The Struggle for Quebec: From Referendum to Referendum by Robert Young (review)

humanities 567 An important part of the book deals with televised news. The author reminds us that televised news constitutes a constructed discourse intended to influence and shape an audience's views. This question refers to an important issue of media power. Although the study does not look at those who read or watched the news, it would have been interesting to study the audience. Was the audience captive? Did it ignore its critical abilities when watching the news coverage? This book is interesting because of the issue of media power. Also, it offers the opportunity to revisit the 1980 referendum through media glasses. (MARCEL MARTEL) Robert Young. The Struggle for Quebec: From Referendum to Referendum McGill-Queen's University Press. 210. $55.00, $22.95 As we move into the new century, Canada's enduring political conflict with the Québécois secessionist movement is entering a new, and perhaps, final phase. Quebecers, it now appears, will have to chose between, on the one hand, a 'lucid integration into Confederation' (to use a felicitous phrase of Maurice Lamontagne, a former advisor to prime ministers Louis St Laurent and Lester Pearson) and, on the other, an independent Quebec republic competing on its own in a globalizing world. Readers can reap considerable insights, if not assurances, from Robert Young's succinct analysis of the 1995 Quebec referendum, the political fallout from that near-death experience, the complex manoeuvring towards the next referendum, and a range of six scenarios if a majority of Quebecers vote Yes next time around. This book's six chapters initially constituted the new chapters of the 1998 revised and amended version of Young's brilliant and controversial The Secession of Quebec and the Future of Canada (1994). In his original study, Young made a powerful case B based on his reading of Canada's economic and political alternatives, a comparative analysis of the internal logic of secession, and the dynamics of Quebec's secession movement B for the inevitability of Quebec's `velvet secession.' While Québécois secessionists applauded Young's auspicious forecasting, his political science colleagues and Jean Chrétien's best political advisors either remained unconvinced or simply chose to ignore his warning. Once the secessionists came within fifty thousand votes of triggering their patently unconstitutional Unilateral Declaration of Independence legislation, Young looked like a genius. A careful study of the dynamics of the 1995 referendum and its aftermath has drawn Young to a very different conclusion about the next referendum. What factors in the rather complex high drama of Canada's secessionist politics have changed to justify his new position? The federalist forces in Ottawa and Quebec were caught completely off guard throughout the entire 1994B95 referendum campaign. Federalists were 568 letters in canada 1999 outmanoeuvred at every stage as they failed to perceive the impending`inevitability' of secession. Grossly overconfident about victory, Ottawa initially refused to ice a team. Then, a shortsighted Prime Minister Chrétien handed the campaign over to Daniel Johnson, a plodding provincial Liberal leader, and Jean Charest, the federal Tory leader. He also insisted that Pierre Trudeau remain silent. Despite Guy Bertrand's repeated warnings, Ottawa refused to contest the legality of Jacques Parizeau's secession/referendum bill. Incapable of imagining defeat, federalists were totally inept at achieving victory. A panic-stricken Chrétien intervened only in the last week, when private polls showed the Yes side winning by as much as 5 per cent, to prevent a disastrous political meltdown. How had this happened? With support for 'sovereignty' at 45 per cent in October 1994, Parizeau shrewdly readjusted his strategy and tactics B a cleverly devised secession referendum Bill 1 in concert with a 'rainbow coalition' of Yes supporters B so as to achieve his goal of 50 per cent plus one. First, he allowed Bouchard to redefine the question from outright secession to 'sovereigntypartnership ' and then he used Bouchard's charismatic personality at the right moment in the campaign to reassure Franco-Quebecers that secession would create no serious economic or political disruptions. A majority of Franco-Quebecers were convinced that the Rest of Canada (ROC), desperate to avoid major economic hardships, would agree quickly to...