Quebec's Separation Anxiety

Mack Hall, HSG
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Separation Anxiety

Second only to the matter of the missing Malaysian aircraft and Miley Khardassian’s missing clothing, the world is seriously concerned about what small province should be attached to what country.

We refer, of course, to Quebec, whose elected provincial government on occasion reminds one of the 18-year-old cheerleader who sued her parents for not understanding her preciousness enough to give her lots and lots of money.

Once upon a time France was the gros chien of European colonizers in North America east of the Rio Grande. The English, Dutch, and Spanish possessions were relatively small beachheads surrounded by the huge territories that were Nouvelle-France.

Three hundred years later all that is left of France in North America is St. Pierre et Miquelon (http://www.st-pierre-et-miquelon.com/en/), a few small islands off the coast of Newfoundland. As an aside, while all history is fascinating, the brilliant 1941 Christmas eve raid by the Free French on what Secretary of State Cordell Hull dismissed as “two rocks” is a wonderful story (http://www.amazon.com/Free-French-Invasion-Miquelon-Affaire/dp/096842290X).

With the defeat of the French at Quebec in 1759, and then nasty little Napoleon’s sale of the rest of Nouvelle-France, about one-third of the present USA, in 1803, France was pretty much through in North America. But was all that land Napoleon’s to sell? Besides the reality that Napoleon was a usurper and a tyrant with no legal claim to anything, Spain too said all that territory was theirs.

None of them asked the First Nations who owned it, of course.

Which leads the reader back to Quebec, Canada’s largest province, though it is smaller than Nunavit, which is a territory and not a province, and Canada is confusing.

A look at the map reminds the reader that Quebec, all by itself, is a great big ol’ chunk (grand vieux marceau) of Canada. In the 1960s and 1970s a Francophone separatist movement, through murder and intimidation, generated a civil war in the province which was resolved through mass arrests, tanks in the streets of Montreal, and curious and confusing compromises with the federal government and internally.

Quebec has since voted on independence from the rest of Canada several times, so far choosing to remain, but once again the Parti Quebecois is pushing the matter.

No one seems to have asked the other Canadian provinces and territories if they wish Quebec to go away. Quebec suffers the highest taxes and the greatest debt (http://www.vigile.net/Quebec-debt-highest-in-Canada-and) of any state or province in North America. Only a few provinces are net providers of revenue to Canada as a whole, which means they must pay higher taxes to support the net takers. A visitor to Canada notes that the prices of goods there are quite reasonable until the tax is added – and there is the economic chienne-gifle.

What does all this have to do with the USA? A great deal. Canada is this nation’s biggest trading partner (http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/top/top1401yr.html). Not only that, Canada is the USA’s best friend; given the politics of our time, Canada may be our only friend. The border between Canada and the USA is artificial; the North American economy transcends that mapped but otherwise unreal line across the continent, and we really are one economy.

Instability and lack of leadership in the USA (the Keystone pipeline comes to mind) affect everyone from Nunavit to Mexico City. Similarly, instability and lack of leadership in Quebec affect everyone from Mexico City to Nunavit.

The Crimean peninsula is relatively important to us -- it is certainly important to the Crimeans – but the decisions the people of Quebec make in the next year or so are of immediate urgency to them and to us.

One wonders if a lonely little USA destroyer will appear in a “training exercise” among someone’s fishing nets along the St. Lawrence.

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