My wife gave me a couple of books on politics for Christmas (man I love her! I drive her crazy with all my talk on politics and she gives me more fuel…how did I get so lucky) one of which is Turning Points: The campaigns that changed Canada, 2004 and before by Ray Argyle.
I am currently reading the last chapter entitled “The Quebec Referendum of October 30, 1995” when this leapt off the page (p. 450 for those playing along at home):
…The date was Sunday, November 1, 1987. With Levesque gone the PQ led by a man who was about to renounce separatism and a new Liberal government in office, the prospect of Quebec independence seemed more distant than it had for twenty years. In all of Canada, there was one man who – intentionally or otherwise – could fan the flames of flickering resentment against the new constitution and the iniquitous treatment Quebec was said to have received [from Trudeau patriation of the Constitution]. He was the Member of Parliament for Manicouagan, Quebec, and he resided at 24 Sussex Street in Ottawa. His name was Brian Mulroney.
(pg 452)…Once in office, Mulroney condemned the condemned the constitution as “not worth the paper it was written on.” Later he would deliver a series of ultimatums to English Canada warning that Quebec would become a distinct society either under the terms that hew was offering, or it would leave and become one “outside Canada.” Support for sovereignty in Quebec, negligible at the time he took office, rose to almost two-thirds of the population by the end of the twin disasters of Mulroney statecraft – the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords. Mulroney, who could never be accused of being a supporter of separatism himself, had legitimatized separatist complaints against English Canada and had raided expectations in Quebec that could not be fulfilled. It was the Prime Minister’s policies, more than the strength of sovereignist advocacy, which led to the inevitable anti-federalist backlash that brought Canada to the brink of disruption in 1995.
On the date referenced above I was 14 and not exactly aware of my political surroundings. Can anyone who had his or her head on straight at this time comment on the accuracy of the above statements?
