From: clamen@CS.CMU.EDU (Stewart Clamen)
Subject: GAZETTE/AUBIN: DEEP DOWN -- Poll reveals much about Quebec's view of Canada
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Reply-To: clamen+@CS.CMU.EDU
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 20:38:09 GMT
X-Posted-From: byron.sp.cs.cmu.edu
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu


This column orginally appeared in the (Montreal) Gazette of Saturday
June 20, 1992.  It is redistributed with permission.

				--*--

			      DEEP DOWN
	   Poll reveals much about Quebec's view of Canada

			   by Benoit Aubin


Liberal leader Jean Chre'tien was right about one thing:  Quebecers do
love their Rockies.  Chre'tien become the _be^te noire_ of Quebec
nationalists during the 1980 referendum when he used his lowliest
Que'be'cois vernacular to poke fun at "les se'paratistes" and to drive
home the pint that voting for them would mean Quebecers lose "their"
Rockies.

   Chre'tien paid a political price for winning the battle in 1980; a
large segment of the French-speaking electorate today still views him
as a shameless demagogue, ready to play on the most basic emotions and
fears of the voters to win their support.

   But a CROP opinion survey, published yesterday in l'Actualite'
magazine, suggests that the Chre'tien approach to referendum politics
would pay the same dividends today.

   Quebecers, the poll found, are still very deeply attached to Canada
and to most things Canadian.

   "The attachment of Quebecers to the national symbols of Canada --
most of which are former French-Canadian emblems anyway -- remains a
major source of inertia against separation," reporter Luc Chartrand
writes.

   The poll -- described more as an attitude survey than a standard,
voter-intention poll -- found 73 per cent of Quebecers would agree
with the statement that "Being a Canadian is very important to me."

   An equal number of Quebecers -- 71 per cent -- agree with the
phrase, "Being a Canadian is part of my personal identity."  Close to
40 per cent of self-described separatists agreed with the statement.

   The magazine quotes McGill pollster Maurice Pinard, who has tracked
the "Canadian streak" in the Que'be'cois psyche for more than three
decades.  "Attachment to Canada was as strong in 1960 and in 1980 as
it seems to be today ... What strikes me is that this Canadian
identity (of Quebecers) has resisted 30 years of independentist
politics and the shock of Meech."


HOW ABOUT THE PARTI CANADIEN?

   Analyzing the polling data, reporter Jean-Franc,ois Lise'e
concluded, tongue in cheek, that the Parti Quebe'be'cois has only one
thing to do to carry a majority in the upcoming referendum: it should
change its name to Parti Canadien.

   As things stand now, the CROP poll found, a meagre 34 per cent of
Quebecers would respond yes to a "hard" question on separation: "Would
you be in favor of Quebec becoming an independent country?"

   But if, like Lise'e's "Parti Canadien", the question offered
independence for Quebec while promising to keep the trademark name
Canada, the maple leaf and O Canada!  -- forcing "les Anglais" to find
another name and other symbols for themselves -- the Yes response
would rise by 20 percentage points, to 54 per cent, the poll found.

   Former separatist guru Pierre Bourgault, interviewed in the
magazine, agrees that Quebecers' deep emotional ties to Canada are one
of the most series problems challenging the separatist forces.

   "For a large number of Quebecers the moment of separation will be
like an emigration of sorts."

   Novelist Jacques Godbout, who contributed to l'Actualite's poll
report, writes that Quebecers "all have a piece of Canada in their
mind: a cousin in Alberta, pages from Gabrielle Roy's books, a friend
in Caraquet, a painting by Alex Colville or a song by Leonard Cohen
... In our collective memory we are every bit as much Canadian as
we are Quebe'be'cois.  And we remember that the French of Canada are
those who first explored this continent."

  Jean Pare', the magazine's hard-nosed publisher, has a much less
romantic interpretation of the data.


LAPSED CANADIANS

   "Let's face the obvious.  If after 30 years of "inde'pendentisme,"
nine years of PQ government, one referendum and 10 years of sterile
threats, Quebecers have not yet separated, it's because they don't
want to leave Canada," he writes in an editorial.

   Quebecers, in Pare's view, are lapsed Canadians, much as they are
lapsed Catholics.  They don't go to Sunday mass, but want to be
baptised, married, and buried by the church.  "Quebecers love Canada,
with a secret tenderness, a tad embarrassed."

   Pare' opposes separation.  For Quebecers to give up on Canada now
would be tantamount to finishing off what was started with the victory
of the British over the French in Quebec in 1759: "losing your
territory, after have lost political power and majority."

   So Quebecers are Canadians, deep down in their hearts.  The problem
remains: they are not satisfied with the current federal system, which
insists on describing Quebec as one among 10 equal provinces,
regardless of the fact nine others speak English.

   "Quebecers are a nation within a nation, (and their province) a
country within a country, and that won't change," Pare' writes.  But
he has a warning for those tempted to celebrate the end of
constitutional squabbling: "Far from becoming McCanadians, Quebecers
will become increasingly distinct and different Canadians, and without
apologies."



--
Stewart M. Clamen			Internet:    clamen@cs.cmu.edu
School of Computer Science		UUCP: 	     uunet!"clamen@cs.cmu.edu"
Carnegie Mellon University		Phone: 	     +1 412 268 2145
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Newsgroups: can.politics