Strata Vol1 JORDAN BIRENBA

67 Genèse des nouvelles Amériques: The Américanité of the Continental Integration Policies of the Bloc Québécois, 1994-2003. JORDAN BIRENBAUM Abstract Unlike the Parti Québécois, and other political formations active at the provincial level, the Bloc Québécois has been required to develop, define, and defend policies at the federal level beyond the mere hypothetical. From 1994 to 2003, the Bloc Québécois – expressed in Parliament and in its platforms – developed policies and engaged in rhetoric that were stridently pro-American as well as strongly in favour of pan-American integration. This rhetoric and these policies were founded upon belief in the essential américanité of Québécois society. Despite the setback of the “non” vote in the 1995 referendum, the Bloc Québécois’s view of Quebec’s américanité became increasingly confident. The emergence of a Quebec Sovereigntist party, in the form of the Bloc Québécois (BQ), in the federal parliament, coupled with its role as Official Opposition following the Canadian general election of 1993, presented a new frontier for the Sovereignty movement. Although the new formation’s raison d’être was to aid in the accession of Quebec to full sovereignty1 it did not hold this role as its sole function. The Bloc Québécois aimed to generally defend and augment the position of Quebec in the contemporary Canadian federal constitution and, despite its separatist mandate, to act as a Loyal Opposition, holding the government of the day to account on 1 “Bloc members will not forget that their commitment to sovereignty constitutes the real reason for their presence in this House.” Lucien Bouchard, quoted in Manon Cornellier, The Bloc (Toronto: J. Lormier, 1995), p. 97. behalf of all Canadians. This situation forced the Bloc Québécois into a position unlike that of any other Quebec Sovereigntist party. Unlike the Parti Québécois (PQ), and other political formations active at the provincial level, the Bloc Québécois was required to develop, define, and defend policies at the federal level beyond the mere hypothetical. In formulating such policies, the Bloc Québécois implicitly defined the identity of contemporary Quebec society – and a potentially sovereign Quebec society – built upon a foundation of américanité. This implicit foundation of américanité deeply influenced their policy positions, particularly in the areas of external relations and trade. However, the perception of what américanité precisely meant for the Bloc transformed through the 1990s from an emphasis on a U.S.-centric, or continental, view of américanité to a pan- American view of américanité. Américanité Academic writing emerging from Quebec and those engaged in Quebec Studies have in recent years become enamoured with the concept of américanité. Academic discussions of this concept began in the late 1970s, but the recent intense interest in the concept has largely been generated in the wake of the 1989 Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement. Whereas most English-Canadian nationalists stridently opposed the Agreement, Québécois nationalists of all stripes largely embraced it, as did the Quebec population at large. This seeming contradiction produced a fascination with this apparent Québécois nationalist affinity for and with the United States. As a result, many authors began to directly discuss the concept of américanité, or to define Quebec’s sociological and economic development upon an implicit, or sometimes explicit, foundation of américanité. Further, the américanité of Quebec was not merely academic musings but seemingly central to the identity of most Quebeckers. A 1997 survey on self-identification in Quebec2 revealed that francophone Quebeckers identify vastly more with the 2 Survey undertaken by the firm Impact Recherche for GRAM (Group de recherché sur l’américanité). 69 Jordan Birenbaum “United States” or “North America” as opposed to “Canada” with a nearly 4:1 ratio – a ratio that jumps to 9:1 when further disaggregated for those whose “first identification” was “Québécois.”3 The definition of américanité that predominates in the literature that examines its relationship to Québécois society and identity embraces a view of américanité that is “sui generis” and largely material-determinist with Quebec’s américanité a material fact represented by such aspects as Quebec’s modes of production, fashion, and transportation. It is the result of a new society whose nature is conditioned by the geographic character of (North) America and the building of a new society from the ground up (where Aboriginals are largely relegated to the role of fauna – a geographic condition, but not a significant cultural interaction). This experience required New World societies to develop based upon a choice along a spectrum from either a “détour européen” to a “refus de l’européanité;” that is either to replicate the ‘mother’ culture as much as possible or to utterly reject the ‘mother’ society and to build an entirely new society – often from disparate elements4. These theories of américanité are flawed for reasons that are beyond the scope of this paper (for a good critique of the theory’s flaws see Joseph Yvon Thériault, Critique de l’américanité), however, it is sufficient to note that many proponents of américanité tend to view américanité as fundamental condition of existence into which other theories about the development of New World societies should fit themselves. As well, the literature examining the concept of américanité has been largely sociological or economic and has not related this concept to the political developments of the last two decades. “Market” Nationalism 3 Léon Bernier and Guy Bédard, “Américanité-américanisation des Québécois: quelques éclairages empiriques,” Québec Studies, Vol. 29, Spring/Summer 2000, pp. 18-19. 4 Joseph Yvon Thériault,Critique de l’américanité: Mémoire et démocratie au Québec (Montreal: Québec-Amérique, 2005). 70 In the 1960s the sovereignty movement’s nationalism was, rhetorically at least, considerably “Anti-Imperialist.” In the 1970s the sovereignty movement became most significantly animated by “technocratic nationalism,”5 whose goals were aimed at using the state to economically strengthen francophone Quebeckers and safeguard the continued viability of the French language in Quebec. However, unlike “anti-imperialist” nationalists, “technocratic” nationalists held no qualms with American capital in principle. Following the failure of the 1980 referendum on Sovereignty- Association, technocratic state nationalism itself began to give way to “market” nationalism.6 The construction of the Quebec state in the 1960s and 1970s created a class of ambitious technocrats for which the state was less and less able to accommodate within it own ranks. Many of these technocrats turned to the private sector as an outlet for their talents which resulted in a massive increase in the francophone business class with “the economic weight of medium-sized companies controlled by francophones [rising] dramatically though the 1980s” 7 and continues to increase rapidly.8 As well, despite the effect that the language laws9 had on causing an outmigrtation of Anglo-Quebeckers and Anglo-Canadian capital in Quebec, the effect on American capital was much less pronounced10 and by the 1980s Quebec “business elites [were] among the most U.S.-oriented” and U.S. friendly.11 Quebec during the 1980s 5 Robert Chodos, Quebec and the American Dream (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1991), p. 156. 6 François Rocher, “The Evolving Parameters of Quebec Nationalism,” International Journal on Multicultural Societies, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2002, pp. 74-96. 7 Chodos, p. 11. 8 Although Quebec only accounted for only one in five of all post-secondary students in Canada, it accounted “for nearly half of all Canadian students enrolled in business course,” Chodos, 204. 9 Official Language Act, 1974 and the Charter of the French language, R.S.Q. c. C-11 10 Alfred O. Hero, Contemporary Quebec and the United States, 1960-1985, (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988), p. 28 11 Ibid, 249 71 Jordan Birenbaum became much more attuned to, and enthusiastic about, American business modalities. Market nationalism grew for many Québécois nationalists and sovereigntists because it allowed an escape from the national conflicts within Canada. As former “Bombardier chief” Laurent Beaudoin opined: The United States has always been a more open market to us than the rest of Canada. In the U.S. if you give them a good product at a reasonable price, they’ll buy it. In Ontario, we’ve always had trouble. Being French is always a problem there.12 The American marketplace provided an outlet in which Québécois businesses could engage in the world beyond Quebec without compromising their nationality for the reasons described by Beaudoin. Unlike in English Canada, so long as a Québécois business offers “a good product at a reasonable price” in the United States, they would not have to compromise or justify their national identity. Foundations of the Bloc Québécois The failure of the very modest – by nationalist Québécois standards – 1987 Meech Lake Accord convinced many influential Québécois nationalists that accommodation of Quebec’s national aspirations within the Canadian federal constitution was impossible, and thus that Quebec must wrest a new arrangement with Canada as a sovereign country. As such, disillusioned former federalist nationalists, led by Lucien Bouchard, set out to overcome what Bouchard characterized as the inevitable corruption of Quebec MPs in their “duty” to safeguard Quebec’s national interest by the demands of the party discipline of pan-Canadian parties.13 In the initial formation of the party, the Bloc was neither founded as, nor 12 Quoted in Chodos, 203. 13 Cornellier, 21-22. 72 was it intended to become by most of its initial founding leaders, a mere extension of the Parti Québécois.14 As the Bloc Québécois emerged from the same political, constitutional, economic, and social milieu that catalyzed the academic interest in américanité, the founders and later members of the Bloc responded to the same sociological and economic developments and beliefs that animated academic fervour with the paradigm of américanité.

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