Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 28, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba A14 saturday free press october 1995 of keeping it together emotion demonstrated on the streets of Montreal yesterday will show any que Becer with an open mind that there is a will to keep the country the next step is to find a if the rally Good will could be bottled and reopened when it will next be need Canada has a fighting there Are a few Basic facts of history to keep in the country Constitution was Patriate with an Amend ing formula and a charter of rights and freedoms with out the consent of Quebec National there was a separatist government in Quebec at the time and it was highly unlikely that any agreement would have been Good enough for Rene Levesque and his that explains How it happened but it does not heal the Quebe cers loved Rene the perceived insult fuels emotions to set things every Premier agreed to a que Bec round of constitutional Reform in the Meech Lake Accord was a modest document but fell apart after governments changed in Manitoba and As time passed More canadians digested the Deal and found they didst like it the Charlottetown Accord failed two years later for similar the Choice canadians faced during those years was Between the status quo and modest constitutional the Choice Quebe cers face monday is Between Canada and regardless of the referendums sooner or later we will All be faced with that same Canadas Genius has been the Freedom it offers citizens to express their identities without compromising any sometimes it seems that such an emphasis on Dif Ference is at the expense of what unites that is the Freedom to be different is precisely what it is that unites the privilege of being Canadian regard less of linguistic and religious peculiarities gives us the strength to be the passion to be we Are so in that Quebec governments have saved the French language from a threat posed by immigration and a Low birth a Lan Guage Law so severe that it sent thousands of Anglo phones packing has accomplished what it set out to do within the framework of Canadian what we will need to keep this country together Are major changes of attitude and minor amendments to written we will need heaping doses of nation Al will and common the so evident yesterday in is the lubricant to make it All if we want a we had better make sure we love que Bec As much on tuesday morning As we Are telling its people we do a Symbol of Unity As the referendum on Quebec sovereignty draws and the yes Side continues to score Well in the it is hard to resist the temptation to look to hockey As a metaphor for the politicians and intellectuals like to discuss the situation of Quebec and Canada by talking about the lessons to be Learned from the breakup of the former Czechoslovakia or likening our situation to the divorce of a married Cou and there is nothing wrong with but if one really wants to talk about what Canada is and what would be lost if it Breaks there is no More powerful analogy than Canadas National game it is the Only language that everybody in Canada under within that it is Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux who Are the obvious symbols of what this coun try has achieved and can achieve if it stays for much of their careers they have been but for three nights in 1991 they were mates on team Canada in the last Canada a team that was to write yet another glorious chapter in this our hockey the script could not have been More perfect for the Canadian nationalist Canada Defeated the soviet Union in a three game series to win the the Victo Ries sealed by the game winning goals scored in dramatic fashion by assisted by Lemieux and standing the hockey play like the parts of Canada they Are Formida ble stars in their own each with distinct characteristics and each capable of surviving without the United in a common cause on the ice against the they Are a magical manifestation of All the things that make Canada the country the United nations heralds As the Best in the it is impossible to know whether Canada will Ever pro Duce hockey talents like Gretzky and Lemieux and it is impossible to know whether Canada will Ever be a More harmonious country than we have but if Quebec and Canada go their separate we will never know what great things we could have achieved Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 Rudy email Ca Duncan Mcmonagle executive editor Brian editorial Page editor directors Calvin Verne Kalichuk human resources Stephan Majorki operations Perry Nixdorf advertising Glenn 1995 Winnipeg free a division of newspapers division of Thomson Canada limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Manitoba r2x pm 6977000 a member of the Manitoba press Council vol 123 to 323 Canada Post sales agreement no 563395 editorials Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion j Equality of civil rights Brian Cole 6977044 talking Back to the television these have been trying Days for those of us who live in what some Are pleased to Call the rest of watching the referendum debate on television it is difficult to escape the feeling that the curious place called theres of Canada is Little More than an appendage of a hinterland to the Ruri Tanian kingdom presided Over by Bouchard and watching from the sidelines can be a frustrating business for those who feel they have no voice in this important after it is our and we should have some say with regard to its nobody wants to sit at Home and watch in a television special the breakup of the nation we have All helped to build Over Many but we seem to have Little i dont know about but i seem to be spending a lot of time these Days talking Back to the television it started while i was spending a week on Holiday in Quebec City with my wife earlier this it was supposed to be a rest cure at the end of a Busy we spent the Days tramping the streets of old Quebec and plodding Over the Plains of Abra Ham following the movements of the armies of Wolfe and we took no sides in the historic Montcalm is As much a hero of our history As Wolfe and a modern Cana looking is mistaken to Christopher Dafoe think in terms of them and in the evening after dinner we watched which to a great of discussions of the referendum we heard Jacques Parizeau and others telling Quebe cers that Theresa Ocanada hated that they had been cheat deceived and forced to their Knees by the nine bully provinces and the Federal govern you can Only sit and listen to that sort of thing for so Long and then you have to it is irrational and somewhat ridiculous to address remarks to a moving picture on a television but you cannot help you hear your own voice correcting some historical Point that the Man on the screen has you hear yourself demand ing More evidence to support the charge that Theresa Ocanada has consistently striven to keep Quebec Barefoot and on its can that be you who just shouted shut up to a flickering image on the Booby Box where will this madness end it got worse when we returned to Manitoba after our in que Bec we could always have a brisk and civilized Exchange of views with our who was supporting the yes when we met on the Back Home we had the feeling that we were watching the referendum through the wrong end of a Tele there has been an inescapable feeling and others have told me that they Felt it too that events sur rounding the referendum were Tak ing place on some other planet several Light years out in Theresa Ocanada we have no vote and our leaders appear to have More or less taken a vow of this May be part of the grand strategy of the no but it leaves the average Canadian with an enormous sense of you feel like raising a singing 0 Canada or getting on the next plane for we watch it All or the bits that the net works will let us watch on Televik like a football game with National reporters on hand to explain it to once again we find ourselves talk ing Back to one night last week Csc new world at inordinate a yes Side rally featuring the comedy team of Parizeau and Bouchard plus that Well known parliamentary pensioner Marcel former freeloading minister in the Mulroney who once personally accepted an Academy award that others had is now a hot separatist and his welled face seems to appear on the screen almost every time you tune the rally also Fea tured a poet Reading a poem about his old Mother who spent years on her Knees scrubbing floors for Les we All saw the significance of that for old lady read que the leaders Parizeau and Bouchard stood behind the poet and adopted their most soulful the urge to talk Back was the Csc has provided us with the Opportunity to talk Back not Only to the politicians but to the reporters and commentators As the corporations National reporters invariably end each report with a kind of min editorial remarks such As the prime minister certainly has a lot of explaining to do after today flip Flop and the urge to Tell them to drop dead or go Back to journal ism school is easily even if they cant hear but in the end it int at some Point along this bumpy Road the people of Theresa Ocanada will have to have their it is our country too and that country includes Christopher Dafoe is editor of the his column appears Satur Jacques makes Canadas Case it was a thursday afternoon in the Spring of 1990 and i was sit Ting in my office in the Legisla Ture when the phone it was can in would i be interested in debating pm Leader Jacques Parizeau on their prime time show crossfire with Pat Buchanan and Michael Kinsley the following Day the subject was the Meech Lake Accord and the future of the acerbic Buchanan had just written a syndicated column salivating Over the prospects of the Best acquisition Opportunity for the unites states since Alaska was bought from the Why me i asked the person on the other end of the it seemed that Clyde Frank Sharon Carstairs and Gary Filmon were either not around or not inter i was somewhere Down the list and they must have been getting Des at the i was Deputy Leader of the provincial liberals and a member of Manitoba Al party task Force on the using More Gall than i said As it turned Parizeau made All my arguments for the French language and culture had never been stronger than they were he i there is a Ris ing class of French entrepreneurs doing business with the world with Confidence and i we Are a mature society that wants the Freedom to express its unique of i the Point i made was that All those admirable accomplishments were possible within the Canadian Feder the arguments i advanced arose out of a belief that Canada was a country tolerant of diversity and flexible enough to accommodate that was a rational approach and will work for but what we have now is emotion that threatens to tear the country until this one Side had All the emotion the other Side had All the last May i was in Quebec City for a few roaming the streets Chat Ting with people about the referee about Quebec and about other things on their Only five months passions were nowhere to be sovereignty was not on because health Edu cation and fixing the streets were More pressing than nationalist Theo the major Battle of language had already been immigrants were beginning to assimilate to the French greeks and italians were speaking French to each other in the the demographic time bomb had stopped ticking and had been replaced by a comfortable qui even a sense of Security in what was missing from the mix was the kind of excitement that Rene Levesque could instill among Quebe cers but Jacques Parizeau could at the Lucien Bouchard was still recover ing from his bout with the flesh eat ing not yet fully Back in the stride that we see Bouchard is Back and so is the too much of it for anyone who thinks that logic and common sense should pre Vail when it comes to running a coun try or splitting one up for that if you can find a single argument in Bouchard rhetoric that concludes How Quebe cers will be better off in a separate then i have missed the Only argument Jacques Parizeau agrees Quebec has prospered in is that Quebe cers will have greater control Over their not that the end result of that control will mean More and better a lower a cleaner Lawrence River or better run but they will be our our our pollution and our Bouchard uses passion to vilify prime minister Jean he exploits that overblown image of Chretien More amplified by the Media elite and the political junkies than by anyone else of a Toady to English the sellout who stabbed Quebec during the night of the Long in the French ver Sion of his address to the nation on Bouchard attacked the prime minister he was Down in the said Deputy prime minister Sheila he did it refute Chretien he just tried to discredit the so How does the rationalist combat All that emotion the i is remember Pierre Trudeau Appeal to Quebe cers Dur ing the last week of the 1980 referendum Campaign he talked of what we had built together As a what accomplishments we shared and what kind of future we could Hope to this was the supreme rationalist the politician More than any other of his generation scorned the Triumph of passion Over but it was not the exposition of pure reason that excited the crowds Back it was a rising a Pride in Canada and a Call to reject throwing it All away that had the peo ple jumping up and canadians have finally started to get All those expressions of affection for Quebec coming from individuals across the land is Shak ing Loose Canadian its about Jim can is a free press editorial his column appears on sat ;