberta will suffer a similar fate..However, when they use the Quebec example, they don’t tell the whole story.. Rene LevesqueRene Levesque, author of Quebec's language law, Bill 101, which restricted the use of English in the province. .One article along these lines by Prof. Duane Bratt of Mount Royal University — arguing that Alberta is about to suffer economically due to the Alberta Sovereignty Act — recently appeared in The Globe and Mail. As he puts it, “Unfortunately for Quebec, threatening separatism and adopting autonomy policies meant that the province suffered population decline and capital flight.”.He correctly explains that, “In 1970, Montreal was Canada’s most populous city and Quebec had 28 per cent of Canada’s population. By 1980, Toronto had surpassed Montreal in size and Quebec’s share of Canada’s population had dropped to 26.5 per cent.”.The key “autonomy measure” identified by Prof. Bratt was Bill 101, the so-called Charter of the French Language. This piece of legislation is the key to understanding Quebec’s business and population loss. Passed in 1977, Bill 101 imposed severe restrictions on the use of languages other than French in various spheres of Quebec life, including education and business. Suppressing English, of course, was the main goal..The PQ government’s message to English-speaking people in Quebec was loud and clear: We don’t want your stinking language in our province. So they left in large numbers, along with their money and their businesses. As Nathan Jiang writes in The Metric, “After the passage of Bill 101, Quebec suffered a drastic economic downturn..The labor force shrank, as anglophones and allophones (those who speak neither English nor French) departed for other provinces. Jobs also left Quebec, as several companies moved their major operations from Quebec to neighboring Ontario, especially to Toronto. This movement helped Toronto surpass Montreal as the economic hub of Canada.”.The Canadian Encyclopedia also emphasizes how Quebec's language law helped boost Toronto. Bill 101, it says, “prodded as many as 150,000 well off, educated, fully-employed English-speaking Montrealers to choose the 401 over 101 — and to remove themselves, their jobs, their savings and their children from the province rather than face the prospect of having to learn to speak French.”.In other words, the key factor in Quebec’s decline was government-imposed language restrictions. Many people did not want to be forced to live their lives in French. Instead, they wanted to be free to use English or some other language. Therefore, to compare Bill 101 to the Alberta Sovereignty Act is utterly baseless. No one in Alberta will be forced to use a particular language or to live a certain way to uphold Alberta’s culture..This means that the main driver of Quebec’s economic decline has no parallels in Alberta, and an exodus from Alberta is not on the horizon..Alberta is much friendlier to business than Quebec was in the late 1970s. Furthermore, Alberta has one of the world’s largest oil deposits, and the world needs oil. Oil companies won’t be moving out any time soon..Using scare tactics and fear is common in politics. To compare the Alberta Sovereignty Act or proposals for an independent Alberta to Quebec’s Bill 101 is an attempt to create fear and anxiety. The goal is to prevent Albertans from supporting efforts to resist the harmful policies of Justin Trudeau’s federal government. Don’t be fooled by such tactics — Alberta must fight back.
