The impotent Sovereign: [None]

By Eric Labbe

In Quebec, everybody is familiar, at least ostensibly, with the notion of sovereignty. In fact, the notion has been so widely used by independentists that it doesn't seem to bear any semantic ambiguity, as if its meaning, as well as its conceptual implications, had become a no-brainer. By becoming a sovereign state, Quebec will at last, have they been harping on for the last fifty years, be able to take charge of its own destiny. But by focusing constantly on what they expect from the thing to yield, i.e., total legislative, judicial and executive power, they have neglected talking about the thing itself, where it comes from, where it goes, and how it works. Yet, there is already an effective sovereignty in place in Quebec, and it is very possible that, despite their subversive work, they have not been able to make it less immanent there than in the rest of Canada.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Jun 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071534540

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The impotent Sovereign

Or, a Discussion of the Downfall of the Quebec sovereignty movement

By: Eric Labbé

It is now a long time since I have been working on the concept of sovereignty. Having accumulated years of research on the subject, I felt ready to publish an academic book, as is normally done by doctoral students as part of their graduate studies. But after my meeting with Roland, one of the three main characters of this book, it seemed appropriate to me to publish a work intended for a broader readership. It was after this meeting, in fact, that I realized that, in a country where the concept of sovereignty is used by the political class almost every day but without ever being explained in detail, it was justifiable for intellectuals to leave their academic ivory towers briefly in order to help their compatriots to understand what it's all about. It seemed to me that it would be possible, as long as I used standard vocabulary and common concepts, to arouse a more conceptual interest in the issue without boring the reader with very complicated philosophical systems. I would undoubtedly manage to show him that, despite the confidence of the secessionists in their plan for sovereignty, many questions nevertheless still remain, to the point that it is not even certain that it could be viable, in view of the ever diminishing probability of its achievement.

Certainly, a scholarly work would contribute more to the development of knowledge than a work intended for the layman but, since this is an issue that regularly resurfaces in the public square in Quebec, it seemed to me to be equally important, and even more important, to concentrate my efforts on the usual understandings of sovereignty, that is to say, those that Quebec politicians have been using to sway the electorate for more than fifty years now, and to contribute to criticism of these, rather than to try to identify, with the help of great thinkers, the most representative definition of the realities of sovereignty. When politicians mix sovereignty and partisanship in the most casual way and say that they are ready to split Canada for the benefit of a new state, then the citizen is entitled to demand that they do their intellectual duty, that is to say, that they take the time to analyze the question in all its aspects, including aspects that are likely to introduce even more serious problems than those they are intended to solve. That is why I would be more satisfied if I could contribute, if only in a very modest way, to the development of such a criticism than if I could manage to attract the attention of two or three academics by drawing up a scholarly thesis. Moreover, nothing prevents me from gently introducing my reader to my doctoral research without my having to bombard him with recondite concepts drawn from works he has never heard of. It seems to me, in fact, to be possible to present a number of concepts inspired by philosophy in the background while focusing the reader's attention on a foreground that is both concrete and accessible to common sense.

The day after my meeting with Roland, I realized, after having written the discussion of the previous day down on paper, that this critical work intended for the general public wrote itself, so to speak, as the conversation moved forward. It was indeed in a clear and familiar language, one that is not always politically correct, that we enunciated, for several hours, the particular case of the sovereignty of Quebec as proposed by secessionist politicians, and particularly those of the Parti Québécois (PQ). We took turns developing a series of hypotheses on the current setbacks of the sovereignty option. Despite our differences, we agreed on one fundamental point: that the conceptualization of the principle of sovereignty is far too meager for the project to move forward.

Secessionist politicians are, of course, very familiar with the attributes of sovereignty. By seizing the entirety of legislative and judicial powers, not to mention the power to sign treaties with other countries, they intend to govern Quebec without any external interference – that is to say, without a higher authority such as the Supreme Court of Canada to restrain them. However, it seems obvious to us that the knowledge of the thing must not be limited to knowing what it does. There is indeed a difference between knowing what a thing does and knowing what the thing is. But, do the secessionist leaders really know what they are dealing with when they lay claim to sovereignty?

It is true that these questions may seem, at first glance, to be of merely academic interest. Because the politician does not need to know what sovereignty is in order to make use of it. Oddly enough, he doesn't even need to know where it is so that he can get hold of it. He knows that the current laws would force the Canadian government to negotiate the secession of Quebec in good faith in the event of a Yes vote in the next referendum([1]). Following these negotiations, the Quebec government would then be entitled to exercise all the powers currently exercised over Quebec by the Canadian government. In this context, one can hardly blame him, if he has developed an opinion on the subject, that he conceives of sovereignty as a product of sovereignty itself, as if the Canadian sovereign would agree to cut off its own limb for the benefit of the creation of a Quebec sovereign.

However, it is obvious that sovereignty is not to be reduced to a question of legality. In fact, the federal laws specify that the process of secession cannot be started without the prior consent of the people. Certainly, not everyone is entitled to call himself a people, the term used here referring to the inhabitants of a territory defined a long time ago by Canadian and British jurists, including the Fathers of the Confederation. But despite the legal nature of this definition, the people still retain the power to block or to approve the transfer of sovereignty, as if the Canadian sovereign became, in this case, dependent on its own subjects.  It would appear however that the secessionists, who have nevertheless relentlessly relied on societal factors to justify their ambitions, have not realized the impact that such a popular component would have on their own project of secession.

For the leaders of the PQ, there is no question of conceding, within an independent Quebec, the right for smaller communities to secede in their own turn. Notwithstanding the desires of the First Nations to establish their own state or to bind themselves to Canada, the integrity of Quebec's territory would appear to be non-negotiable. Now, this stubbornness can do hardly anything other than turn matters against themselves. On the one hand, they seem to have forgotten that human groups are occasionally able to upset the established order, as evidenced by the innumerable revolts and revolutions that have marked human history. This phenomenon is so frequent that it should be asked whether sovereignty ultimately resides in the people rather than in parliaments or in Royal Houses. It is true that sovereigns, despite the law and despite the sword, have not always had the means to suppress revolts, not to mention that they have not always wanted, as shown by the hesitation of Louis XVI at the beginning of the French Revolution, to shed the blood of their own subjects. However, it would not be so much the revolt within a sovereign Quebec that would overcome the stubbornness of the government, but a design flaw within the sovereign itself.

In his book Option Québec, René Lévesque, the founder of the Parti Québécois, states that the personality of Quebec has been different from that of the rest of North America for three and a half centuries. Central to this distinction is a fundamental element, the French language, to which everything else is apparently hooked([2]). Now, the least we can say is that this romantic vision just doesn't correspond to reality. First, hundreds of thousands of residents of Quebec have different origins, share only a very recent history, and barely have a language in common, which is most often English rather than French. Tens of thousands of others come from communities whose ancestors were already living in Quebec in ancient times, have lived a different story than that of French speakers, and speak French, for the most part, only as a second language. Hundreds of thousands of others are descended from American, Irish, English and Scottish immigrants who mainly settled in the Townships and West Island, also have a history different from that of French speakers, and don’t speak much French, either. However, this doesn't prevent secessionists from wanting to impose a sovereignty on them that they don't want to hear about and to conceal their specificity through an incessant focus on the dominant culture. Thus, they use identity criteria to justify their ambitions in a territory where the cultural reality is much more complex than they allow to be suggested.

Of course, such a reduction of identity can be turned against itself; since French speakers are a minority in Canada, Canadian jurists could do the same thing that the PQ leaders do – that is to say, deprive minorities of the right to secession. That is why the latter play skillfully with two factors of legitimacy – namely, the people, which allows them, in accordance with the principle of self-determination, to tilt Canadian law towards recognition of their cause, and then the right that allows them to immediately invalidate the secessionist demands of their own minority populations. Thus, sovereignty is sometimes dependent on the people and sometimes the people is instead dependent on sovereignty, depending on whether the objective is to convince native Quebeckers, Canadian jurists, or stubborn minority communities.

As long as these gymnastics contribute to the acquisition of sovereignty, these intrinsic contradictions do not seem to trouble the secessionist leaders too greatly. It is true that sovereignty, once acquired, will allow them to make any attempt at secession illegal, whether or not the same is supported by a winning referendum. However, they seem to have forgotten that men still have the natural power to rebel against their sovereign, even when that would lead them to an even worse humiliation from which their revolt was intended to free them. What would the Quebec government do if, on the very day after secession, the residents of West Island were to organize a referendum concerning their attachment to Canada? Would it be enough to bludgeon the organizers and to disperse the demonstrators with tear gas? And what if Canada, or even the United States, were to support the Anglophone unity project?

Effective sovereigns can define the people as they wish, and they may refuse this title to whomever they want, but they can hardly prevent the various communities, whether minority or majority, from claiming this title for themselves and from nurturing the ambition to establish their own state, even when it would plunge the entire country into the horrors of civil war. Is that not what happened, not so very long ago, in a not so distant country called the United States of America?

This is why the cultural and identity cutbacks of the secessionists, and more particularly those of the PQ leaders, are a double-edged sword; having understood that the principle of self-determination is applicable only to the extent that it is the occupation of those who resort to it, the communities have no desire whatever to support a project that would, at the end of the day, deprive them of their current link with Canada and would forbid them, through legalized sophisms, from any possibility of joining the Canadian Federation or gaining independence from Quebec. It is thus surprising that West Islanders voted for the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) all their lives out of fear that the PQ, once in power, would put the secession project back on the agenda.

Too bad for the communities – the secessionists seem to be saying – as long as French speakers wholeheartedly support their project. If the True Blues of Quebec were to stick together, they wouldn't have too much trouble in getting the 65% support they need in order to hope to pass the 50% mark during the next referendum([3]). However, the day this third referendum is held doesn't seem to be about to arrive. In fact, for the last ten years or so, the PQ hasn't been able to talk about sovereignty any longer without being subjected to a crushing defeat at the general elections. There are certainly a large number of reasons for its growing unpopularity, but I would suggest that a lack of conceptual depth does play an absolutely fundamental role in this connection.

The secessionists repeat to anyone who wants to hear it that we must swap this Canadian sovereignty – which does not, after all, seem to work so badly – for a Quebec sovereignty that would, apparently, work so much better. It could be possible, however, that the proposed differences are essentially very minor. Parti Québécois stalwarts admittedly propose the expulsion of the British monarchy in favor of a non-federated republic – which does, it is true, constitute a rather radical constitutional change. However, they offer absolutely nothing new about the links uniting the citizen and his government or, in other words, about the specific provisions of the social contract. In fact, it is not at all expected that the citizen will be able to more actively participate in the exercise of power, as is the case with Switzerland, for example, where the people are not only regularly consulted by Parliament, but where it is authorized to introduce bills itself, as permitted by the constitution. Precisely as in the current system, the citizen would only use his sovereignty to deprive himself through the electoral process. Moreover, the plan for more active participation is so poorly planned that the PQ does not even intend to set up a constituent assembly, with the drafting of a new constitution apparently being reserved for lawyers only.

But, there is still more. Not only would the sovereignty be substantially the same, but it would not be much more effective than it currently is in Canada. I noted above that the secessionists are very well acquainted with the attributes of sovereign power which have, since Jean Bodin,