Divided disloyalties
Mark Steyn - Monday,19 September 2005
Western Standard
Well, Michaëlle Jean is going to be Canada's next governor general, and there isn't a thing you or I or Buckingham Palace can do about it. So we'll all give a big Canadian shrug, and get used to it. But, before we do, I think it's worth pausing to marvel at the stunningly perfect symbolism in Mme. Jean's appointment.
Two weeks ago, I thought she was just an undistinguished CBC hackette with a higher than usual cluster of identity-group bonus points. But then we got the highlights reel from the FLQ cocktail-party circuit, with Mme. Jean and her consort whooping it up with a lot of leathery old terrorists, or, at any rate, terrorist sympathizers. FLQ veteran Pierre Vallierès says, "Not only should Martinique go to independence, but to revolution, as Quebec should."
"Yes," agrees the soon-to-be vicereine. "One doesn't give independence, one takes it."
Her husband, "filmmaker" Jean-Daniel Lafond, was more explicit: "A sovereign Quebec? An independent Quebec? Yes, I applaud with both hands and I promise to attend all the St-Jean-Baptiste Day parades."
But I'll bet he never thought he'd be attending as Her Majesty the Queen's official representative. Only in America, as Yogi Berra would say.
The suggestion that cheerleaders for revolution and secession are perhaps not what one is looking for in the official embodiment of the constitutional order evidently rankled with Michaëlle and Jean-Daniel and their pals. The Globe and Mail quoted "one well-placed source" as follows:
"She kept saying, 'Look, I've accepted the post of governor general. Do people think we're hypocrites or crazy people?' What more obvious expression of commitment to the country could you make than say I'm going to take the governor general's post, particularly when you're her, coming from the milieu that she does."
Let's hold it there for a moment: "Do people think we're hypocrites or crazy people?" Crazy, no. Hypocrites, well . . . Consider for a moment who funded their rise to what passes for the top in Canadian culture. SRC, the francophone arm of the CBC, is a renowned hotbed of separatists, none of whom sees anything "hypocritical" in living off an institution of the Canadian state. The film subsidy bodies have lavished a small fortune on the unwatched "films" of Jean-Daniel Lafond over the years--Telefilm Canada put up $89,500 for Le dernier cigare de Fidel Castro, $135,000 for Le temps des barbares. . . If it's not hypocritical for a separatist to have the tab for his movies picked up by Canadian taxpayers, why would it be any more hypocritical to stick 'em with the bill for his food and lodging while he pretends to represent a monarchy and a state neither of which he's ever accepted the legitimacy of?
Look ahead a few years. Another convivial FLQ reunion party in Montreal. Some leathery old hanger-on for the murderers of Pierre Laporte is sipping an agreeable Bordeaux with Their Excellencies, now retired from Rideau Hall. "Ah, Jean-Daniel," he says. "That must've been pretty crazy, that first trip to Windsor Castle, hein?" And M. Lafond will smile conspiratorially, and make a few condescending remarks about the Royal couple, and the appallingness of the food, and the draughtiness of the bedroom, etc. , etc. And he and Michaëlle and the FLQistes will all have a good laugh at the most exquisite Québécois jest of them all: the sovereigntists who got to be Queen for a day--or half-decade.
What's the salient feature of the now famous encounter between Mme. Jean and her husband and the grandees of the separatist movement? Not the words, though so many Canadians found them offensive.
As it happens, I don't. In fact, I agree with a few of them--especially "One doesn't give independence, one takes it." That's certainly true of the United States: the 13 colonies didn't wait to be given independence, they took it. Which prompts the thought: why hasn't Quebec taken it? In most recent cases--from Croatia to East Timor--those who want to take independence have to stand up to forces determined to prevent them. But, if Quebec wanted to take it, who's going to stand in their way? Canada has already conceded that, in the event of secession, its armed forces could not restore the constitutional order in Quebec. And, as we know from Mme. Jean's SRC colleagues, the rebels have already seized the radio station.
So why then is Quebec still part of Canada? When the secessionist movement got going in earnest, the map of the world was frozen: very few breakaway regions ever got to break away. But these days just about everywhere that wants to be a country is one: Slovenia's a sovereign nation, so's Slovakia. But Quebec is further away from statehood than ever.
Why? Well, go back to that cocktail chatter: Quebec should move not just to independence but to revolution, says one. Amen to that, brother, says another. I applaud with both my hands, says a third.
And the salient feature is that none of them means it. Oh, to be sure, long ago, some of them did, and things got a little out of hand, and they planted some bombs and kidnapped a couple of people. But now? Well, if an agency of the Government of Canada gives Jean-Daniel Lafond a big enough six- figure sum, maybe he'll make a "film" about Quebec independence. But that's about it.
Say what you like about M. Lafond's hero Castro, but at least Fidel got off his butt and held the revolution. If you want the best take on the Michaëlle Jean set, ask someone who knows: Denys Arcand. His marvelous, rueful elegy for Quebec has an unforgettable scene in which a bunch of old Quebec radicals and self-described "sensual socialists" gather for one last boozy get-together at the home of a dying friend. As he puts it, they were witty and clever and subscribers to all the fashionable "isms" of the last four decades. Name an "ism," they were hot for it.
But sometimes you can outwit yourself: when the Péquiste spinners replaced "separatist" with the weasel evasion of "sovereigntist," what really were they communicating? That they weren't serious. Jacques Parizeau's official position in the 1995 referendum was that he'd expect to be treated as president de la république if he showed up at the UN, even though, to gain admission to the building, he'd be using a passport declaring him to be a subject of Sa Majesté la Reine. Like M. Parizeau, invited to vote "oui" or "non" most of Quebec's "separatists" and "federalists" instead tick "both of the above" and "neither of the above."
The question is not whether Mme. Jean and M. Lafond were once separatists and are now federalists. What a terribly unQuebecois way of looking at it. The new viceregal couple are pseudo-separatists and pseudo-revolutionaries and, as such, see no problem in also being pseudo-federalists and pseudo-monarchists. Thus, our Governor General's terse statement in response to the controversy: "We are fully committed to Canada."
"Committed" is like "sovereigntist"--a word designed to pass as a stand-in for something more principled. My old comrade David Frum noted its deployment by politicians embroiled in sex scandals: "My wife and I remain committed to our marriage." If the question is whether the wandering pol has been faithful, "committed" doesn't quite answer it. Likewise, if the question is whether Mme. Jean and M. Lafond have borne true and faithful allegiance to the Queen of Canada, being fluffily "committed" doesn't quite answer it. We call it an "oath of allegiance" because it means more than an "oath of commitment," but Mme. Jean, who'll be presiding over the citizenship ceremonies of thousands of new Canadians in the years ahead, seems to recoil from anything quite so fierce and uncomplicated. Allegiance? Well, it depends who's buying the Sauvignon.
Why are the Liberals still in office? Because in spring everyone from Paul Martin to Jack Layton to Belinda Stronach pounced on Stephen Harper for the gross disloyalty and irresponsibility of cozying up to Quebec separatists. But it's perfectly okay to put a couple who've spent their entire adult lives cozying up to Quebec separatists--and terrorists--in Rideau Hall, as the personification of Canada's constitutional identity.
Which in a way they are. For what could better sum up our decayed Dominion than a faux-separatist turned faux-federalist? An ersatz-revolutionary and ersatz-monarchist celebrating her own personal diversity without believing, in any meaningful sense, in either the Republic of Quebec or the Dominion of Canada. In yoking so explicitly the nullities of contemporary separatism and federalism, Paul Martin has accidentally summed up the state of our country: the decisive dynamic of our politics these past several decades--Ottawa vs. Quebec--is an utter fraud.
Mark Steyn - Monday,19 September 2005
Western Standard
Well, Michaëlle Jean is going to be Canada's next governor general, and there isn't a thing you or I or Buckingham Palace can do about it. So we'll all give a big Canadian shrug, and get used to it. But, before we do, I think it's worth pausing to marvel at the stunningly perfect symbolism in Mme. Jean's appointment.
Two weeks ago, I thought she was just an undistinguished CBC hackette with a higher than usual cluster of identity-group bonus points. But then we got the highlights reel from the FLQ cocktail-party circuit, with Mme. Jean and her consort whooping it up with a lot of leathery old terrorists, or, at any rate, terrorist sympathizers. FLQ veteran Pierre Vallierès says, "Not only should Martinique go to independence, but to revolution, as Quebec should."
"Yes," agrees the soon-to-be vicereine. "One doesn't give independence, one takes it."
Her husband, "filmmaker" Jean-Daniel Lafond, was more explicit: "A sovereign Quebec? An independent Quebec? Yes, I applaud with both hands and I promise to attend all the St-Jean-Baptiste Day parades."
But I'll bet he never thought he'd be attending as Her Majesty the Queen's official representative. Only in America, as Yogi Berra would say.
The suggestion that cheerleaders for revolution and secession are perhaps not what one is looking for in the official embodiment of the constitutional order evidently rankled with Michaëlle and Jean-Daniel and their pals. The Globe and Mail quoted "one well-placed source" as follows:
"She kept saying, 'Look, I've accepted the post of governor general. Do people think we're hypocrites or crazy people?' What more obvious expression of commitment to the country could you make than say I'm going to take the governor general's post, particularly when you're her, coming from the milieu that she does."
Let's hold it there for a moment: "Do people think we're hypocrites or crazy people?" Crazy, no. Hypocrites, well . . . Consider for a moment who funded their rise to what passes for the top in Canadian culture. SRC, the francophone arm of the CBC, is a renowned hotbed of separatists, none of whom sees anything "hypocritical" in living off an institution of the Canadian state. The film subsidy bodies have lavished a small fortune on the unwatched "films" of Jean-Daniel Lafond over the years--Telefilm Canada put up $89,500 for Le dernier cigare de Fidel Castro, $135,000 for Le temps des barbares. . . If it's not hypocritical for a separatist to have the tab for his movies picked up by Canadian taxpayers, why would it be any more hypocritical to stick 'em with the bill for his food and lodging while he pretends to represent a monarchy and a state neither of which he's ever accepted the legitimacy of?
Look ahead a few years. Another convivial FLQ reunion party in Montreal. Some leathery old hanger-on for the murderers of Pierre Laporte is sipping an agreeable Bordeaux with Their Excellencies, now retired from Rideau Hall. "Ah, Jean-Daniel," he says. "That must've been pretty crazy, that first trip to Windsor Castle, hein?" And M. Lafond will smile conspiratorially, and make a few condescending remarks about the Royal couple, and the appallingness of the food, and the draughtiness of the bedroom, etc. , etc. And he and Michaëlle and the FLQistes will all have a good laugh at the most exquisite Québécois jest of them all: the sovereigntists who got to be Queen for a day--or half-decade.
What's the salient feature of the now famous encounter between Mme. Jean and her husband and the grandees of the separatist movement? Not the words, though so many Canadians found them offensive.
As it happens, I don't. In fact, I agree with a few of them--especially "One doesn't give independence, one takes it." That's certainly true of the United States: the 13 colonies didn't wait to be given independence, they took it. Which prompts the thought: why hasn't Quebec taken it? In most recent cases--from Croatia to East Timor--those who want to take independence have to stand up to forces determined to prevent them. But, if Quebec wanted to take it, who's going to stand in their way? Canada has already conceded that, in the event of secession, its armed forces could not restore the constitutional order in Quebec. And, as we know from Mme. Jean's SRC colleagues, the rebels have already seized the radio station.
So why then is Quebec still part of Canada? When the secessionist movement got going in earnest, the map of the world was frozen: very few breakaway regions ever got to break away. But these days just about everywhere that wants to be a country is one: Slovenia's a sovereign nation, so's Slovakia. But Quebec is further away from statehood than ever.
Why? Well, go back to that cocktail chatter: Quebec should move not just to independence but to revolution, says one. Amen to that, brother, says another. I applaud with both my hands, says a third.
And the salient feature is that none of them means it. Oh, to be sure, long ago, some of them did, and things got a little out of hand, and they planted some bombs and kidnapped a couple of people. But now? Well, if an agency of the Government of Canada gives Jean-Daniel Lafond a big enough six- figure sum, maybe he'll make a "film" about Quebec independence. But that's about it.
Say what you like about M. Lafond's hero Castro, but at least Fidel got off his butt and held the revolution. If you want the best take on the Michaëlle Jean set, ask someone who knows: Denys Arcand. His marvelous, rueful elegy for Quebec has an unforgettable scene in which a bunch of old Quebec radicals and self-described "sensual socialists" gather for one last boozy get-together at the home of a dying friend. As he puts it, they were witty and clever and subscribers to all the fashionable "isms" of the last four decades. Name an "ism," they were hot for it.
But sometimes you can outwit yourself: when the Péquiste spinners replaced "separatist" with the weasel evasion of "sovereigntist," what really were they communicating? That they weren't serious. Jacques Parizeau's official position in the 1995 referendum was that he'd expect to be treated as president de la république if he showed up at the UN, even though, to gain admission to the building, he'd be using a passport declaring him to be a subject of Sa Majesté la Reine. Like M. Parizeau, invited to vote "oui" or "non" most of Quebec's "separatists" and "federalists" instead tick "both of the above" and "neither of the above."
The question is not whether Mme. Jean and M. Lafond were once separatists and are now federalists. What a terribly unQuebecois way of looking at it. The new viceregal couple are pseudo-separatists and pseudo-revolutionaries and, as such, see no problem in also being pseudo-federalists and pseudo-monarchists. Thus, our Governor General's terse statement in response to the controversy: "We are fully committed to Canada."
"Committed" is like "sovereigntist"--a word designed to pass as a stand-in for something more principled. My old comrade David Frum noted its deployment by politicians embroiled in sex scandals: "My wife and I remain committed to our marriage." If the question is whether the wandering pol has been faithful, "committed" doesn't quite answer it. Likewise, if the question is whether Mme. Jean and M. Lafond have borne true and faithful allegiance to the Queen of Canada, being fluffily "committed" doesn't quite answer it. We call it an "oath of allegiance" because it means more than an "oath of commitment," but Mme. Jean, who'll be presiding over the citizenship ceremonies of thousands of new Canadians in the years ahead, seems to recoil from anything quite so fierce and uncomplicated. Allegiance? Well, it depends who's buying the Sauvignon.
Why are the Liberals still in office? Because in spring everyone from Paul Martin to Jack Layton to Belinda Stronach pounced on Stephen Harper for the gross disloyalty and irresponsibility of cozying up to Quebec separatists. But it's perfectly okay to put a couple who've spent their entire adult lives cozying up to Quebec separatists--and terrorists--in Rideau Hall, as the personification of Canada's constitutional identity.
Which in a way they are. For what could better sum up our decayed Dominion than a faux-separatist turned faux-federalist? An ersatz-revolutionary and ersatz-monarchist celebrating her own personal diversity without believing, in any meaningful sense, in either the Republic of Quebec or the Dominion of Canada. In yoking so explicitly the nullities of contemporary separatism and federalism, Paul Martin has accidentally summed up the state of our country: the decisive dynamic of our politics these past several decades--Ottawa vs. Quebec--is an utter fraud.