Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Iggy again – this time on Quebec as a nation
Michael Ignatieff's pledge to reopen the Constitution in order to recognize Quebec as a nation has sparked a lot of debate.
There are essentially two camps on this issue.
One is that which believes the more you leave it alone the better off everyone is. There is no crisis, so why make one up when it's not necessary?
The other is that which believes some accommodation of Quebec constitutionally is necessary to avoid the prospect of separation.
This is one of those issues (like proportional representation) where I can go back and forth. However, if push came to shove, I would probably back the leave it alone side.
When we did leave it alone, the separatists were trounced in a referendum. When we tried tinkering with things, the separatists almost won in a referendum.
Success is so difficult, if not impossible, and failure just gives the separatists more ammunition against the idea of Canada.
Furthermore, constitutional accommodation may not even achieve what its proponents think it can. So why go down that road if we don't have to?
UPDATE (4:00 pm): I'd also prefer to see Quebec and the rest of Canada come closer together from the bottom-up, as opposed to these top-down processes that have already been rejected by Canadians in the past.
