Robarts Centre Research Papers

The Politics of Routine and the Functionality of Solitudes

August 2005

Daniel Drache, Senior Research Fellow and Associate Director

Blake Evans, Research Assistant

York University, Toronto www.robarts.yorku.ca

Copyright Daniel Drache August 2005

The Politics of Routine and the Functionality of Solitudes by Daniel Drache with Blake Evans*

Since the collapse of the Charlottetown Accord and the Quebec referendum of 1995,

Canada has been in the grips of the politics of routine. This has taken the form of one-offs, ad hocery, deal-making, and a general retreat from the high-road of the politics of vision. Nor has economic integration proven to be much of a nation-builder. Instead, Ontario remains a distant shore on Quebec's horizon, and Quebec is at best little more than a phantom presence in the provincial imagination of Ontarians.1

Canada’s solitudes have been much written-about, but have been the subject of very little systematic analysis. Conventional thinking says that solitudes are dangerous, anti-social, and indicative of Canada’s national failures.2 However, this paper argues counter to conventional wisdom, that despite their imperfections, the solitudes have been a functional and practical form of political accommodation in Canada. We will begin by measuring the social indicators of our solitudes in order to assess how deeply they run. We then evaluate the degree of cultural interaction at the level of Canadian elites, civil society, and governments. We will then explain what we call ‘the politics of routine’, and seek to explain their impact on Canada’s economic and political union. Lastly, we will explain how the solitudes have an undeniable functionality, and that this functionality forms the core of the politics of routine. While these politics of routine are not the ideal political arrangement for either side, they do form a basis upon which to build.

Social Indicators of the Solitudes

Solitudes can be studied, analyzed, critiqued, and measured, and the social indicators of

Canada’s solitudes tell a powerful story. Increased bilingualism and intercultural dialogue have not created the kind of momentum or familiarity that would transform small everyday contact into something much more.

2 Federal bilingualism is one of the crown jewels in Canada’s national unity strategy, and

was meant to correct the linguistic imbalance documented by the Royal Commission on

Bilingualism and Biculturalism.3 It was also meant to facilitate conciliation and dialogue

between Canada’s two solitudes. While bilingualism has increased on both sides of the

Quebec/Ontario border, clearly it is not a two-way street. As of 2001, 43% of Canadian

francophones were reportedly bilingual, compared with only 9% of anglophones. Similarly, the

bilingualism rate in Quebec rose to over 40%, while the rate outside of Quebec has been virtually

stuck at 10.3% since 1996. Ontario ranked slightly better than average outside of Quebec, with

11.7% of Ontarians listed as bilingual.4 In short, the level of bilingualism, as well as the rate of its increase, is highest in Quebec.

While Ontarians and Quebeckers are now more apt to understand each other, bilingualism has not significantly deepened our relationship. What’s more, it would appear that

Quebeckers and not Ontarians are the ones making major strides towards bilingualism.

Several government programs at both the provincial and federal levels attempt to promote intercultural dialogue through such means as language and education exchanges, and work- programs. Heritage Canada estimates that in all, 9000 young Canadians participated in their programs aimed at promoting “a greater appreciation of linguistic duality” in 2001-2002.5

Another example is the Canadian Unity Council’s “Summer Work-Student Exchange” program,

which exchanges roughly 500 high school students and 200 university students each year

between Ontario and Quebec.6 Summer work exchanges have become more popular, but they

remain disappointingly underutilized.7 Bilingualism is not a high priority for the 18-24 year-old

crowd.

Equally troubling are the many barriers to interprovincial educational mobility, such as

out-of-province supplement charges. McGill remains Canada’s foremost university educator of

3 out-of-province students.8 When fully bilingual Ontarians do send their college-aged children to

Quebec, they go to McGill, rather than to Université du Québec à Montréal – not to mention

Quebec’s university network outside of Montreal. English-speaking Canadians have very little

incentive to learn or to live completely immersed in French.

The world of academia is similar. Few Quebeckers attend the Learned’s Conference of

the Humanities; only 745 of the approximately 7044 delegates, or just over 10%, were from

Quebec.9 By the same token, few English Canadians attend the annual Association francophone

pour le savoir (ACFAS) convention. In fact, ACFAS’s publication, Découvrir, has only 6% of its total distribution to Ontario, and 3.3% to other Canadian provinces.10 This is because in general,

Canadian academics and researchers in the social sciences don't closely follow Quebec

intellectual life, infrequently have close colleagues in Quebec, and rarely read their books and

articles. Those who do maintain interprovincial contacts most often do so in an ad hoc manner,

rather than in an institutionalized one.11 Constitutional law, Canadian federalism, and urban renewal studies in Montreal-Toronto-Vancouver, are bright spots of collaboration in an otherwise mono-linguistic academic landscape. Even cultural studies, which should be bringing

Quebecers and Anglophone researchers together, infrequently do so.12

Similarly, Montreal’s Le Devoir, the intellectual flagship of Quebec’s elites, has a tiny

daily circulation of below 5000 outside of Quebec, representing around 16% of their circulation,

much smaller than the Anglophone Montreal Gazette or the less influential La Presse or Journal

de Montréal.13 In comparison, the Globe and Mail and National Post weekday editions have a

circulation in Quebec of almost 23 000, or 7.2% of national circulation, and 19 000 or 6.4% respectively.14 Together, English Canadian views are diffused widely in Quebec, with over 40

000 readers per day. By comparison, Quebec views have almost no presence in the rest of the

country. The most well-known Quebec journalist is Chantal Hebert, who is a Toronto Star

4 national columnist and a frequent guest on CBC’s The National. There is no Anglophone

equivalent in Quebec, with the possible exception of Graham Fraser, Toronto Star’s Ottawa

bureau chief. The gulf between English Canada and Quebec, in terms of national reporting, is not

a divide, but a chasm.

One of the single largest divides is rarely commented on: rural citizens occupy sharply

divergent spaces in Quebec and Ontario’s political landscapes. In 1995, North Bay native Mike

Harris and his Common Sense Revolutionaries were able to connect the 905-area, suburban

Toronto, and vast rural Ontario to ride a wave of right-wing popular discontent to power.15

Small-town Ontario is a bastion of social conservatism, and is often anti-French, anti-Quebec and anti-Catholic. The Christian evangelic movement still has a mass following in rural Ontario.

Rural Quebec is the political constituency par excellence of the Bloc Quebecois and of the PQ.16

Their values are social democratic, nationalist and most importantly, they are not religious like their Ontario counterpart. They support gay marriages, were against sending Canadian troops to

Iraq, and support strong redistributive social programs. These rural solitudes are the backbone of

Quebec and Ontario’s respective distinctive cultures. They’ve aren’t likely to change anytime

soon.

Are our Civil Societies “Bowling Alone”?

Quebec and Canadian anti-globalization movements inhabit very different organizational

worlds. They co-operate when they must, but they lack the organizational will to form longer-

lasting bases for cooperation.

The Council of Canadians, one of the most important civil society organizations and very

active on the issue of Canadian sovereignty, has almost no presence in Quebec. Of their 70

chapters across Canada, only two are in the province of Quebec, one of which is in Montreal and

5 the other is in the Eastern Townships.17 At the same time, Quebec has produced its own civil

society organizations to defend its sovereignty against Americanization and continental free

trade. The Réseau Québecois sur l’intégration continentale is the best known, but there are

dozens more, and none of them are linked to any pan-Canadian movement.18

Student groups are equally marked by Canada’s two solitudes. Canada’s major student group, the Canadian Federation of Students, represents 450 000 students at over 60 colleges and universities across Canada. However, only three of their locals are in Quebec, and none represent francophone educational institutions.19 This organization only played a minor role in supporting the recent student strike in Quebec, the biggest mobilization of students in Canada in decades.

The strike lasted for months, and over 120 000 francophone students participated. McGill and

Concordia barely joined in.20 In this case, the solitudes occurred within Quebec, as much as

outside it.

Quebec and Canadian labour have institutionalized the solitudes within their

organizations. For example, the Fédérations des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ)

has held a special autonomous status within the Canadian Labour Congress since 1974. It has

operated under a “Sovereignty-Association” type of arrangement since 1993.21 Quebec’s two

other major labour centres, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) and the Centrale

des Syndicats du Québec (CSQ), have no Canadian counterpart. They are 100% pur-laine

Québecois, even if many of their members are recent immigrants. The labour movement is

unique in accepting Canada’s dualism, and making it work to its benefit.22 Certainly Canadian labour has not followed its American counterparts into irreversible decline, as about 30% of the

Canadian workforce has access to collective bargaining. In contrast, American union levels are in the low teens, well below half the Canadian levels. The sector-wide bargaining in Quebec by its militant trade unions looks more like European-style collective bargaining than anything else

6 in North America.23 They bargain sector-wide, they have close ties with Quebec’s social movements, and governments need to consult them on almost all issues.

Feminism has found Canada’s solitudes too large to transcend. The National Action

Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) has made the federal government the target for their

lobbying efforts. The Fédération des Femmes du Québec have fought for the rights of Quebec

women in Quebec City, rather than Ottawa. The Quebec feminist movement has no hesitation about lobbying Ottawa when it is in their interests to do so, but child care, divorce, health, and violence against women are largely provincial matters.24 The women’s movement has learned

that they will never speak with a single voice, but what unites them is that they share the same

goals, values and tactics.

Almost every major civil society group has come to recognize the necessity of giving

Quebec a special status in their organization. These organizations don’t look to the Charter for

guidance. They don’t hire constitutional experts to tell them what is and what is not a good idea.

They are not worried that asymmetries create other asymmetries. Instead, they have adopted a

functional approach to the bi-national fault-line of the Canadian federation. Amnesty

International’s Canadian Section, for example, maintains separate organizations, administrative

councils, and secretariats for English- and French-speaking Canadians.25 Other groups, ranging

from CUSO to the Red Cross to the Civil Liberties Union to the Boy Scouts to Development and

Peace all have differential arrangements with their Quebec chapters.26

Evidently, Canadian federalism is deficient in tearing down the silos between Quebec,

Ontario, and the rest of the country. Canada’s federal structures have not created a lot of

common spaces or institutions, and civil society groups have mirrored this reality. Canadians

don’t ‘bowl alone’ à la Putnam, but they do maintain separate and parallel leagues. What is

comforting is the fact that, despite our differences and despite institutional impediments, citizens

7 and civil society do cooperate where they have common interests, like on preserving healthcare,

opposing Bush’s Iraq war, and broadening the definition of marriage. But they always prefer to

cooperate as distinct entities, diverse and equal.

The Politics of Routine

Liberal governments now blanket central Canada, and occupy the corridors of power in

Ottawa, Quebec City, and Queen’s Park for the first time since the Second World War. Despite

being of the same political colour, these governments have proven unable to transcend the

politics of routine. In Canada as elsewhere, markets rarely level the playing field.27 Instead,

periods of intense integration lead to asymmetries, and when public authority is diminished,

political drift rather than political purpose takes command. It is in these circumstances that what

we call ‘the politics of routine’ becomes the norm. Our political leaders shy away from

innovation, and instead pursue system maintenance. There is nothing inherently wrong with

these politics of routine; under certain circumstances, they can be functional, but they are neither

visionary, nor do they build long-term alternatives to deep structural problems.28 This can be seen most vividly with respect to intergovernmental relations between Ontario and Quebec.

Ontario and Quebec have profoundly different views of their place in confederation, and of the role of intergovernmental relations. For the Ontario public, intergovernmental relations are never the stuff of high politics. Language and constitutional issues are high-risk issues for

Ontario politicians. When David Peterson and Bob Rae were Premiers, 1985 to 1990 and 1990 to

1995 respectively, they were each burned at the stake of public opinion when they took highly visible stands on constitutional renewal. Their roles in the 1998 Meech Lake agreement and the

1992 Charlottetown Accord helped to contribute to their defeats.

8 For Quebec premiers, constitutional wars about sovereignty, identity and the Quebec

model have helped every premier since Jean Lesage to mobilize their base and to stay in power.

Bourassa’s long political career depended on the popular perception that he defended Quebec’s

interest against Ottawa and English Canada. And Levesque, Parizeau, and Bouchard all rose to

power for precisely the same reasons.

The greatest differences of all are strategic.29 Quebec needs partners to rein in Ottawa;

Ontario seeks partners to force Ottawa to develop stronger national programs for public housing,

to reinvest in the social safety net, and to help struggling municipalities. Quebec governments

want fundamental changes to transfer payments; Ontario just wants more ad hoc support without

any constitutional change in the division of powers.30

With so much deadlock and impasse built into Canadian federalism, how do we ever

accomplish anything? How is it that we have managed to build social programs at all, let alone

programs which are the envy of progressive Americans? Paradoxically, the politics of routine

have proven to be highly functional for citizens, and not just for bureaucrats. Despite constant

gridlock, almost every major social program has had its origins in the social policy wars between

Quebec and Ottawa.31 Health care, publicly-funded daycare, pensions, and regional adjustment programs were all, in one form or another, products of the politics of routine. Even Canada's flag is the love child of the turbulent Quiet Revolution, rising Quebec separatism and a minority

Liberal government.

What about on economic issues? With so many solitudes, it would appear that the idea of the nation as an economic unit is dead. But is it? Paradoxically, the Central Canadian economy is more integrated and more interdependent than ever.

9 Do Good Trading Partners Make for Best Friends?

Many commentators and boosters of international economic integration ignore the

importance of interprovincial trade, which has been increasing steadily in Canada. Ever since the

MacDonald Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada,

federal and provincial politicians have sought to build a stronger economic union by dismantling

interprovincial barriers and regulations.32 One of the goals of the Agreement on Internal Trade

was to create greater interdependency between the Quebec and Ontario.33 A primary goal of

pursuing a stronger economic union is to strengthen Canada’s political union.34

After a decade of free trade, Ontario and Quebec are surprisingly more economically interdependent, though the process has been an uneven one. From 1992 to 1998, interprovincial trade in Canada grew by an average of 4.7% annually, a large amount, though not as large as international trade.35 By 1998, interprovincial trade in Canada was worth $177 billion.36 By

2005, interprovincial trade is worth well over $200 billion, and thousands of jobs and hundreds

of communities depend on it.

Canada’s international trade with the US, totaling over $1 billion daily, remains the

driving force behind much of Canada’s economic activity. Still, interprovincial trade remains a major part of both Quebec and Ontario’s provincial economies. 51.4% of Ontario’s GDP is made up of international trade, as opposed to 22.8% being made up of interprovincial trade. Similarly,

36% of Quebec’s GDP is composed of international trade, compared with 22.4% for interprovincial trade.37 In 2002, interprovincial trade amounted to 49$ billion in Quebec and

89.3$ billion in Ontario, evidence of the deep structures that bind the country together.38

Ontario and Quebec are certainly each others’ best trading partners within Canada, and the economic effects of their trading relationship are extremely important, not only to them but also to Canada’s economy as a whole. Each relies heavily on the other’s exports, and their trade

10 route accounted for over $51 billion in 1998, representing 29% of Canada’s interprovincial trade, and the figure has grown dramatically since then.39

The New Nationalism

Nationalism in Quebec remains a complex force, neither strong enough to unilaterally force constitutional change, nor so weak as to be ignored by the rest of federalist Canada. With

support for sovereignty now at fifty-four percent among Quebecers, the state of the union can

only be described as troubled.40 The Financial Times in July 2005 thought that the resurgence of

Quebec nationalism was serious enough to describe it as a serious threat to Canadian unity.41

Quebecers are now experimenting with their own neo-liberalism, and have imposed Jean

Charest on themselves for many of the same reasons that Ontarians chose to shoot themselves in the foot by electing Mike Harris to usher in a new era of provincial politics. Far from being a spend-thrift, Harris’ under-resourcing of education, health and social services weakened

Ontario’s economic performance and ultimately increased the province’s debt level.

There are many points of convergence between Harris and Charest.42 Each won

significant majorities, both were ideologues of the Right, and each was tarnished by apparent

incompetence and growing unpopularity. What remains to be seen is whether neo-liberalism will

form a new basis of unity between Ontario and Quebec, or rather whether it will further dissolve

our common bonds.

Functionality and the New Solitudes

The metaphor of ‘solitudes’ was once used to describe the ‘big chill’ of indifference

which characterized relations between Canada’s national communities. However, as Quebec

11 nationalism has become more civic, pluralistic, and outward-looking, and as Ontarians have become more multicultural and diverse, the solitudes are less solitary.

Canada’s giants of Confederation seem to be more confident of their differences, but also wary of imposing an agenda on the other. While many decry the continued existence of these solitudes, Canada’s homegrown silos have allowed for Quebec to feel comfortable within

Canada. But the silos have worked for English Canada as well, providing it with flexibility, a degree of tolerance, and civility. Truly the circle is being squared in surprising ways.

Divergence and Centralization

Canada is one of the most regionalized federations in the world, and despite this, real influence continues to be concentrated in central Canada.43 Canada has long been held together, despite centrifugal forces, by a combination of Quebec’s political capital and Ontario’s wealth.

Quebec has produced Canada’s most effective politicians, such as René Lévesque and Pierre

Trudeau, while Ontario has produced the overwhelming majority of Canada’s business elite, from bankers to the newly-minted investment powerhouses such as Gerry Swartz. Or, in different terms, Prime Ministers, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, and high-level civil servants are the products of Quebec’s political class, while, the power-brokers of Bay Street still keep tight control of the nation’s purse-strings.44

This provincial division of labour has not led to a rapprochement. Nor has economic integration reduced the gap between Quebec and the rest of Canada. Divisions and solitudes persist, but as we have argued, they are far from being wholly negative forces. Most recently, the

Sponsorship Scandal hasn’t sunk the Liberals: it has increased the fortunes of the separatist movement in Quebec, but in Ontario polls it has left Canada’s social conservative party in third place behind the Liberals and the New Democrats.45

12 As well as allowing us to develop an approach unique from the American model, there is

a demonstrated functionality to those solitudes. The functional solitudes promote a working

relationship which is flexible, responsive, culturally sensitive, and stable. In contrast, close and

very tight institutional ties can be highly intense, can support rigid agendas and can be

destabilizing for institutions, communities and individuals. The politics of routine are not pretty,

are maddeningly process-driven, and are ponderously slow to admit any course correction. But their functionality cannot be underestimated. Vive les solitudes ! Vive les differences!

* Daniel Drache is Professor of Political Science at York University and Associate Director, Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies; Blake Evans is a graduate student in the Department of Political Science, York University completing his MA degree. Please address all correspondence to: [email protected]. 1 Gilles Bourque et Jules Duchastel (avec la collaboration de Victor Armony). L'identité fragmentée. Nation et citoyenneté dans les débats constitutionnels canadiens, 1941-1992. Montréal: Fides, 1996. 2 Hugh McLellan’s novel Two Solitudes set in Montreal against the background of Canada’s two ‘cultural divides’ explains the ‘failure to communicate’ and overcome this deep structural barrier. The actual quotation is from Goethe and reads: These template words describe the fragile state of Canada’s federal union and fault line better than anything else since. see Hugh MacLennan. Two Solitudes. Toronto: Willian Collins Sons and Co. Canada LTD, 1945. 3 Kenneth McRoberts. Misconceiving Canada: The struggle for national unity. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 1997. p.109 4 “Profile of Languages in Canada”. English-French Bilingualism. Statistics Canada. 2002. http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/Products/Analytic/companion/lang/bilingual.cfm 5 This number refers to the sum of participants in the Young Canada Works in Both Official Languages program, the Summer Language Bursary program, and the Official Language Monitor program in 2001-2002. “Second language instruction”. Heritage Canada. http://www.pch.gc.ca/progs/lo-ol/pubs/2001-2002/ra-ar/11_e.cfm 6 Correspondence with Ercole Perrone, Summer-Work Student Exchange Ontario Regional Director, June 10th, 2005 7 Summer-Work Student Exchange http://www.summer-work.com/en/frames/fr_main.html 8 McGill University. “Student Awards”. http://www.mcgill.ca/alumni-support/gifts/help/student/ 9 Correspondence with Donna LeLièvre, Congress Administrative Officer and Registrar, June 20th, 2005. 10 http://www.acfas.ca/decouvrir/ 11 The lack of cross-referencing is due in part to the fact that in all social sciences, francophones and anglophones have separate academic journals. This stands true in geography, political science, history and sociology. Only a small minority publish in both. An exception is the area of constitutional law and federalism where the language divide has diminished because Quebecers publish in English scholarly journals and websites.

13

12 SSHRC grants encourage mixing of Canada’s dualities, but the uptake tends to be more symbolic than real. It would be worthwhile to develop more in-depth analysis of the extent of collaboration. 13 Canadian Newspaper Circulation Factbook, 2000. Audit Bureau of Circulation, p.14 14 Correspondences with Ponce Padua, Globe and Mail Circulation Statistics Supervisor, and with David Klimek, Montreal Gazette Research Manager, June 17th, 2005. 15 Diana Ralph, André Regimbald, and Nérée St-Armand (eds). Open for Business, Closed to People: Mike Harris’s Ontario. Halifax: Fernwood, 1997. 16 John Saywell. The Rise of the Parti Quebecois 1967-1976. Toronto: University of Toronto Press: 1977. p.124 17 “Quebec Chapters”. The Council of Canadians. http://www.canadians.org/display_document.htm?COC_token=23@@e665be7bf301a73509a91d 0951210dd2&id=675&isdoc=1&catid=7 18 Reseau Quebecois sur l’integration continentale. http://www.rqic.alternatives.ca 19 “Member Local Students’ Unions”. Canadian Federation of Students. http://www.cfs- cfee.ca/html/english/about/member_locals.php 20 Student groups operating solely in Quebec, such as the moderate Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec and the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ), and even more importantly the more radical Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ) were highly integral to the strike, and more effectively organize Quebec’s student body in general. 21 “Les Grandes Dates”. Federation des travailleurs du Quebec. http://ftq.qc.ca/ftq/suite.asp?aid=487 22 Another interesting example is the Canadian Autoworkers, arguably Canada’s most important private sector union. In fact, their National Executive Board includes the Quebec Director and the President of the Quebec Council, despite Quebec no longer having auto assembly plants. 23 For an excellent comparison of the Canadian and American labour movements, see the recent Monthly Review issue entitled Labor in the Americas. In particular, see Barry Brennan. “Canadian Labor Today: Partial Successes, Real Challenges”. Monthly Review. Vol 57, Number 2, (June 2005). 24 Janine Brodie. “The Women’s Movement Outside of Quebec: Shifting Relations with the Canadian State”. in Kenneth McRoberts. Beyond Quebec: Taking Stock of Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1995. 25 see « A propos d’AI – La section canadienne francophone ». http://amnistie.qc.ca/a- propos/index.htm 26 For example see: “Constitution”. Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace. www.devp.org/Constitution_e.pdf. Many bodies, such as Development and Peave, give preferential consideration to Quebec, and also contain references to linguistic duality. 27 Dani Rodrik, Has Globalization Gone too Far? Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1997; Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents. New York: W.W.Norton, 2003. 28 For example, see some interesting proposals on the European Union: Philippe C. Schmitter. How to Democratize the European Union – And why Bother? New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. Richard C. Zuker. An International Equalization Program (IEP): Rationales, Issues, and Options. Institute for Intergovernmental Relations, Working Paper 2005 (6), Queen’s University. 29 Ontario-Quebec Intergovernmental agreements do not create dense institutional linkages; they are largely unexceptional, covering a wide variety of areas, from correctional services and

14

policing, to public procurement, labour market management and Hydro-sharing. They are of a second-order variety. 30 See most recently Ontario and other provinces’ willingness to allow federal intrusion into areas of provincial competences in the Social Union Framework Agreement. Alain G. Gagnon and Hugh Segal (eds.). The Canadian Social Union Without Quebec : Eight Critical Analyses. Montréal, Programme d’études sur le Québec de l’Université McGill and Institute for Research on Public Policy, 2000. 31 Richard Simeon. Federal-Provincial Diplomacy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972. 32 Donald MacDonald. Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada (Donald MacDonald Chair). Ottawa: Canadian Government Publishing Centre, 1985. 33 Doern, G. Bruce, and MacDonald, Marc. Free-Trade Federalism: Negotiating the Canadian Agreement on Internal Trade. University of Toronto Press, 1999. 34 Editorial. “Trade pact designed as show of national unity”. The Vancouver Sun. Vancouver, BC. : July 18th, 1994. p.A1 35 Transport Canada. “Transportation in Canada 1999”. Transport Canada. http://www.tc.gc.ca/pol/en/Report/anre1999/tc9908be.htm 36 ibid. 37 Marjorie Page. Provincial Trade Patterns. Agriculture and Rural Working Papers Series. Statistics Canada. Working Paper no. 58. Statistics Canada: Agriculture Division. 2002 38 Craig Byrd and Pierre Généreux. “The performance of interprovincial and international exports by province and territory since 1992.” Statistics Canada, Input-Output Division. http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/11-621-MIE/11-621-MIE2004011.htm#6 39 Transport Canada, ibid. 40 Leger Marketing. “Support for sovereignty remains at 54%”. May 14th, 2005. http://legermarketing.com/documents/SPCLM/050516ENG.pdf 41 Bernard Simon. “Separatists in Quebec enjoy new lease of life”. Financial Times. July 3rd, 2005. 42 The Harris era is examined by Ralph, Regimbald, St-Armand (eds), ibid, 1997. 43 Janine Brodie. The Political Economy of Canadian Regionalism. Toronto: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1990. 44 Canada’s regional division of power is such an accepted fact that few scholars study it in detail. see Brodie, 1990. ibid, and Economic Council of Canada. Financing Confederation Today and Tomorrow. Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1982. 45 “Liberal lead widens, Conservative support sags, and voters oppose forcing an election”. Decima Research Inc. June 9th, 2005. http://www.decima.com/en/pdf/news_releases/050609- CE.pdf

15