Canada So What's the Problem, Eh?

By JAMES L. GRAFF

Canada's long-running confederation soap opera headed for a cliff-hanger finale last week. In the hardscrabble Atlantic province of Newfoundland, 52 provincial legislators hurriedly canvassed their constituents on whether to accept a constitutional agreement hashed out by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the country's ten provincial premiers a week earlier. In the prairie province of Manitoba, Elijah Harper, a Cree Indian and member of the legislative assembly, repeatedly blocked debate on the same ratification issue. The clock was ticking: if either legislature fails to approve the agreement by June 23, a delicate compromise over Quebec's place in Canada could shatter, leading, in the direst of scenarios, to the country's breakup.

The drawn-out tussle has left Canadians rancorous and fatigued and much of the world puzzled. At issue is the eternal Canadian problem of a balance between the special role of Quebec, the only province with an overwhelming French-speaking majority in an officially bilingual country of 26.5 million, and regions that object to having other-than-equal status in the confederation.

Since 1982, Canada has been governed by a constitution that was never endorsed by Quebec, home to one-quarter of the country's population. Quebec felt that, among other things, the document did not adequately protect its distinct French linguistic and cultural heritage, which is threatened by immigration and a provincial birthrate that is below replacement level. In a bid to resolve the impasse, Mulroney assembled the ten provincial premiers in April 1987 at a retreat at Meech Lake, Quebec. The group cobbled together constitutional amendments that met Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa's five "minimal" demands for more provincial power. Chief among the concessions was an affirmation of Quebec's right to preserve and promote its status as a "distinct society."

Ever since, the Meech Lake agreement has been a catchall for discord, pitting English speakers against French, and Canada's eastern and western regions against the central provinces of Ontario and Quebec. In 1988 passions flared after Bourassa overrode a Canadian Supreme Court ruling by passing a law that banned English on outdoor commercial signs in Quebec. English speakers across the country expressed outrage, and some later engaged in highly publicized Quebec-flag stomping. About 60 municipalities have since passed symbolic ordinances declaring English their sole official tongue. Said - Mayor Joe Fratesi of Sault Sainte Marie, in explanation of his city's English- only law: "I'm against the idea of force-feeding all of Canada on two languages."

Other groups -- most notably Canada's 700,000 aboriginal and metis people -- insisted that they were equally deserving of special status. Said Ethel Blondin, a legislator from the Western Arctic and a Dene Indian: "There are 53 aboriginal languages and cultures we feel are equal to Quebec's -- no greater and no less."

As the June 23 deadline loomed, three provincial governments balked at ratification. Mulroney waited until the final weeks before the deadline to call the ten provincial premiers to Ottawa for a weeklong marathon of closed- door constitutional bargaining to win the dissidents over. The political leaders emerged with the original Meech Lake agreement unchanged. What broke the standoff was an agreement to seek reform -- or at least reapportionment -- for Canada's appointed Senate, which underrepresents the west. The ministers further committed themselves to discuss aboriginal self-government, minority-language rights and guarantees of sexual equality.

"It's a great gain for Quebec," said Bourassa after the negotiations, "and a great gain for Canada." Not to mention a political necessity for Bourassa. The constitutional imbroglio revived the cause of Quebec separatism, which the Meech Lake accord had been intended to defuse. With nationalist sentiment growing, the premier could not show the slightest sign of buckling under pressure from his fellow premiers. Waiting for Bourassa to make a slip was Jacques Parizeau, leader of the opposition Parti Quebecois, the party that endorses the concept of Quebec nationhood. "Faced with what we consider wrong and profoundly humiliating," says Parizeau, "it is time for us to have our own country, our own constitution."

Ten years ago, 60% of Quebec residents voted down in a referendum the idea of negotiating independence; today 56% of a polling sample favor more sovereignty for Quebec. That sentiment has gained strength from the rise of a new French-speaking business class that in the past decade has largely replaced Quebec's old English-speaking elite. Says Ghislain Dufour, head of the Conseil du Patronat, the provincial chamber of commerce: "We're much more confident than we were ten years ago."

Even if the Meech Lake agreement wins unanimous approval, many Quebeckers feel that greater provincial control of such areas as communications and taxation is inevitable. Says Pierre Laurin, head of Quebec operations for Merrill Lynch Canada: "People here have realized that Quebec needs a new sort of arrangement."

Any new arrangement, of course, would demand even more wearying constitutional debates. But if Manitoba and Newfoundland (which joined Canada only in 1949) fail to meet the Meech deadline, or reject the agreement, the issue to be debated may be Quebec's separation. Canada, which frets constantly about maintaining a separate identity from the U.S., could then lose the bilingual and bicultural character that is the country's greatest difference from its powerful neighbor.