The Ottawa Way: Guilty by Gender in Canada's Capital

By Димитрий Анжелис

Demetrios (Jim) Angelis does not make for a typical criminal: a religious Greek Orthodox Christian born in Montreal, a law-abiding man, a doting father of two with two master's degrees in administration, who speaks four languages, and who lived in New York City and Montreal before moving to Ottawa to study in local universities and work for the federal government. A jury convicted him in 2010 of murdering his unfaithful wife in 2008, and obliged the judge to sentence him to life in prison at the notorious (but now-closed) Kingston Penitentiary, home to Canada's worst criminals. The jurors were convinced that he intentionally suffocated Lien Le in front of their kids while they sat on the living room couch watching TV. The social and news media mocked, shamed, and condemned the former nurse (who was nearly castrated by his wife Lien) even before the jury returned with their guilty verdict. But was it really murder, or was it something else?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Aug 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9780228838395

Book preview

The Ottawa Way

Guilty by Gender in Canada’s Capital

Demetrios (Jim) Angelis

The Ottawa Way

Copyright © 2021 by Demetrios (Jim) Angelis

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-3838-8 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-3837-1 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-3839-5 (eBook)

978-0-2288-6041-9 (Audiobook)

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my precious children, Nicki and Theo, who have endured twelve years of needless pain and suffering because of the actions and inactions of others who have put their own selfish beliefs, needs, and interests, ahead of those of the children. I also dedicate this book to my beloved mother and father, Nicole and Theodore, and to my dearest friend Rina and her mother, Sofia, for all of their unwavering love, support and encouragement during the good years and more importantly, the bad. Thank you all for your kindness, generosity, patience, and commitment to me. God bless you all!

Biography

I was born in Montreal in 1969 at the onset of Québec’s Quiet Revolution—a revolution against the Christian Church (and its traditional family and socio-political customs), and the Canadian government in Ottawa; a revolution that resulted in the viral spread of secularism, socialism, liberalism and feminism not only throughout Québec, but into the very Canadian government the French in Québec resisted, through the enactment of its own federal laws and policies (which in turned altered people’s mindset in Ottawa, in urban Ontario, and to some degree across Canada).

My younger brother Peter and I are the sons of recent immigrants. Our mother Nicole was relatively young when she arrived in Québec City; she almost fully embraced Québec’s new ways (I say almost because she refused to abandon her Christian faith and religious practices). Nevertheless, her embrace of Québec’s socialism, liberalism and feminism, combined with the hedonism of the 1960s and the seeds of matriarchy planted in her mind by her maternal grandmother, contrasted sharply with my father’s traditional Greek ways of the 20th century.

My father, Theodore, who at first was seduced by it all, ultimately rejected the revolution and its new ways, and returned to the conservative ways of his native homeland, Amarinthos, a fishing village located northeast of Athens.

Feeling excluded from the rise in xenophobia by the French in Québec, he took us to New York City in 1976 for a better life, a life that eluded him in this new Québec. Despite economic success in the US, my mother was unhappy with the lack of unconditional socio-political support for women there and brought us back to Montreal in 1985.

It was a bad decision, a mistake that had cumulative consequences for my two children, their mother and me, consequences that followed us from Québec into Ottawa, consequences that affected three generations of the Angelis family. To put it bluntly, the great university education and publicly-funded health care that my parents, my wife and I received in Canada came at a huge cost: the loss of our legal rights (and consequently our ability to live together in one house as a traditional family) at the expense of the socio-political rights of women (like Lien Le, the mother of my children), and their unconditional support by both the news and social media, as well as the police officers, the social workers, the judges, the prosecutors and many defense attorneys in Ottawa. Like one of my Hollywood actor friends told me a decade after my family’s tragic ordeal began in 2008, "It wasn’t worth it! What good is affordable university education and free health care if your legal rights to ensure your safety and that of your children at home are ignored?" Indeed! Rather than admit any wrongdoing, the people who live and/or work in Ottawa, Canada, found ways to blame me for what happened on June 8, 2008! Am I truly the guilty one? Read my family’s tragic story and decide for yourself. You be the judge!

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 - Ottawa: A Historic Glance

Chapter 2 - The Angelis Family: Genealogy and Chronicles

Chapter 3 - The Le Family: Disclosures and Revelations

Chapter 4 - The Demolition and Destruction of the Angelis Family: A 2¹st Century Greek Tragedy

Chapter 5 - Trials and Tribulations: The Odyssey for Justice Continues

Chapter 6 - Restorations and Renewals: Resurrecting from the Ashes

Epilogue

References

Prologue

Welcome! You are about to embark on a journey through the turbulent seas of my life. Like Homer’s ancient classic tale, my story is a real, contemporary Greek tragedy about a man tested by a higher power as he is put in situation after situation for many years (including a trip to the underworld), fighting various forces that prevent him from returning home to be reunited with his beloved family. My odyssey, like that of Odysseus, involved trials and tribulations that have directly affected three generations of my family. Of course, my story also resembles that of Job (from religious scriptures), an honorable family man who at first is blessed with employment and children but is eventually tormented when horrific disasters take away his children, property and health. Like Job, I struggled to understand the reasoning behind my losses as I wallowed in misery for seven years, looking for a way to end it, fighting to restore my life to the way it was before. Suffering! My story is not unlike that of Jesus Christ, who was arrested and taken to court to be judged and tried for a crime that He is not guilty of, yet was brought before civilians who in turn condemned Him and demanded that He be sentenced to death through crucifixion. After His death, Jesus’s soul descends into the realm of the dead but ultimately returns to the land of living, although not before all who loved, followed and stood by Him, helplessly watched and agonized with Him while he was being crucified. My family lived the last decade of their life deeply wounded and affected by the injustices that befell us. This is one of the reasons why this book had to be written. Revelation!

I had written this book in a rather unconventional manner. During the conceptual beginnings and early draft writings of this book, I had gone from using English to French to Greek and back again, to capture with precision the thoughts, ideas, points, meanings and even words that I wanted to use and put onto the computer screen. I found that the reader would lose out if I relied exclusively on the English language as it would gloss over the details and specifics that I wanted to convey. Both the French and Greek languages are richer and more expressive than the English one; at times I had to conceptualize and write my messages in either French or Greek before settling on the final English version. This approach, while daunting, was worthwhile in the end as it made it easier to write the final French and Greek versions. Once the French version was completed, it was easy to proceed with my preliminary translation into Spanish given its connection to French. Latin! When the Spanish version was finalized, it was in turn used as the basis for the rough draft translations into Italian and Portuguese. I intend to have this book translated into an additional thirty languages as well (I started with Chinese, then proceeded with Russian, Vietnamese, German, Arabic, Hebrew, Punjabi, and so on and so forth). I want this book to be available to as many readers as possible, especially my son and daughter, so that they will know the truth about who they are, where their ancestors came from, what really happened to their mother and father, and why our family was obliterated. Everything was done to keep them from being reunited with their family. They were purposely isolated from their culture, religion, ethnic community and even friends in their hometown of Ottawa. The more languages that this book is written in, the more likelihood that the children will be able to read in the language of their choice the whole truth about what truly happened to us rather than what everyone else wants them to believe.

The purposes of this book are multifaceted: it is to reveal the truth about the tragic injustices that has befallen my family in Ottawa (the capital of Canada) from April 2008 to June 2015; it is to shame the people in Ottawa that have mistreated (and continue to mistreat) those who are different from the overwhelmingly conventional Anglo-Saxon majority and large francophone minority; it is to hopefully inspire (or at least compel) those in Ottawa and in the neighboring regions to let go of their hatred and anger so that they may warm up their hearts (despite the frosty, chilling winter temperatures typically encountered during the months of November through March); it is to inform and educate people on how the prosecutors and the police manipulate the judicial system to obtain their much-coveted conviction with the help of like-minded judges and—when children are involved—social workers; and it is to remind those with direct authority (and those who have access to it), that they have a moral responsibility and legal obligation to assist those who come to them for help regardless of their gender, socio-economic, political, religious or ethnic backgrounds (especially when there are vulnerable individuals involved such as children, the elderly and the handicapped). The Angelis tragedy should never have happened! One should never turn their backs on those in need of help as that is irresponsible, immoral, and inhumane. This book hopefully provides us with an opportunity to learn from past mistakes and to ensure that such mistakes are never repeated. I do not expect the reader to suddenly change their behaviour based on this book alone, but if I can make the reader stop and think before they act next time, then the primary objective of this book will have been fulfilled.

Although my story mostly takes place in Ottawa, the numerous messages inscribed throughout this book are not limited to those who live and/or work there. The concepts of respect, fairness, courtesy, consideration, empathy, thoughtfulness, benevolence, responsibility, and duty, should be espoused by everyone regardless of where they live or work. We are all human beings, worthy of being treated equally and equitably in all aspects of our lives. Unnegotiable! Some passages of this book will be comical and filled with sarcasm and tongue in cheek humor; others will be political, philosophical, and even spiritual. Moreover, readers may find some words crude, insulting, and even provocative. Although I was educated and employed in Ottawa, I was never a fan of the superficiality, deceitfulness, and deceptiveness of the political correctness that infects Canada’s capital. Viral! Beneath the courteous exterior of its residents lies an ugliness and passive-aggressive hostility in Ottawa that needs to be exposed. The impersonal, hollow prim and proper conduct, along with the insincerity that runs amok in Ottawa, conflict with my Mediterranean heritage and my American metropolitan upbringing. I will no longer bite my tongue, nor will I continue to mince or sugar-coat my words. Ruthless! As the reader will soon discover (if they are not already aware), prison is different from the outside world; the language and behaviours exhibited in prison are at complete odds with conventional society. Prisons are brutally honest places. There is simply no time for politeness, propriety, and elegance. A part of me found this contrast between Ottawa and prison to be quite shocking, while another part of me found it to be refreshing. Prison inmates are direct, candid, and yes, even more honest than the people who live or work in Ottawa. Alarming! Prison inmates generally say what they mean and mean what they say. One is hard-pressed to find someone in Ottawa who does the same.

I originally wanted to title this book Capital Authority as suggested by my Somalian friend, Fugee (short for Refugee), to reflect the autocratic mindset of the politicians, police, prosecutors, judges, juries and social workers in Ottawa. I ultimately settled with The Ottawa Way: Guilty by Gender in Canada’s Capital, as this title better explains and addresses a significant contributor of the underlying issues that directly plague the city, but also the people, places and policies that are indirectly affected by Ottawa (even though they are located beyond the city’s borders). Pandemic! Ottawa is what it is today because of its history, geography, and political role both within Canada (geographically the largest nation in the world at 455,800 square kilometres or 176,000 square miles) and internationally. Chapter 1 attempts to explain the factors that have shaped Ottawa’s current existence. I am by no means a historian, nor do I claim to be an expert in Canada’s history. Still, I do have a basic threefold understanding of Canada’s history, partly because of my studies in high school (which provided me with a French-Québec perspective), partly because of my undergraduate university studies (which gave me an aboriginal one), and partly because I am an ethnic minority living in a predominantly Caucasian English-French country. I have refreshed my memory of Canadian history by reviewing various sources, and have combined everything that I have learned from my undergraduate studies in the physical sciences, psychology, and sociology, merging them with everything that I have learned from my two graduate degrees in administration. My seven-year experience as a federal public servant as well as my personal experiences as a twenty-year resident of Ottawa have been used throughout the book to provide my interpretation and understanding of the city.

I reiterate that the historical events in Chapter 1 are far from being comprehensive: the chapter will not delve in the pre-colonization of Canada when various tribal Aboriginal nations lived here thousands of years before the Europeans arrived; it will not go into the first expeditions to Canada by the Scandinavians in the years 985 and 986; it will skip over the early territorial claims made by the Portuguese in 1497 and 1498, as well as those made by the French from 1524 to 1609. Chapter 1 begins in the year 1610 when the Ottawa area was first discovered by the French and ends with 2015. For those of you who are seeking a thorough breakdown of Canada’s history, I encourage you to either take classes in an academic setting, and/or conduct your own self-studies; vast, endless sources exist in libraries, bookstores and on the Internet. For those of you who do not have a keen interest in history (or simply loathe it altogether), I give you permission to skip Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, the book becomes more personal as it reveals when and why my parents came to Canada, and our attempts to assimilate (albeit unsuccessfully through no fault of our own) into this new society; a review of Greek history, my family’s cultural heritage, is presented to provide some context. Chapter 3 similarly discloses the origins of my children’s mother and how her upbringing and experiences before we married have ultimately impacted our lives as husband and wife with two children. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on the consecutive tragedies and injustices that have plagued me, my parents, my children and loved ones over the course of seven years (even beyond). Chapter 6 provides some degree of justice with a shimmer of hope in the aftermath of those seven horrible years, but not without huge losses that still affect me and my family. Finally, the epilogue not only closes my story, but also leaves the reader with a profound yet straightforward message that some may find offensive, while others may agree with empathy and/or applaud with enthusiasm. Whatever the case may be, I thank you in advance for reading this book. May God continue to bless you and your loved ones. Take care!

Chapter 1

Ottawa: A Historic Glance

Part 1:

Ottawa: the capital of Canada (although it was not always the case). When the Queen of England formally created the British colony of the Province of Canada in 1840 (in response to the Rebellions of 1837-38), she chose the port city of Kingston, located over 146 kilometres (around 91 miles) south of Ottawa, to be the capital.¹ In 1844, she changed her mind and relocated the capital to Montreal, which many at first deemed to be a wise move as Kingston was too close to the United States border and was prone to attack. Montreal, located over 167 kilometres (about 104 miles) east of Ottawa, did not stay as pre-confederation Canada’s capital for long. In 1849, the Queen relocated the capital again after protesting rioters got drunk and began burning down the city. Typical! Fast forward 170 years later, and you will still find Montreal residents getting drunk and rioting because their hockey team either lost (or even won) an important game! People in Montreal will find any excuse to consume alcohol or illicit narcotics, riot, and set fires to cause mayhem and destruction. Drunkards! Vandals! Pyromaniacs! Clearly, the Queen was justified in relocating the capital to another city. In 1849, she chose Toronto, which is located about 353 kilometres (or 219 miles) southwest of Ottawa, to be Canada’s new capital; but alas, this was yet again short-lived. In 1852, the Queen moved the capital to Québec City, about 377 kilometres (235 miles) northeast of Ottawa, but only until 1856 when she decided to move it back again to Toronto. Indecisiveness! In 1859, she moved the capital back to Québec City before she finally made up her mind and settled on making Ottawa the permanent capital in 1866, one year before confederation. The Queen chose Ottawa to be Canada’s capital because it was safe from foreign invasion and because it was centrally located between the provinces of Ontario and Québec. It should be noted that she did keep the capital and its parliamentary buildings on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River, rather than on the Québec side of the river. Placing Parliament on the Québec side was probably deemed too risky given her previous experience when Montreal was the capital. One can only imagine what would have happened if the Queen had placed Parliament across the river in Québec: Fire! Someone call the fire department!

From a geographical perspective, nothing fully defines Ottawa more than the Ottawa River. This main, natural waterway firmly establishes the border between Canada’s two largest provinces of Ontario (then referred to as Upper Canada) and Québec (then known as Lower Canada). In 1613, French explorers Samuel de Champlain and Etienne Brulé (who had come across the future site of Ottawa just a few years earlier) had, with the help of the native Aboriginal guides from the Algonquin tribe, been the first Europeans to travel the Ottawa River west until the Great Lakes.² Earlier travels to the Ottawa River from the westward, adjacent St. Lawrence River by French explorer Jacques Cartier—from 1534 to 1542—failed due to dangerous and impassable rapids. The Algonquin tribe were not the only Aboriginals to occupy Upper Canada (Ontario), their allies, the Hurons, and their common enemy, the Iroquois, did as well. At that time, the Algonquin tribe and the Huron tribe had declared war against the Iroquois Confederacy over land disputes. Since de Champlain had relied on the Algonquin to explore and travel the Ottawa River, he helped their friends, the Hurons, battle the Iroquois. As a result, the Iroquois and the French became involved in numerous conflicts throughout the 17th century, including the four French-Indian wars, which began in 1689 and ended with the signing of the Great Peace Treaty of Montreal in 1701.³ Despite the signing of this peace agreement, resentment, distrust and subsequent conflicts between all European forces and aboriginal tribes over territorial control continued throughout the 1700s, like the two wars in Acadia and Nova Scotia, located about 957 kilometres (or 594 miles) east of Ottawa. It was a pattern that persisted for hundreds of generations until this day.

Over the course of nearly five hundred years, the aboriginal nations were deceived, betrayed, and even slaughtered without proper burials over land disputes. Sacrilege! The Aboriginals that managed to survive the massacre and near genocide, had their homes, communities, and families destroyed. Aboriginal children were taken away from their parents, their families, their homes and their cultural environments, and placed in orphanages, foster homes and residential boarding schools under the mismanagement and abusive control of the Catholic Church in order to assimilate them into the Caucasian English-French Canadian society.⁴ Aboriginal communities today are still psychologically and socially scarred by the damaging actions of the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church (and the governments that financially supported them). As a result, Canada’s Aboriginal population continues to suffer from poorer health, inadequate education, poverty, and appalling living conditions compared to the rest of Canadians.⁵ Shameful! Even the United Nations has condemned Canada on numerous occasions for its poor treatment of its aboriginal population. To partially compensate for past wrongdoings to Canada’s Aboriginal population, the federal government, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, issued a formal apology in 2008 along with modest financial payments.⁶ In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI also formally apologized for the role of the Catholic Church in Canada’s residential schools.⁷ The Anglican Church apologized for its role in residential schools more than a decade earlier.⁸ Symbolic! It was a good first gesture although more needs to be done to restore the Aboriginal people of Canada to dignified living standards deserved by every Canadian resident. The federal government, which has full legal jurisdiction over Aboriginal matters, needs to start increasing the self-governing rights to allow more autonomous control over their land, their people, and their economy.

Getting back to the late 17th century, Nicholas Gatineau, a clerk working for The Company of One Hundred Associates, a fur trading organization, decided to baptize (and rename the northerly river that connects with the Ottawa River after his family).⁹ Narcissist! About twenty years later, in 1670, British explorer Henry Hudson and founder of the huge commercial conglomerate, The Hudson’s Bay Company, received approval by British royalty to monopolize use of all natural waterways flowing into the Hudson’s Bay for trading.¹⁰ The Hudson’s Bay Company, which still exists today in the form of a national department store, would go on to expand its claim by venturing into the northwestern half of pre-confederation Canada, making it all the way to the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, which led to the creation of the Colony of British Columbia about two hundred years later. A major event happened about a century before the Colony of British Columbia was created, one that went on to redefine the country of Canada: the Seven Year War.

After seven years of fighting between Great Britain and France, the Napoleon War finally ended after disastrous defeats after the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and the Battle of Fort Niagara in Québec City in 1759, and again in the Battle of the Thousand Islands and Battle of Sainte-Foy in Montreal in 1760.¹¹ The signing of the 1763 Treaty of Paris officially relinquished all French territories in mainland North America, including Québec (which was referred to as New France by King Louis XIV of France in 1663), to Britain. That same year, the Royal Proclamation issued by King George III unified the British Empire and finalized trade, settlement and land purchases between the monarchy and the Aboriginal people. In 1791, British Parliament passed another law granting administrative autonomy to the British colony. By this time, more and more British settlers began travelling west of Montreal and into the Ottawa Valley to find work; two linguistic cultures were emerging: English speakers (called ’anglophones’) from modern-day Ontario (who were made up of Protestant Americans who were favourable to republicanism, but who out of loyalty to Britain left the United States for Canada) and the British immigrants who came fresh off the boat, and French speakers (called francophones) who were predominantly Catholics from modern-day Québec and were seeking employment.¹² Although Lower Canada (Québec) was now under British rule, the French residents were allowed to retain their religious, political, legal, social, and cultural practices and beliefs through the Québec Act of 1774.¹³ The idea of allowing the French to keep their language and heritage intact was at first opposed by the British monarchy, but eventually conceded—albeit with deep reservations—after much convincing from Governor Guy Carleton. The British monarchy had predicted that maintaining the French culture in the colony would lead to frequent problems in the future. Proclamation! Moreover, the 1774 Québec Act angered settlers south of the border because of the provision in the Act that granted aboriginal land to Québec (land that the Americans felt was rightfully theirs) and contributed to the eruption of the American Revolution with Britain in 1775.

Although Ottawa’s natural waterways were important for commerce in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, it was only in 1800 when Europeans took interest in the area to settle. Prior to 1800, Europeans targeted Montreal, Toronto, and Québec City as places to live, work and raise families. In 1800, Philemon Wright emigrated from the Boston area in Massachusetts with members of his family, five other families, and twenty-five labourers, to create a farming community north of the Ottawa River.¹⁴ In addition to farming, the timber industry launched in Ottawa due to high demand from the British navy which was engaged in the Napoleonic Wars. It was only after the War of 1812 that work became available in Ottawa. Irish immigrants escaping the famine back in their homeland and skilled French migrant workers from Lower Canada (Québec) came in droves for construction work.¹⁵ They worked long, hard hours together, with many risking their lives constructing the north-south Rideau Canal which links to the Ottawa River to its north, and links to the St. Lawrence River to its east, and Lake Ontario to its south. As was the case throughout Lower Canada (Québec), many Irish and French intermarried, bounded together not only by common working environments, but also by mutual Catholicism and a shared passion of drinking excessive alcohol. Cheers!

The primary purpose of the Rideau Canal was not for commerce and trade, but for military defence given the huge distrust of the United States after their attempted invasion of pre-confederation Canada in the War of 1812.¹⁶ Historians cannot seem to agree on why the Americans wanted to invade Upper Canada (Ontario). Some claim that it was to retaliate against the Aboriginal tribes north of the American border for interfering with the Americans’ goal of expanding into the west.¹⁷ Others claim that the Americans simply wanted to take control over Canada. Regardless of the reason, the battles along the Canada-United States border were simply a series of multiple failed invasions that ultimately resulted in a stalemate in 1815. Pointless! The only thing that the War of 1812 demonstrated, was that Canada could stand up and hold its own against the United States, a country that at 9,826,675 kilometres squared (or 3,794,100 miles squared), is the third largest globally, with ten times Canada’s population.

When work on the Rideau Canal began in 1826, the community that settled there was given the name Bytown, after Colonel John By, the British engineer who oversaw the canal’s construction.¹⁸ In 1855, Bytown became incorporated and was officially renamed Ottawa to coincide with the name of its northerly river. While the Rideau Canal was reserved for strategic military defence against the United States, there was still a strong need in conducting business with them; cross-border trade was primarily done by rail.

In addition to the import and export trading industries, construction jobs continued in Ottawa, which saw its population increase to 18,000.¹⁹ The construction of the Parliament buildings began in 1860 and was finally completed in 1866, just in time for the 1867 British North America Act that merged three British colonies through confederation and formed the Dominion of Canada.²⁰ The Dominion initially consisted of four provinces: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Upper Canada and Lower Canada, the last two of which were respectively renamed Ontario and Québec. Originally, Ontario and Québec were not meant to be part of the Dominion of Canada. They were not invited to the first Confederation conference in 1864 at Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island, or the second conference in Québec City, but they came anyway and crashed the party. Many believe that it was their uninvited presence and domination of the conferences that made the colonies of Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island ultimately reject the plan to join the Dominion. The term dominion was used to show that Canada was now a self-governing colony of the British Empire; the term was inspired by New Brunswick lieutenant governor Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley during one of his daily Bible readings from Psalm 72:8: His dominion shall be also from sea to sea. It was the first time that a British colony had used the term dominion.²¹ The Dominion of Canada was created for various purposes: Britain was no longer interested in defending its colonies in North America and wanted them to defend themselves, particularly against the Americans (who wanted to expand northward into Canada); there was a large need to develop economic infrastructures such as an east-west railway system for trade; there was a desire to secure and expand a good government that would be in charge across Canada.²² The French in Canada saw confederation as an opportunity to gain more political control over Québec; they also wanted to end the legislative deadlock that it had with Ontario. In the century that followed, Canada grew from four provinces to ten provinces and three territories: the Colony of British Columbia joined the Canadian confederation in 1871; Prince Edward Island changed its mind and joined the confederation in 1873; Saskatchewan and Alberta joined in 1905 in response to their growing need for more labourers; Manitoba joined confederation in 1870 after it was carved out from the Northwest Territories to accommodate mounting protests by the native Métis population to have their own province; Newfoundland sullenly joined the Canadian federation in 1949, mostly in response to the financial crisis of the Great Depression; the Northwest Territories joined confederation in 1870 after the land acquired by the Hudson’s Bay Company was transferred back to the British Crown; the Yukon territory was created and extracted from the Northwest Territories as the population exponentially grew because of the gold rush; and the territory of Nunavut was created in 1999 after the native Inuit population, which inhabited the area, successfully convinced the Canadian federal government to grant them their own jurisdiction in 1982.²³

In addition to growing geographically, Canada began transforming itself ideologically, economically, and militarily, both nationally and internationally. It was the role and responsibility of the prime minister with the support from his/her political party to respond to the storm of changes that transpired across the country and around the globe. Some of the better prime ministers were proactive and prepared Canada for what was to come ahead of time—easier said than done. With an area of 9,984,670 square kilometres (or 3,855,100 square miles), Canada had geographically grown to become the second largest country in the world, after the now-dissolved Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), which had an area of 22,402,200 square kilometres (or 8,649,500 square miles).²⁴, ²⁵ From a population perspective, the USSR at dissolution in 1991 had over ten times more people than Canada did: 293 million people in the USSR versus 29 million in Canada.²⁶, ²⁷ Even with a smaller population than the USSR, governing Canada from Ottawa is not easy given the different competing needs and interests between those in power on Parliament Hill and the eight regions across the country, namely the Maritime provinces on the Atlantic coast, Newfoundland and Labrador, Québec, Ontario, the Prairies, Alberta, British Columbia along the Pacific Coast, and the northerly territories along the Arctic Ocean.

Unlike the USSR, which was highly centralized and exclusively governed by the Communist Party, Canada is a democratic federation (at least in theory). Canada has been criticized by many as being a limited democracy, meaning that citizens only have a real say at what goes on in Ottawa at election time—about every four years or so (less when a minority government has been formed in Parliament). Unlike the United States of America—Canada’s southern neighbour and main trading partner—the Canadian Parliamentary system, primarily based on the British Westminster model, does not have a mechanism to ensure checks and balances that prevent abuses of power by the prime minister and his or her supporting political party.²⁸

Except for minority governments that rely on the agreement and cooperation of two or more political parties to pass laws, there is practically nothing that can stop the political party that has won the most electoral seats (out of a total of 338 seats) from ruling the country as it sees fit.²⁹ Autocracy! It should be noted that prime ministers in Canada are not directly chosen by voters across the country to be prime minister; it is the political party that wins the majority of the electoral seats in Parliament that forms the government, which in turn, chooses a person (who has won their electoral district)—typically the party leader—to be prime minister. Party members usually elect party leaders during their political conventions held between federal elections, while Canadian voters themselves literally have to wait until the next election four years later to voice their approval or objections of the political party in power at the ballot box. At least with a minority government, the prime minister is kept on a short leash by voters and is obligated to kiss the asses of opposition leaders while conceding to their demands. Smooch! History to date has revealed that of the twelve minority governments that Canada has had, on average minority governments lasted eighteen to twenty-four months if the prime minister either cooperated and/or negotiated well with the opposition parties.³⁰ Parliament tended to dissolve sooner than eighteen months when the prime minister was either uncooperative and/or reckless, forcing voters to go to the polls again. Costly! The other primary disadvantage of minority governments is the incredibly slow pace that bills got passed in Ottawa; the constant need for negotiation to pass laws often make Parliament unproductive. In addition to cooperating and negotiating with opposition party leaders, the political party in power ensures that its members are present in Parliament and consistently vote the same way to guarantee that bills get passed into law. This is done through what is called a party whip, that is a member of parliament chosen by the prime minister to whip all members of the governing party into submission and compliance.³¹ Use of a party whip has increased of late whenever a minority government or even a small majority government has been elected in Canada.

Canadians are ultimately left with two options when voting: they can either collectively vote for a majority government entrusting complete confidence to a political party to govern the country for four years, or they can collectively try to take a gamble by voting strategically in hopes of getting a minority government (which for the most part gets little or nothing done for two years or less until another election is called).³² These two alternatives places Canada somewhere between an American governing system and a Soviet governing system, much like many European countries but worse since Canada does not use a proportional representation electoral system which ignores the will of the majority of voters (also referred to as the popular vote) and instead relies exclusively on the will of electoral constituencies.³³ This means that in Canada, political parties that can win over voters in Ontario—even though the province only has 38.5% of the Canadian population, along with fifty more seats from some of the other smaller provinces—can be assured of winning a majority government. One likely reason that proportional representation has not been actively pursued by Canada’s two major political parties is that this type of electoral system tends to create endless, successive minority governments in countries with more than two political parties as seen in Europe.

The current number of electoral seats in Canada are as follows: Ontario with 38.5% of the population has 112 seats; Québec with 23.5% of the population has 78 seats; British Columbia with 13% of the population has 34 seats; Alberta with 11% of the population has 27 seats; Manitoba with 3.5% of the population has 14 seats; Saskatchewan with 3% of the population has 14 seats; Nova Scotia with 3% of the population has 11 seats; New Brunswick with 2% of the population has 10 seats; Newfoundland and Labrador with 1.5% of the population has 7 seats; Prince Edward Island with 0.5% of the population has 4 seats; and the three territories in Canada’s north has one seat each.³⁴ The provinces and territories are also represented in Parliament with senators. Unlike the United States of America, the prime minister appoints the 105 senators in Canada; they are not elected by the people, except in Alberta where its residents compel the prime minister to appoint the senator elected in that province. Even though they are not elected, senators are still supposed to provide a sober second thought in Parliament.³⁵ The distribution of senate seats are as follows: Ontario is entitled to 24 seats; Québec also gets 24 seats; British Columbia gets 6 seats; Alberta gets 6 seats; Manitoba gets 6 seats; Saskatchewan gets 6 seats; Nova Scotia gets 10 seats; New Brunswick gets 10 seats; Newfoundland and Labrador gets 6 seats; Prince Edward Island gets 4 seats; and the three territories get one seat each.³⁶ The unelected senate in Ottawa has become an exclusive club of men and women rewarded by the Prime Minister for their loyalty to him/her and the political party they lead. This plum job position, complete with rich salaries, perks and benefits, generous pensions, and guaranteed work until the age of seventy-five, has led to the misuse of taxpayers’ money. Corruption! Moreover, senators are rarely fired from their jobs even when they have been busted for fraud. The worse that can happen to senators in Canada’s upper branch is to exile them from caucus and force them to sit as independents with severed ties to their political party, as done by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2014.³⁷ Even when forced to sit as an independent, it is still business as usual with no real consequences from government or citizens. Unaccountable! There have been numerous calls to reform (and even to abolish) the senate, but there has been little appetite by citizens to reopen constitutional discussions after the fiascos of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accord proposals in the late 1980s. Nevertheless, politicians and political scientists alike still argue the need to reform the senate to make it equal, elected and effective.³⁸ Prime Minister Harper took the matter of senate reform (or at least its abolishment) to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2014 without success, as the judges passed the decision-making onto the provinces and territories, arguing that all constitutional matters require the support of seven provinces/territories representing 50% of the population. Rules!

Although not ideal, the governing situations in Canada could be far worse: Canada could have followed the same path of the absolute, centralized socialism stemming from its capital, as it was done in the USSR. The USSR lasted almost seventy years (from 1922 to 1991) with a total of eight leaders, Mikhail Gorbachev being the last.³⁹ Despite the USSR’s national, communist motto of workers of the world unite, Gorbachev’s interest and flirtation with capitalism and individualism led to the dissolution of the stealthy, feline-like USSR on December 25, 1991. It appears that curiosity killed the communist cat on Christmas Day before the USSR even had a chance to live out its ninth life with another leader! Meow! Canada (even in its quasi-democratic, quasi-socialistic form) has endured with twenty-three serving prime ministers, for a little over 140 years—about twice as long, as the now-dissolved USSR.

Each prime minister along with his or her political party have brought a different vision of what Canada should become and as a result have left an impact, either good or bad, on the country. Legacy! There are currently four major federal political parties in Canada: The Conservative Party of Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada, the New Democratic Party (NDP) of Canada, and the Green Party of Canada. Other federal political parties that have existed in the past were the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, the Reform Party of Canada (renamed to the Canadian Alliance), and the Bloc Québécois. The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and the Canadian Alliance have since merged to become the Conservative Party of Canada, which for the first time brought republicanism to Parliament.⁴⁰ This is a huge milestone as there has always been a huge, antagonistic response since 1817 to suppress American-style republicanism in Canada. Consequently, those in Canada that were favourable to republicanism had to keep quiet for centuries.

Regardless of where one lives in Canada, his or her life is directly or indirectly affected by the decisions made on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. This has been the case since 1867 when Sir John A. Macdonald, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, became the country’s first prime minister.⁴¹ In his first term as prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald created the national police force that would later become the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), which primarily patrolled and protected the northwestern region of the country from American invasion after the discovery of gold in the Yukon Territory. The RCMP’s first mission though did not involve the policing and protection of Canada’s northwest region, but the suppression of the independence movement by the Métis population (of mixed aboriginal-European descent) in the area that is now Manitoba. Louis Riel led the rebellion against the Canadian government that erupted in 1869 near the Red River and repeated itself in 1885 in Saskatchewan during Macdonald’s second term.⁴² Unlike the first rebellion in 1869, the second rebellion was unsuccessful, resulting in the hanging and execution of Louis Riel in spite of widespread protests among French Canadians. That same year saw the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway system linking the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast. The country’s national anthem was also created during Macdonald’s second term in Parliament. The country’s second prime minister was Alexander Mackenzie, who was leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. He served one term as prime minister (from 1873 to 1878) after Macdonald’s first term, but did not get re-elected, thus returning Macdonald to power for a second term (from 1878 to 1891). Nothing significant occurred with Prime Minister Mackenzie, nor did anything happen with Prime Minister John Abbott, who succeeded Prime Minister Macdonald with a Conservative government from 1891 to 1892. Another Conservative government followed from 1892 to 1894, this time with Sir John Thompson serving as prime minister. During Thompson’s term, legal experts finalized the framework of civil and criminal law in 1893, resulting in the Criminal Code of Canada, which set the notion that everyone is equal before the eyes of the law.⁴³ The year 1893 saw the formation of the country’s first women’s rights advocacy group; the National Council of Women of Canada was designed to unite representatives from different women’s groups from across Canada to communicate their concerns and ideas.⁴⁴ The priority and primary objective of the National Council at that time was to keep Canada as a white settler nation and to protect the country from racial degeneration. Ending women’s suffering and seeking the right to vote were secondary. Shocking! The 1894 federal election resulted in another Conservative government with Sir Mackenzie Bowell serving as prime minister, who was replaced by Sir Charles Tupper. It was an uneventful two years.

In 1896, Canadians elected its first francophone prime minister; Sir Wilfrid Laurier of the Liberal Party of Canada won with a majority government. Laurier was keen on seeing Canada becoming a significant player on the global stage.⁴⁵ In 1909, Canada signed a treaty with the United States, which finally settled the issues regarding water boundaries, including the use of boundary waters for power generation, sanitation and irrigation. Laurier went on to sign a treaty with the United States that would lower import and export tariffs in both countries. This caused uproar among the voting public since it was seen as an integration with the American economy, which would loosen ties with Britain. It cost Laurier and the Liberals the 1911 federal election, restoring the Conservatives back into power under the leadership of Sir Robert Borden. One of Borden’s first accomplishments as prime minister was to expand the boundaries of Québec, Ontario and Manitoba by reclaiming the land given to the Hudson’s Bay Company a century ago.⁴⁶

In 1914, oil is discovered for the first time in Alberta.⁴⁷ This discovery would later go on to play a significant factor in the federal government’s national petroleum energy aspirations. That same year, Canada joined Britain in sending troops overseas to fight in World War I. This partnership with Britain, which necessitated military enlistment from across Canada, caused major political discord from the francophones in Québec; it was the first of many oppositions to come from Quebecers over federal policies. Meanwhile, Ukrainians and Germans living in Canada were placed in concentration camps. In 1917, the Liberal Party merged with the Conservative Party to form the Union Government of Canada to better deal with the First World War; Borden remained prime minister. That same year, the Canadian government prohibited the import and manufacturing of alcohol. In 1918, Parliament extended the right to vote, to all women, not only the wives and mothers of soldiers that were given the right to vote at the start of the First World War. It would be two decades before women in Québec were granted the right to vote in provincial and municipal elections, mostly because the lower levels of government were still tied to the Catholic Church, which focused on preserving traditional gender roles.

In exchange for its contribution to the allied victory in World War 1, Prime Minister Borden demanded more autonomy from Britain at the international table. He convinced Britain to grant Canada a separate seat at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.⁴⁸ A year later, Borden stepped down as prime minister, leaving Arthur Meighen to continue. Prime Minister Meighen continued Borden’s pursuit for an international role for the country and oversaw Canada formally join the League of Nations in 1920. In 1921, William Lyon Mackenzie King became prime minister with a minority Liberal government. To appease the opposition Conservatives, Mackenzie King adopted a conservative domestic policy by lowering taxes, dealing with ethnic conflicts, and resolving labour conflicts. Mackenzie King, who was from Ontario, trod carefully to satisfy the western-based Conservatives’ demands for lower tariffs and the support for tariffs of the industrial sectors in Ontario and Québec to compete with the Americans.⁴⁹ The Conservatives did not agree with the Liberal’s approach in dealing with domestic issues but kept them in power until 1926. In 1926, Prime Minister Mackenzie King sought Lord Byng, the Governor General of Canada who was in Britain, to dissolve Parliament so that another election could be called. Byng refused.⁵⁰ It was the first and only time in Canada’s history that the Governor General refused the prime minister’s request to dissolve Parliament and call an election. Byng instead made Conservative opposition leader Meighen prime minister. Shortly thereafter, Meighen was unable to govern the country with his minority Conservative government, and with the blessing of the Governor General, called for a national election that restored Mackenzie King to power with a majority Liberal government. This crisis sparked a new tradition of complete non-interference in Canadian politics by the British government. Although the British government did not intervene in Canada’s political affairs, they were still involved in Canada’s courts. In 1928, after being petitioned by a group of five women called the Famous Five, the Privy Council in Britain ruled that women were not considered persons as defined by Canada’s Constitution.⁵¹ The decision was eventually appealed in 1929 with the decision that the word persons in the Constitution applies to both male and female. Also in 1929, Canada began to suffer from the worldwide economic depression.⁵² Prime Minister Mackenzie King underestimated the economic depression and as a result lost the 1930 election to the Conservatives; Richard Bennett became prime minister with a majority government. Bennett fared no better in handling the economy despite efforts to mimic American President Roosevelt’s economic policies and signing trade agreements with the other fifty-three Commonwealth countries (that is, other former British colonies). The Conservatives lost the 1935 election returning the Mackenzie King Liberals to power. They got re-elected again in 1940 with another majority government. Mackenzie King became the longest serving prime minister in the Commonwealth. As prime minister, he accomplished many things including the creation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)—Radio-Canada—in 1936 to unite the country via radio and to reduce American influence which was seeping through the neighbouring airwaves. Mackenzie King also established Air Canada, the country’s first commercial airline, in 1937; involved Canada in the Second World War by declaring war on Germany on September 10, 1939, exactly one week after Britain did to symbolically demonstrate Canada’s independence from Britain along with an independent air force; and oversaw Canada became the fiftieth country to join the United Nations in 1945 when World War II ended.

The Second World War brought about five major changes to Canada: Firstly, in response to the war, Canada adopted a highly restrictive immigration policy.⁵³ It was only after the war in 1945, that the restrictions were lifted allowing about two million European immigrants from Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands to come and settle in Canada. Secondly, during the war, single women and childless wives were actively encouraged by the federal government to work in non-traditional fields such as manufacturing, trade, finance, transportation, communication and even construction.⁵⁴ Shortly thereafter mothers were recruited into the workforce as well prompting the federal government to create a national childcare program which provided subsidies to the provinces for their creation of nurseries and after school daycare.⁵⁵ By 1944, more than one million women in Canada worked full-time; those who could not find paid employment volunteered. Large numbers of Canadian women also participated and were recruited in the military (21,600), air force (17,400) and navy (7,100).⁵⁶ When the war ended, working women returned to their roles in the home, and childcare programs ended. Thirdly, Canada’s economy was booming because of increased demand for industrial production, which was coming from Central Canada (that is, Ontario and Québec), and increased demand to produce agriculture, which was taking place in Western Canada. The economic depression ended and prosperity returned but brought with it a fourth major change politically: the creation of three new political parties (the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, the Social Credit Party, and the Union Nationale Party) which were based on a new role of the state, and on workers’ rights and labour laws; none of the three parties formed government in Parliament. The fifth and last major change that happened because of World War Two was the closer integration and collaboration of military policies and foreign responses between Canada and the United States.⁵⁷ Canada declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The Japanese living in Canada were placed in concentration camps even though they were law-abiding citizens. The military draft of 1940-41 caused rifts between the Anglos and Francos in Canada, although not as much as during the First World War since this time a less forceful approach was implemented. About 10% of the Canadian population served in the armed forces, with some even joining the British and American forces. The Canadian army was involved in the failed battles in Hong Kong and Dieppe in 1942, the successful invasions of Italy, France, and the Netherlands. When the war finally ended, more than 45,000 Canadians had died, and another 55,000 were wounded. These events led to the development of veterans and old age pension plans, and foreign aid to help in the reconstruction of war-torn Europe.

In 1948 Mackenzie King resigned, Louis Saint Laurent won a majority Liberal government and stayed in power until 1957.⁵⁸ In 1949, while Saint Laurent was prime minister, the Supreme Court of Canada became the country’s final court of appeal, replacing the Privy Council in the United Kingdom; Canada also became a charter member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949; Canada sent military forces to Korea in 1950; and in 1952, Vincent Massey became the first appointed Canadian-born Governor General. The year 1952 also saw the CBC/Radio-Canada expand from radio to television, providing coverage in English, French and eight native Aboriginal languages. Even though the war had ended, many women began to return to the workforce as it became economically necessary to help finance the household. Consequently, the Ontario government in 1951 enacted the Female Employees Fair Remuneration Act to ensure equal pay in the workforce; the federal government followed suit in 1954 with a similar legislation.⁵⁹ In 1957, the Progressive Conservatives got elected with a majority government and John Diefenbaker became prime minister. That same year, Lester B. Pearson became the first Canadian to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in resolving the 1956 crisis of the Suez Canal; seven years later he became prime minister of Canada.⁶⁰ In 1958, Canada joined the United States in forming the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).⁶¹ In 1959, George Vanier became the first Canadian-born francophone Governor General of Canada.⁶² The 1960s saw Diefenbaker tackle the sagging economy by devaluing the Canadian dollar, increasing tariffs on imports, and expanding trade with the other Commonwealth countries. Diefenbaker continued to build, strengthen, and further unite the country. In 1960, the federal government approved the Bill of Rights, which ensured that no one in Canada would have their rights denied because of their sex, race, national origin, skin colour or religion.⁶³ In 1961, a national hospitalization insurance plan came into effect thanks to Tommy Douglas (who as Saskatchewan premier was the first democratic socialist party elected in North America) before he left to become the inaugural leader of the socialist New Democratic Party in Ottawa.⁶⁴ His Saskatchewan publicly-funded health insurance plan was extended to all of Canada by Prime Ministers Diefenbaker and Pearson. Initially, costs to operate the health program were divided 50-50 by both the federal and provincial governments. To this day, Canadians consider Tommy Douglas to be the greatest Canadian for his contribution to the country.⁶⁵ In 1962, another unifying factor was created: Canada’s transcontinental highway, which at about 8,046 kilometres (or 5,000 miles) long, spanned from east to west.⁶⁶

Despite efforts for nation building in the early 1960s, anger was brewing in Québec for increased demands for more recognition and guaranteed civil rights. This was the beginning of Québec’s Quiet Revolution, which wanted to break free from the confines of the Roman Catholic Church and proceed with a strong, democratic, government-focused modernization of the economy and Québec society.⁶⁷ Many women in Québec began their own women’s movement as they saw parallels between the patriarchy in Québec with the colonial domination of English-Canada over Québec’s matters. The concept of separatism-feminism began to emerge and take effect with the creation of the Fédération des femmes du Québec in 1966, and although they initially collaborated with the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, which was created at the same time in Ottawa to ensure equal rights and opportunities, the two groups could not get along on matters involving Québec’s place in Canada.⁶⁸ Despite their differences on national unity, they tackled the issue of violence against women through the Battered Women’s Shelter Movement, advocating for government involvement in the social (as opposed to the private) problem of domestic violence and ensuring that battered women had a place to go for refuge.⁶⁹ As of 2010 Statistics Canada reported close to six hundred available shelters for women and their children escaping domestic violence. There was only one shelter in Canada designated for men and their children seeking sanctuary from danger at home; it was shut down in 2013 due to lack of funding. Moreover, men continue to be ignored or belittled when they seek help from the police or justices of the peace from their wives and girlfriends (more on this issue in Chapter 4). Aboriginal women have not participated in the women’s movement in Canada as they are often dealing with cultural discrimination and colonial domination by Caucasians. Also, Aboriginal women tend to reject the hostile, anti-male and anti-traditional family values advocated by the Anglos and Francos in Canada. Aboriginal women do not separate issues over their rights as women from their rights as Aboriginals.⁷⁰ Meanwhile, the Protestant denomination outside Québec grew stronger through the merging of the Methodist Church with most Canadian Congregationalists and Presbyterian congregations into the United Church of Canada; only the Anglican Church rejected the offer to join.⁷¹ Pearson, who was then prime minister, ordered a study on the relations between francophones and anglophones in Canada in 1963.⁷² Study results in 1965 confirmed that severe economic, educational, social, and legal disparities existed between the two, and if they continued to be left unresolved, would push the francophones in Québec to leave Canada and form their own independent nation.

Meanwhile in 1964, a contentious thirty-three-day debate took place in Parliament over the adoption of a new Canadian flag, one that would eliminate all British symbols.⁷³ A flag is chosen bearing the world-renowned red maple leaf in the centre in front of a white backdrop flanked by two red borders. Communist! The flag is finally unveiled on February 15, 1965. In 1967, Canada celebrated its 100th anniversary while simultaneously hosting the Expo 67 World Fair in Montreal, which was conceived by Mayor Jean Drapeau. Expo 67 attracted a large number of international visitors including then-French President Charles de Gaulle.⁷⁴ The infamous line Vive le Québec libre (Long live a free Québec) from his controversial City Hall speech, uttered before a large crowd of Quebeckers and national media from a Montreal balcony on July 24, 1967, would go on to have lasting effects between Ottawa and Québec, as well as anglophones and francophones across the country. The phrase was not only seen as endorsements for Québec independence by the French president, but it went on to become a slogan for separation by its supporters. Although de Gaulle’s notorious line invigorated Québec separatists, it clearly worsened relations between Prime Minister Pearson and Mr. de Gaulle. Pearson argued that Canadians, including Quebeckers, do not need to be liberated as they are already free. In spite of Pearson’s counter remark, various francophones in Québec got together under the leadership of René Lévesque, to form the separatist political party, the Parti Québécois (PQ).⁷⁵ The PQ and its supporters would go on to create complications and even chaos for subsequent prime ministers in Ottawa, starting with Pierre Elliot Trudeau. In 1968, Trudeau, who represented an electoral constituency in Montreal, became prime minister with a majority Liberal government. Trudeau would go on to dominate Canadian politics for well over thirty years, even after he officially retired in 1984. Canadians are deeply divided over Pierre Trudeau: they either praised him for stopping Québec from separating