A separatist fantasyland
Mark Steyn - Monday,14 November 2005
Western Standard
It seems increasingly hard to recall, but remember the way things were back in the nineties? The conventional wisdom was that Jean Chrétien was an uncouth small-time ward-heeler and Paul Martin was the Mister Super-Competent really running the show. Now Mr. Martin is, de jure as well as de facto, running the show, and it seems clearer every day that he's the ne plus ultra of small-time ward-heelers. That's to say, he was a genius at promoting himself, manipulating the membership and ultimately organizing a coup that delivered himself to power. But now he's got it he hasn't a clue what he wants to do with it--short of hanging on long enough to be in with a shot at replacing the Queen on the 20-dollar bill.
Consider, for example, this report from the Montreal Gazette the other day: "Canada can hold its own in a world of global giants, but a sovereign Quebec wouldn't be able to survive, Prime Minister Paul Martin warned yesterday.
"Asked by members of The Gazette's editorial board how he plans to ensure that another referendum on sovereignty isn't winnable, Martin responded with a business case for national unity.
"He said one of the strongest arguments in his arsenal is the emergence of such global economic giants as China, India and soon Russia to rival the United States.
"It's going to be tough enough for Canada, with all of our assets and a population of 32 to 40 million. But I can tell you, for a country of 8 million to be able to survive as these huge giants collide . . . "
At this point, The Gazette's Elizabeth Thompson was evidently still able to type despite being convulsed in fits of laughter. At least I hope she was in fits of laughter. If any member of the paper's editorial board thought to query Mr. Martin's "business case for national unity," Miss Thompson did not record it.
Almost everything the prime minister said to The Gazette is bunk. For one thing, as argued here on several occasions, Russia is dying--literally: it has the third fastest-shrinking population in the world. As for China and India, a big population is an advantage for a low-wage peasant economy transitioning to advanced industrial status. But population is no advantage at all if you're a settled high-wage lavish-welfare social-democratic state. Canada could have 300-million people and still wouldn't be able to "compete" with China and India: that's the European Union's problem.
One of the recurring themes of this column since the very first issue of the Western Standard has been that, as I wrote way back on our first day, "this is an age of small countries: the big ones--the USSR--and not so big ones--Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia--have gone belly up, and in their wake have bloomed Latvia, Slovakia, Macedonia." One advantage: "Small nations are more cohesive and have less need for buying off ethnic and regional factions." Another: "Of the ten richest countries in the world only four have populations above one million: the United States (260 million people), Switzerland (7 million), Norway (4 million) and Singapore (3 million)."
In other words, countries pretty much the size of Quebec.
Paul Martin's "business case for national unity" is, in fact, the perfect business case against national unity. Fortunately for him, most of his audience seems to have been too uncurious to bother looking up the data. Indeed, even those Québécois hostile to the prime minister signed on to his thesis about big-is-best: "This is a very relevant argument, which Quebecers would do well to consider and which Mr. Martin should promote more often," wrote André Pratte in La Presse.
Honestly. With sovereigntists like this, who needs loyalists? As a small resource-blessed nation with an educated population, Quebec is virtually a textbook model of the conditions needed for a successful nation state. Certainly, it's got more going for it than Slovakia ever had when it decided to break away from what's now the Czech Republic. And the Slovaks have managed to outperform all expectations.
That's the real question: how come Latvia, Slovenia and even East Timor have made a go of it but one of the world's oldest secession movements perpetually seeks refuge in ever more bogus obstacles to what would be a very viable independence?
One way to come at the answer is to look at the current frontrunner for the leadership of the Parti Québécois. He's a fellow called André Boisclair, and, if you don't follow Péquiste politics closely, he's the gay cokehead in the race. M. Boisclair's drug habits became the subject of press attention around the time that, over in London, David Cameron's did. Mr. Cameron is running for the leadership of the British Conservative Party and is the same age as M. Boisclair--39. And it's hardly surprising that someone of that age should have "experimented with drugs" in his youth, when Mr. Cameron is said to have partaken. I assumed M. Boisclair's familiarity with cocaine fell into the same category of long-ago youthful excesses. But it turns out he was doing coke while serving as a minister in the government of Quebec. As Benoit Aubin reported in Maclean’s, "Besieged by reporters, he finally conceded he had 'consumed' while in cabinet. He insisted quite vehemently that he is clean now, and always had his wits about him while at work." Which is more than can be said for most PQ ministers.
After the revelation that he snorted his way through the Bouchard-Landry governments, M. Boisclair's numbers went up and the press started writing stuff about how the "Generation X" "party boy" represented "the new face of Quebec politics" (the Toronto Star) and proved that Quebecers are "ready to embrace an openly gay premier" (The Gazette). You don't have to snort the party line to recognize that M. Boisclair is, in his way, very much the face of the new Quebec.
Let's take it as read that M. Boisclair has been "clean" for the last 18 months, or year and a bit, or whatever it is. Congratulations, if that's not too judgmental. The PQ's leader-to-be--barring any last-minute shock revelations that he likes to spend his evenings quietly at home--is a prime example of what the London School of Economics' Kenneth Minogue called "The New Epicureans." Joseph Conrad wrote of "the shadow line" we all cross from the insouciance of youth to the solidity of responsibilities--marriage, family, careers. But in the contemporary world that line is all but erased: fewer of us marry or have children, and in common-law abortion-addicted Quebec it's fewer than most other jurisdictions; as for careers, in Quebec that involves working for the state or an entity supported by government largesse. Whatever Montreal may once have been famous for, its downtown today is built on three industries--coffee, sex and government.
In a world where "the shadow line" need never be crossed, the point of life is to optimize the celebration of oneself, however one cares to define it. As Professor Minogue writes, "The drift of the contemporary world thus seems to be the removal of necessity from life in order that we can everywhere indulge our 'right to choose.' A woman can be a soldier, a man can be a woman, sex can be a costless indulgence, the old can indulge the appetites of the young, and so on. Society comes increasingly to resemble a fantasy playground."
M. Boisclair is almost too good a personification of the phenomenon: a coked-up gay "party boy" routinely described as having "matinee idol looks." One met such figures in older societies, usually dissolute aristocrats, scions of duchies and marquessates squandering the wealth of centuries. But M. Boisclair doesn't need to do that. The "party boy" has been in government since his election to the National Assembly at the age of 23.
A government-funded hedonist defined by his appetites is, in every sense, "the new face of Quebec politics," though I wonder what some of the old faces from the first generation of Quiet Revolutionaries would make of him. As I wrote here a few months back, "In the sixties, Quebec separatists made the strategically disastrous decision to reject both the Queen and the Pope, the Crown and the cross--and, because they disdained the latter, they'll never be rid of the former." Young Quebecers trend separatist, but there aren't enough of them. Had the province's Catholics maintained traditional birthrates, they would have won their country. Instead, the glorious république slips a little more beyond their grasp within each census.
André Boisclair is a good enough head for a "fantasy playground," but the "Father of his Country"? I think not. If the province ever seriously dreamed of independence, those dreams long ago turned to dust--or, according to taste, white powder. If Quebec is "small," it's because it shrunk itself to the point where "separatism" is not serious--except to English Canada, which has to live with the consequences of having pretended it is for 40 years.
Mark Steyn - Monday,14 November 2005
Western Standard
It seems increasingly hard to recall, but remember the way things were back in the nineties? The conventional wisdom was that Jean Chrétien was an uncouth small-time ward-heeler and Paul Martin was the Mister Super-Competent really running the show. Now Mr. Martin is, de jure as well as de facto, running the show, and it seems clearer every day that he's the ne plus ultra of small-time ward-heelers. That's to say, he was a genius at promoting himself, manipulating the membership and ultimately organizing a coup that delivered himself to power. But now he's got it he hasn't a clue what he wants to do with it--short of hanging on long enough to be in with a shot at replacing the Queen on the 20-dollar bill.
Consider, for example, this report from the Montreal Gazette the other day: "Canada can hold its own in a world of global giants, but a sovereign Quebec wouldn't be able to survive, Prime Minister Paul Martin warned yesterday.
"Asked by members of The Gazette's editorial board how he plans to ensure that another referendum on sovereignty isn't winnable, Martin responded with a business case for national unity.
"He said one of the strongest arguments in his arsenal is the emergence of such global economic giants as China, India and soon Russia to rival the United States.
"It's going to be tough enough for Canada, with all of our assets and a population of 32 to 40 million. But I can tell you, for a country of 8 million to be able to survive as these huge giants collide . . . "
At this point, The Gazette's Elizabeth Thompson was evidently still able to type despite being convulsed in fits of laughter. At least I hope she was in fits of laughter. If any member of the paper's editorial board thought to query Mr. Martin's "business case for national unity," Miss Thompson did not record it.
Almost everything the prime minister said to The Gazette is bunk. For one thing, as argued here on several occasions, Russia is dying--literally: it has the third fastest-shrinking population in the world. As for China and India, a big population is an advantage for a low-wage peasant economy transitioning to advanced industrial status. But population is no advantage at all if you're a settled high-wage lavish-welfare social-democratic state. Canada could have 300-million people and still wouldn't be able to "compete" with China and India: that's the European Union's problem.
One of the recurring themes of this column since the very first issue of the Western Standard has been that, as I wrote way back on our first day, "this is an age of small countries: the big ones--the USSR--and not so big ones--Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia--have gone belly up, and in their wake have bloomed Latvia, Slovakia, Macedonia." One advantage: "Small nations are more cohesive and have less need for buying off ethnic and regional factions." Another: "Of the ten richest countries in the world only four have populations above one million: the United States (260 million people), Switzerland (7 million), Norway (4 million) and Singapore (3 million)."
In other words, countries pretty much the size of Quebec.
Paul Martin's "business case for national unity" is, in fact, the perfect business case against national unity. Fortunately for him, most of his audience seems to have been too uncurious to bother looking up the data. Indeed, even those Québécois hostile to the prime minister signed on to his thesis about big-is-best: "This is a very relevant argument, which Quebecers would do well to consider and which Mr. Martin should promote more often," wrote André Pratte in La Presse.
Honestly. With sovereigntists like this, who needs loyalists? As a small resource-blessed nation with an educated population, Quebec is virtually a textbook model of the conditions needed for a successful nation state. Certainly, it's got more going for it than Slovakia ever had when it decided to break away from what's now the Czech Republic. And the Slovaks have managed to outperform all expectations.
That's the real question: how come Latvia, Slovenia and even East Timor have made a go of it but one of the world's oldest secession movements perpetually seeks refuge in ever more bogus obstacles to what would be a very viable independence?
One way to come at the answer is to look at the current frontrunner for the leadership of the Parti Québécois. He's a fellow called André Boisclair, and, if you don't follow Péquiste politics closely, he's the gay cokehead in the race. M. Boisclair's drug habits became the subject of press attention around the time that, over in London, David Cameron's did. Mr. Cameron is running for the leadership of the British Conservative Party and is the same age as M. Boisclair--39. And it's hardly surprising that someone of that age should have "experimented with drugs" in his youth, when Mr. Cameron is said to have partaken. I assumed M. Boisclair's familiarity with cocaine fell into the same category of long-ago youthful excesses. But it turns out he was doing coke while serving as a minister in the government of Quebec. As Benoit Aubin reported in Maclean’s, "Besieged by reporters, he finally conceded he had 'consumed' while in cabinet. He insisted quite vehemently that he is clean now, and always had his wits about him while at work." Which is more than can be said for most PQ ministers.
After the revelation that he snorted his way through the Bouchard-Landry governments, M. Boisclair's numbers went up and the press started writing stuff about how the "Generation X" "party boy" represented "the new face of Quebec politics" (the Toronto Star) and proved that Quebecers are "ready to embrace an openly gay premier" (The Gazette). You don't have to snort the party line to recognize that M. Boisclair is, in his way, very much the face of the new Quebec.
Let's take it as read that M. Boisclair has been "clean" for the last 18 months, or year and a bit, or whatever it is. Congratulations, if that's not too judgmental. The PQ's leader-to-be--barring any last-minute shock revelations that he likes to spend his evenings quietly at home--is a prime example of what the London School of Economics' Kenneth Minogue called "The New Epicureans." Joseph Conrad wrote of "the shadow line" we all cross from the insouciance of youth to the solidity of responsibilities--marriage, family, careers. But in the contemporary world that line is all but erased: fewer of us marry or have children, and in common-law abortion-addicted Quebec it's fewer than most other jurisdictions; as for careers, in Quebec that involves working for the state or an entity supported by government largesse. Whatever Montreal may once have been famous for, its downtown today is built on three industries--coffee, sex and government.
In a world where "the shadow line" need never be crossed, the point of life is to optimize the celebration of oneself, however one cares to define it. As Professor Minogue writes, "The drift of the contemporary world thus seems to be the removal of necessity from life in order that we can everywhere indulge our 'right to choose.' A woman can be a soldier, a man can be a woman, sex can be a costless indulgence, the old can indulge the appetites of the young, and so on. Society comes increasingly to resemble a fantasy playground."
M. Boisclair is almost too good a personification of the phenomenon: a coked-up gay "party boy" routinely described as having "matinee idol looks." One met such figures in older societies, usually dissolute aristocrats, scions of duchies and marquessates squandering the wealth of centuries. But M. Boisclair doesn't need to do that. The "party boy" has been in government since his election to the National Assembly at the age of 23.
A government-funded hedonist defined by his appetites is, in every sense, "the new face of Quebec politics," though I wonder what some of the old faces from the first generation of Quiet Revolutionaries would make of him. As I wrote here a few months back, "In the sixties, Quebec separatists made the strategically disastrous decision to reject both the Queen and the Pope, the Crown and the cross--and, because they disdained the latter, they'll never be rid of the former." Young Quebecers trend separatist, but there aren't enough of them. Had the province's Catholics maintained traditional birthrates, they would have won their country. Instead, the glorious république slips a little more beyond their grasp within each census.
André Boisclair is a good enough head for a "fantasy playground," but the "Father of his Country"? I think not. If the province ever seriously dreamed of independence, those dreams long ago turned to dust--or, according to taste, white powder. If Quebec is "small," it's because it shrunk itself to the point where "separatism" is not serious--except to English Canada, which has to live with the consequences of having pretended it is for 40 years.