Xref: utzoo can.francais:156 can.politics:2889 Newsgroups: can.francais,can.politics Path: utzoo!sq!msb From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: article sur Meech paru dans la presse Message-ID: <1989Oct27.111414.3169@sq.sq.com> Summary: Psychiatrists Wanted Reply-To: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto References: <89Oct24.101451edt.3666@neat.cs.toronto.edu> Distribution: can Date: Fri, 27 Oct 89 11:14:14 GMT Ah, what the heck, I'll have a go at translating that article. (Somebody else can do the next one!) No complaints about minor errors, please, but I don't think I will have made any major ones. Philippe Derome, who posted it first, notes that when it appeared in La Presse on October 21, Gary Filmon and Frank McKenna had not yet made their demands. PSYCHIATRISTS WANTED by Lysiane Gagnon Posted by Philippe Derome Translated by Mark Brader There are some days when you ask yourself if the constitutional file shouldn't be taken from the politicians' hands and entrusted to the psychiatrists -- or better, to those pyschotherapists who specialize in marital fights and inferiority complexes! To start at the beginning of the chain, the English-speaking Quebeckers feel rejected by the French speakers. The French-speaking Quebeckers feel rejected by English Canada. The Western people feel rejected by Quebec and Ontario. The Ontarians feel rejected by the Americans. And as for the French minorities, they feel rejected by everybody at once. In short, we're up to our necks in the dynamics of rejection. And to crown this magma of impressions and prejudices we have the "Distinct Society" and Senate reform: symbols which are to the constitutional debate as signs were to the language debate. * * * The super-symbol of the Meech Lake Accord is this recognition of the "distinct" character of Quebec. If anything is vague, that clause is it. No jurist knows what the concrete meaning would be if the Quebec government invoked it. Nor has anyone the least idea of why they would do so, when they could so easily override the federal Charter of Rights with the "notwithstanding" clause (remember, that clause has nothing to do with the Meech Lake Accord). So, then, the distinct character clause may have no concrete effect in Quebec, and still less in the other provinces. But the symbol is there, and the more time passes the more it grows. In Quebec it's seen as a minimal concession, a small sign of welcome, a way to save face. In English Canada, all sorts of things are seen in it, with no foundation in reality -- it's seen as an expression of Quebec's distrust for the provinces not interesting enough to be judged "distinct", as the first step toward the breakup of the country, etc. * * * In the West, and to a lesser degree in the Maritimes, the symbol, the fetish, is Senate reform. And, mechanically, the political class attaches itself to it -- even though, if the fastidious operation were carried to term, it could make Canada next to an ungovernable country. The small provinces are clamoring for a Senate where each province would have the same number of seats. That in itself seems a farfetched propo- sition: what about "majority rule"? Since when should representation not be proportional to population? They invoke, clearly, the American example -- each state has two senators, be it South Dakota or California. But they forget that the American Senate's origins are not in democratic ideology. Somewhat like the English House of Lords, it was conceived as a sort of counterbalance to the popular will: the Senators, who originally were not elected but were appointed notables, and whose mandate has always been for a longer term than members of Congress, had the implicit function of tempering the ardor of elected "Congressmen". The American Senate is now elected, but nobody has been able to affect the "acquired rights" of the small states by eliminating that vestige of monarchial spirit, the equal number of seats. It is quite evident in any case that Mr. Bourassa could not begin to subscribe to any substantial Senate reform, supposing that the recalci- trant provinces made that a condition for the adoption of the Meech Lake Accord. Quebec, with 6 million inhabitants, as well as Ontario, with 8, could not stand to see their Senate representation made equal to that of provinces whose population runs from 1/2 to 3 million. It might be acceptable, strictly speaking, if the Senate become nothing but a patronage plum without real power. But the reformists want to enlarge its powers, not reduce them. You see here the portrait of an over-governed country, where frictions will abound between not two but three levels of government. Three levels of government, not counting municipal councils, for 25 million people! Really! Remember the impasses that were reached in the months before the 1988 election, the blocking of Conservative plans by the Liberal Senate. Senators given an electoral legitimacy will be much more impelled to to obstruct the already terribly slow legislative and administrative process. The Senate would impinge equally on provincial jurisdiction. Who will speak for the province -- the provincial government, its MPs in the Commons, or the Senators elected at provincial level? The Albertan adventure is giving is a foretaste of this scenario: Premier Getty, ardent partisan of this reform, is engaged in proposing, for the vacant seat in Alberta, an elected senator. The happy winner, in the terms of elections where hardly a third of the electorate went to the trouble of going to vote, is a general in the 69-year retreat of the extreme right of an extreme-rightist party (the Reform Party). Having beaten Premier Getty's Conservative candidate, the Albertan "Senator" declares that he represents his province more than the premier does, as he was elected in the entire province and not just in one riding! But evidently, this Senate reform project, which will probably come under serious study one day, crystallizes sentiments. Just as the concept of the "distinct society" is a fetish for those Quebeckers who want an independent Quebec in a united Canada, Senate reform is a fetish of the small provinces that envy the big ones. * * * In short, it's the classic model of domestic conflict. Each partner feels unloved and misunderstood, each one clamors for a a symbolic concession, and they argue around a few key words. But neither one is actually ready, as they know in any case, to sign divorce papers tomorrow morning. Psychiatrists wanted! And if the therapy does not succeed, well, those who find the psycho- drama unlivable can always move to Beirut, Leipzig, or Soweto, where they'll have the chance to be sheltered from these petty constitutional problems! -- Posted by Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto "The problem is that tax lawyers are utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com amazingly creative." -- David Sherman This article is in the public domain.