The New Quebec Challenge to North American Diplomacy

THE NEW QUEBEC CHALLENGE TO. NORTH AMERICAN DIPLOMACY Alec Stone Xn early 1983 a curious overture from a Québec government minister elicited a remarkably forceful rejection by Washington—the first official U.S. comment on the "Québec question" since the defeat of the 1980 referendum on sovereignty-association. The State Department pronouncement , concerning a future "common market" comprising the United States, Canada, and an independent Québec, is also the first public American response to a new Québec "foreign policy," marked by a shift away from that province's traditional preoccupation with France and cultural affairs toward a closer trade and commercial relationship with the United States. This article will examine the new strategy, the recent U.S. response, and some of the problems an aggressive Québec "politique américaine" poses for the handling of U.S.-Canada relations. The year 1982 was a watershed in the development of Quebec's international relations. Claude Morin, the minister of intergovernmental affairs since the Parti Québécois (pq) came to power in 1976, resigned his post in January following a series of political events and personal defeats in 1980-81. Before entering electoral politics Morin had served three different governments in Québec City and, in the mid-1960s, was among the first to advocate a strong Québec presence on the international scene. He pressed for, supervised, and eventually orchestrated the activities of twenty-two Québec delegations in fourteen different countries around the world. Morin framed the policy of l'êtapisme—the gradual progression toward an independent Québec—which became the pq strategy for Alec Stone is a candidate for the master's degree at SAIS ('84). Mr. Stone received his undergraduate degree from Western Washington University, and is currently working at the American Society of International Law. 119 120 SAIS REVIEW accession to sovereignty. In 1974 he convinced the pq of the need to dissociate, practically if not conceptually, the party's election from its ultimate goal of separation. The plan succeeded, and in the 1976 provincial elections the pq was brought to power with the understanding that a mandate to negotiate with the rest of Canada on independence would depend on the result of a popular referendum. Morin became Quebec's negotiator on constitutional matters as well as the chief architect of the sovereignty-association referendum strategy.1 His resignation in January 1982 followed the defeat of the referendum, the isolation of Québec during and after the struggle for constitutional patriation, and finally, the purge of GétapL·me at the pq convention in December 1981 (a move to censure Morin and Québec Prime Minister René Lévesque was averted only after Lévesque threatened to resign). By February of 1982 sovereignty was still "the highest priority of the government," but had been separated, at least formally, from "association." The patriation of the Canadian Constitution also was achieved in 1982—the culmination of a historic series of events in Canada beginning with the sovereignty-association campaign in early 1980. Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the Parti Libéral du Québec urged the Québec electorate to vote non, implying that a "non" vote on separation "would introduce an era of harmonious transfer of authority from Ottawa to Québec City."2 However, the Trudeau plan to patriate the Canadian Constitution, conceived in the disarray following the referendum 's defeat, had none of the attributes of a promised "renewed federalism." The plan, originally supported by only Ontario and New Brunswick, consisted essentially of an amending formula and a "charter of rights and freedoms," and did not directly address the division of powers between the provinces and the federal government. Québec was left isolated as the only nonsignatory of the constitutional accord when the united front, comprised of the other eight provinces opposed to the federal plan, collapsed in November 1981. Despite persistent Québec opposition, the proclamation that brought the Constitution Act into force was signed in Ottawa by the queen in April 1982. The charter has already had the effect, inter alia, of limiting provincial jurisdiction in the critical 1.The official text of the sovereignty-association...