The Federal N.D.P. and Québec

The Federal N.D.P. and Quebec JOSEPH LEVITT When all is said and done, political parties will bear most of the responsibility for dealing with the present constitutional crisis. In this light, the Quebec policy of the federal New Democratic Party, both past and present, takes on a new interest. Only the N.D.P. has had the experience of treating special status as a serious political proposition. Because there now exists a social democratic movement in Quebec, the distinctive N.D.P. argument for federalism has more relevance. And should the Parti Quebecois win the referendum, the N.D.P. may well become crucial in ensuring that Quebec secession takes place peacefully. I When the first N.D.P. convention was called to order in July 1961, the Quiet Revolution was getting under way; the Lesage government was turning to social reform.* In the forefront of those approving these massive changes was the class of French intellectuals, professionals and trade union officials. These people had always shown a passionate concern for the preservation of their cultural identity. Now they were responding to the social consequences of the industrialization of Quebec by becoming committed to reform; in the new Quebec they wished the provincial government to intervene on behalf of greater social and economic equality. A fundamental change was taking place in Quebec politics; many of the intellectual elite, while retaining their nationalist views, were becoming social democrats. All this presented an intriguing possibility for the N.D.P. convention. The delegates knew that the Quebec Federation of Labour had already endorsed the new party. Was it not possible to achieve an electoral breakthrough? Hitherto the *For much of the historical background I have relied on Desmond Morton, NDP The Dream ofPower (Toronto, 1974). 118 old Quebec C.C.F., few of whom spoke French, had been for the most part confined to English Montreal. Now through these articulate leftist nationalists, the N.D.P. might at last be able to reach French working people. The delegates understood that to come to power in Ottawa, the N.D.P. must be strong in Quebec; thus they must make concessions to the nationalist aspirations of these potentially valuable francophone social democrats. At the same time, they truly believed that Quebec had a right to preserve its own culture. Consequently they adopted a resolution affirming the existence of two nations in the federal system. During the next few years, the party moved towards a policy of special status for Quebec. By the middle sixties, premier Lesage was demanding a revised constitution; his successor, Daniel Johnson, was warning that the choice was between equality and independence. Most Quebec N.D.P.'ers agreed that a new status was necessary for their province. What probably made this idea easier to sell to the federal leadership was that sympathy for Quebec aspirations evidently attracted votes. In 1958, the C.C.F. had fielded twentynine candidates and collected 2.3 percent of the poll. Seven years later, in 1965, the seventy-one N.D.P. hopefuls won 12.3 percent of the ballots, a substantial gain. In that election the federal N.D.P. conceded that Quebec must be regarded differently. The N.D.P. convention of 1967 made this point explicit: "Quebec's relation to the federal government will differ in certain respects from the other provinces. In social security , town planning, education and community development, Quebec must have the right and fiscal resources to adopt its own programs and policies in place of those designed and financed by the federal government.'' Still this resolution was not as radical as it sounded. The N.D.P. was proposing no new federal powers for Quebec. Any time English Canada wished the federal government to take over a provincial field which touched ''the design of a community's way of life", Quebec should have the right to opt out without financial penalty . The N.D.P. wished Ottawa to finance eq~ality in fields such as housing, social security Revue d'etudes canadiennes and medical care; special status would enable the federal government to enter certain provincial jurisdictions without wounding Quebec sensibilities . In the next election...