Skip to main content

“I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.” ~~ John G. Diefenbaker

FELDSTED: A bit of Quebec History

Claude Bélanger, Department of History, Marianopolis College has done an interesting study of Jean Lesage and the Quiet Revolution (1960-66) which is well worth the read.

Although many people are familiar with the term ‘Quiet Revolution’ few are really familiar with just what that entailed.

Quebecers had suffered decades of oppression and regulation that reached a point of causing a rebellion against church and state as practiced by the Duplessis regime.
Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau being questioned
after introducing the War Measures Act (10/16/1970)

Unlike most rebellion, the Quebec version was primarily intellectual and social excepting for the minority hotheads who led Quebec into the October 1970 crisis and enactment of the War Measures Act.

What is more intriguing is how Jean Lesage managed to wrest a degree of political anonymity from the federal government. There are several lessons therein for all provinces to consider, but many have been lost in misreading of how Quebec secured anonymity and set a series of precedents.

Most of us incorrectly assume that we have a representation by population system, but Quebec is separately treated, other provinces with a population of over 2.5 million (Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario) are treated differently from those with a population of between 1.5 and 2.5 million (none at present) and those with population under 1.5 million (Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island & Saskatchewan).


The system favours smaller provinces.

Successive federal governments have insisted that the federal government is superior to, and above, the provinces. This is, at best, only partially true and restricted to matters under federal jurisdiction, and a few not articulated in the constitution.

For the most part, provinces have not fully exercised their constitutional powers, in part as those powers entail responsibilities. Quebec is the exception in that regard at present.

Western Canadians are awakening to the need for a different deal with the federal government. The system is not working for them.

In future articles we will explore the options provinces have and how they relate to federal powers and responsibilities.

John Feldsted
Political Consultant & Strategist
Winnipeg, Manitoba







Comments

Popular posts from this blog

GORDON F. D. WILSON: When The Trick Masquerades as The Treat

Thirty-seven years ago, Halloween 1987, I became the leader of the BC Liberal Party.   British Columbia was badly polarized. Social Credit held one side and the NDP the other. It had been twelve years, 1975, since Liberal MLAs Garde Gardom, Pat McGeer, and Alan Williams had walked away from their party to join Social Credit, one year after the lone Progressive Conservative MLA Hugh Curtis had abandoned his party to sit with Bill Bennett, the son and heir apparent to long-serving BC Premier, WAC Bennett.   An unwritten agreement by the biggest Canadian political shareholders, the federal Liberals and Conservatives, decided that if British Columbia was to remain a lucrative franchise from a revenue perspective, they couldn’t risk splitting the electoral vote and electing the real enemy, the NDP, so no resources would be used to finance either a Liberal or Conservative party provincially.   “There are two sides to every street,” I was told by a very prominent Canadian businessman who cont

FORSETH: You Have To Be A Bit Crazy

  Ward and his wife Carleen celebrating his win on election night.   In March of this year, I took on the role of Campaign Manager for BC Conservative candidate Ward Stamer.  It’s the third time I’ve had the opportunity as I took on the role for Peter Sharp in 2013, and for Dennis Giesbrecht in 2020. Now let me tell you, in the past, a BC Conservative campaign team generally consisted of myself, the candidate and one or two helpers – and very little in the way of a campaign budget. Thankfully, a benefit of having spent 30+ years in the broadcast media afforded me the ability to do ad copy and write candidate speeches, and prep both Dennis and Peter to deal with the media – it’s also something I have always enjoyed. That was part of my duties this time around as well, however having a team of a dozen and a half volunteers meant that for the first time we had people available to ID our supporters, put together and install campaign signs, distribute campaign literature, and help out at ou

Rustad will support policy for 'everyday' people, otherwise work to bring down NDP

  Conservative Party of B.C. John Rustad Tuesday (Oct. 29) said his party would support government policies that support "average, everyday working" persons in B.C., but also repeated earlier promises to bring down the B.C. NDP government under Premier David Eby. "If there are things that are moved forward that will improve lives for those people, we would be looking at support it," Rustad said. "But if he's going to carry forward with the destructive policies that he has, then yes, we are going to look at every opportunity possible to bring him down as soon as possible."  CLICK HERE for the full story

Labels

Show more