THE last time a Conservative prime minister of Canada tried to change the Constitution to benefit the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec, it destroyed his party and almost broke the country in two. Some 15 years have passed since then and despite the risks, Prime Minister Stephen Harper now seems ready to explore reopening the constitutional file. The reason is simple - Harper's Conservatives only have a minority of seats in the federal Parliament, and Quebec is the obvious place to go hunting for more. When Canada updated its constitution in 1982, a series of arguments over Quebec's rights meant the province did not sign the document. This sense of exclusion still rankles with many French speakers in the province of 7.6 million people. Most of them back the separatist Bloc Quebecois, which holds 48 of Quebec's 75 federal seats and vows to defend the province's interests in Ottawa. Some Bloc backers are nationalists who want a better deal for Quebec while staying part of Canada. The Conservatives have 10 Quebec seats and are aiming for enough Quebec nationalist votes to win 40, enough to give the party a majority government. Harper has tried hard to appeal to nationalist voters and in late 2006 the government pushed through a parliamentary motion declaring that Quebec is a nation inside Canada, a hugely symbolic gesture that had little practical meaning. Last week, Labor Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn said Quebecers could expect more constitutional meat on the motion if they helped elect a Conservative majority. His comments brought back bitter memories from the early 1990s, when then Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney launched two abortive pain-filled bids to change the Constitution to make Quebec feel happier inside Canada. “If constitutional talks were a road, it would feature large yellow signs: Danger, earthquake ahead ... The ground is not fertile. Those with partisan ideas of tilling that unforgiving soil may wish to remember those who went before them,” said the Globe and Mail. Nationalists in Quebec, meanwhile, said Mulroney was not going far enough, and formed the Bloc. In the 1993 election, the Conservatives, squeezed by malcontent on two flanks, were demolished, winning just two seats. Separatist sentiment continued to grow and in 1995, a Quebec referendum only just failed to back independence. The moment was hugely traumatic for most Canadians. “Have the Conservatives forgotten all the searing, gut-wrenching anxiety and turmoil of those events in Canadian history? Or, worse, are they cavalier enough to resurrect, for partisan electoral purposes, all the risks that inevitably pop up whenever the phrase ‘Quebec and the Constitution' rears its ugly head?” the Montreal Gazette said after Blackburn's comments. The opposition Liberals accused the government of harboring a hidden agenda and Blackburn quickly backtracked. Yet Harper's control over his government is so tight that few believe Blackburn had spoken without Harper's approval. The prime minister himself was less categorical about shutting the door forever. “I don't sense among the Canadian population, or the population of Quebec ... any desire to engage in constitutional discussions in the near future and the government has no plans to do that,” he told a news conference on Tuesday. Changing the Constitution requires the agreement of all 10 provinces and few premiers expressed enthusiasm for the idea. In any case, no one seems to know what extra powers Quebec might be given under the terms of a new constitutional deal. Antonia Maioni, director of McGill University's Institute for the Study of Canada, said the Conservatives have built up expectations sufficiently that they would have to promise more to Quebec the next time the nation goes to the polls. “It's going to be difficult for them to run on the same platform as in the last election when they haven't really delivered (anything) past the symbolic,” she told Reuters. Harper, once a member of the Reform Party, once opposed giving Quebec special treatment on the grounds it would be unfair to the West, in particular the oil-rich province of Alberta. Yet the political landscape has changed so dramatically over the past decade that Harper may be calculating that the old antagonisms are fading. Roger Gibbins, president of the Alberta-based Canada West Foundation, said Albertans are now much more interested in the challenges posed by the oil-rich province's booming economy. “Quebec is seen more as a declining region and the focus in the West just seems to be so emphatically on what's happening (here) ... that there is kind of an opening, I guess, for a national government to move on this,” he said. __
