CANADA
Quebec depths
lIORAG ALEXANDER
The kidnappings in Montreal are the most serious acts of terrorism yet attempted by the Front de la Liberation Quebecois. The FLQ has, it is true, been active in Quebec for some years now, and since 1964 there have been seven killings and literally hundreds of bomb explosions, but the deliberate in- volvement of an innocent foreign diplomat brings the issue of Quebec separatism forcibly to the attention of the world.
A variety of circumstances have combined to bring about the position where the FLQ would take such drastic action. Pierre Elliott Trudeau is a French Canadian Prime Minister who is implacably opposed to Quebec's secession from Canadian Con- federation. In the Trudeau cabinet, there are several prominent French Canadians (most important among whom are Jean Marchand and Gerard Pelletier) who, with Trudeau himself, are considered by the FLQ to have abandoned their Quebecois heritage. These men are convinced federalists who see the separation of Quebec as lunacy.
Another important aspect of the situation in Quebec today is the position of the Parti Quebecois. The PQ was formed in 1969 by an amalgamation of three different sections of separatist opinion, under the leadership of Rene Levesque, a one-time Liberal Cabinet minister in the Quebec provincial govern- ment. Levesque, with Trudeau, Marchand and Pelletier, is typical of the twentieth cen- tury French Canadian, products of Quebec's belated industrialisation and urbanisation, who brought about what is known in Canada as the `Quiet Revolution'.
The Quiet Revolutionaries were de- nounced as Communists by Church and State alike, and frequently had positions in the universities and government closed to them because of their activities. They urged self-respect, and a positive approach to pro- gress in Quebec. French Canadians, they argued, must be willing to fight for their own language and culture, rather than simply to oppose the English influences. Some, like Trudeau, Marchand and Pelletier, saw a strong democratic Quebec within a strong Confederation as the answer. Others, like Rene Levesque, came to believe that only by a complete break could Quebec become the self-respecting, prosperous state they wished to see.
In Rene Levesque, the Parti Quebecois has the very best possible leader. Charisma is a word which has been very overworked in Canada these past few years, but it has been used more recently to describe Levesque in the way it was used in the past to describe his old friend and fellow Quiet Revolutionary, Pierre Trudeau. Whether or not he has charisma, there is no doubt that Levesque has tremendous presence; he is a naturally fine orator, and he uses television as the medium was meant to be used. If any leader could lead a party to victory, Levesque was that leader. At his party's firstconvention, he predicted that he would win enough seats in the Quebec election to hold the balance of power in the legislature. The Parti Quebecois' poor, but by no means abysmal, showing in the Quebec election in April of this year seemed, to the extremists among the separatists, to be the final proof that neither federalism nor separatism by con- stitutional means was the answer for Quebec.
The PQ polled 24 per cent of the votes cast, but took only seven seats in a legislature of 108. The FLQ argued, that, though almost a quarter of the voters of Quebec (and the PQ did not put up can- didates in every constituency) were in favour of separation from Canada, the system was stacked against them.
The action of Pierre Trudeau in rejecting originally the terrorists' terms for the life of Mr Cross may have seemed, to those of us who compared his dilemma to Mr Heath's in the negotiations with the Palestinian guerrillas, rather rash. But it is important to remember one basic point on which the two cases differ: Mr Trudeau knew the people he was dealing with. Among the leaders of the FLQ, Mr Trudeau knows he can find his com- rades of the 1950s and although the greater part of the membership of the FLQ is young, he was able to make a fairly shrewd guess about the way some of the terrorists would be likely to react to his firmness.
Separatism has been denounced in Canada because of Quebec's lack of economic viability. Already, there have been reports of foreign money draining out of the province into safer investment areas, but, judging from highly questionable reports in the past, these are probably exaggerated. There is, however, no doubt that at least two American companies have changed their plans to go to Quebec, deterred by the ter- rorist and guerrilla activities of the militant left-wing revolutionary branch of the separatist movement. The separatists,
moreover, seem to have a callous lack of concern for their fellow French Canadians outside of Quebec. There are about seven million French Canadians and two million of them live outside Quebec, mainly in New Brunswick, Manitoba and Ontario; and these people will be isolated if Quebec withdraws from Confederation. White Quebec remains in Canada, French Cana- dians are a large and important minority in what is becoming an increasingly bilingual and bicultural country; were Quebec to secede from Confederation, the two million French Canadians remaining would form a minority group so small as to be in danger of losing its identity and hence its language rights.
It is impossible to predict what the next move of the FLQ will be. Almost certainly the bombings will continue, but the kidnapping has shocked Canada so much more than anything that has gone before and the ter- rorists' talk of 'political prisoners' in Quebec jails must strike the average English Cana- dian as something alien to the kind of politics that he knows. The inevitable result of the climate of violence in Montreal in particular and in Quebec in general must be to harden the attitude of English Canada in opposition to separatism, even to French Canada itself. The Po's one achievement in this latest excess will be to exacerbate the backlash against Quebec in the rest of Canada and to halt the advance of Quebec nationalism for some years.
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