Quebec: A Question of Culture

QUEBEC'S PRIME MINISTER Rene Levesque visited Harvard last week for two distinct reasons. First, as his numerous, references to Quebec's festivities this summer made clear, he came to draw tourist dollars into Quebec's badly sagging economy. Levesque's second motive was more farsighted, somewhat subtler and far more important. He came to Harvard and to America to convince citizens and policymakers in this country that his independentist plans for Quebec are reasonable, moderate, and portend few if any substantive changes in Quebec-U.S. relations.

In fact, as far as America is concerned, Levesque says, the change in Quebec's status would only be a formal one, and would involve little besides the establishment of an embassy and some consulates in this country. Prime Minister Levesque tried to argue, however, that while Americans should view Quebec's independence as merely a formal change, Quebeckers could look forward to substantive changes and improvements in their lifestyles. The proponents of independence argue that most of these improvements will fall under the rubric of culture, although beneficial economic changes may occur also.

The independentist argument--Levesque objects to the term 'separatist'--begins with the fact that Quebec is a distinct French and Catholic cultural entity or nation within Canada. It is a culture with a unique heritage that remains insulated from North American mass culture by its linguistic shell. The protection of this culture, and of the French language which serves as its medium, is understandably a major concern for Quebeckers, and for Prime Minister Levesque.

Culture, however, is more than language. Its dimensions are far from well defined, but when culture is invoked to justify a major political overhaul, it becomes important to understand the limits and implications of the concept. Culture is the sensuous expression of a people; it is an amalgam of historically accumulated arts and skills which allows people to express and develop their creativity. The crucial motor of culture is activity, for it is only through applying oneself that one can learn, and it is only through doing that one can express.

Contemporary western society, as does the Prime Minister of Quebec, divides activity into two separate components--work activity and voluntary activity. Work activity in our society tends to be simple, tedious and forced, and is therefore widely regarded as unpleasant and uncreative. Voluntary activities, however, whether sportive or intellectual, are generally regarded as pleasurable and creative. These latter activities, unforced and left to the choice of the individual, are ordinarily the only activities definitely designated as cultural.

BUT THIS DUALISM within activity, a dualism between the forced and the unforced, the tedious and the creative, the unpleasant and the enjoyable, is an artificial one. It is a consequence of the development of a system of highly differentiated labor found only in modern western societies. In fact, all activity can be an enjoyable expression of human creativity, and all activity can develop and increase the range of that creativity. The dichotomy between the eight hours of the day we spend working, and the following hours we spend recuperating and pursuing our own inclinations, must itself be challenged if culture in its broadest sense is to be protected and developed.

Freer and more diversified choices within all spheres of activity is therefore a prerequisite to full cultural protection and development. Freer choice of activity, however, can only be guaranteed through the democratic control of all activities, whether sportive or economic, by those participating in the particular activity. The question of cultural protection and development is intimately related to the existence of real democracy within all spheres of social life.

Levesque's claim however, is that cultural maturation and protection can be legislated on a macro-political level, and need not be accompanied by substantive reforms in social and economic organization. The only impediment to the cultural expression of the Quebecois that concerns Levesque is the province's participation in a larger English-dominated federal structure.

Clearly, Quebec's political status imposes restrictions on the cultural expression of the Quebecois, but to limit the terms of the cultural question to the macro-political arena is to seriously understate what needs to be done. Unfortunately, the particular terms under which Levesque has chosen to do cultural battle are restrictive, and in the context of Canadian federalism, almost meaningless.

Already an exception among modern and federal structures, the Canadian political system is highly decentralized and moving towards further decentralization. Quebec, for instance, already controls all matters relating to the crucial areas of language, education, and natural resource development, and the province effectively exercises a veto power over federal immigration policies. To be sure, Quebec still does not control certain critical jurisdictions like communications, but there are precedents, as in Germany, for the decentralized licensing of communications facilities within a federal system.

Because Levesque is not concerned with the more fundamental issue of democratization as a means of cultural protection and development, it makes little difference in whose hands responsibility for economic undemocracy lies. Given the importance of existing federal-provincial consultations, plus the already high degree of decentralization of jurisdiction over activities most obviously related to the domain of culture, it is not clear where, if at all, Levesque's 'independence' would lead to any substantive changes in the lifestyles of Quebeckers.

THERE ARE FURTHER reasons to question the substance behind the word independence. Most importantly, the reality of independence is already being compromised through a growing dependence on American capital markets. Quebec has already borrowed billions of dollars in New York, and can be expected to continue borrowing in order to complete its massive hydro-electric projects in the north.

Financial dependence on foreign capital markets immediately compromises national sovereignty, as the Chilean example clearly demonstrates. In order to continue borrowing foreign capital at reasonable rates, the Quebec government must assure its investors of domestic policies conducive to the maintenance of a profitable business climate in the province or country. Such an assurance, however, decreases the range of policies which any government, provincial or federal, can implement to protect its workers and its culture.

The consequences of dependence on foreign capital were illustrated in Britain when the International Monetary Fund imposed domestic policy changes as a pre-condition for making loans. The fact that the Quebec government has significantly watered down its labor legislation, and has moved at a snail's pace on the issue of nationalization of one of the province's biggest asbestos companies, already indicates the de facto importance to Quebec of foreign capital interests. Levesque's trips both to the Economic Club in New York, and to Harvard last week, are symptoms of an already compromised sovereignty.

It appears that independence on the terms of the Parti Quebecois (P.Q.) would not be a real independence at all, only a new form of dependence. The significant changes which the P.Q. seems to want can in all likelihood be obtained within a further decentralized federalism, without the pageantry and the insecurities of formal independence.

The immediate costs of independence are difficult to assess. Larger, better integrated economies are usually more attractive to investors than smaller economies. Similarly, the political stability offered by a larger nation is often preferred to the greater political instability of smaller units. But the basic handicap which a post-independence Quebec would face lies in the very constitution of the Parti Quebecois.

DOMINATED BY INTELLECTUALS, the Parti Quebecois is an umbrella party which unites under its independentist banner people of both leftist and rightist persuasions. In its first cabinet, for instance, the P.Q. government had both a labor minister who fought for the highest minimum wage on the continent and for pro-union labor legislation, and a finance minister known for his conservatism. Until last year, the party was pledged to withdraw from NATO, but at its last convention, it reversed its policy so as not to antagonize the U.S.

The problem is not that the P.Q. has a pleasant or an unpleasant post-independence direction; rather, the problem is that it has no clear direction. The party's program promises such reforms as a guaranteed annual income and free post-secondary education, but its policies and its budget in particular have been remarkably conservative since the P.Q. took power. Unless the party can provide a clear post-independence direction, it threatens to subject the new country's economy to the economic pressures which invariably accompany political turmoil.

Economically, the province will have to pay for its formal independence. This does not mean that Quebec should not follow the separatist route if it expects substantial changes and benefits in other fields. The promise of real change, however, is lacking. It is by no means clear that formal independence for Quebec will do anything more than transform its highly nationalistic provincial civil service into a national bureaucracy.

Nevertheless, despite its questionable content, the independentist proposal is very attractive to the strong nationalist element in the province, and particularly to Quebec's youth. Nationalism is an old and prominent ideological component of French Canadian thought that reflects the national integrity and distinctiveness of the Catholic French Canadian population.

Although nationalism itself is as old as French Canada, its vehicle of expression has only recently become the provincial state. Traditionally, the dominant Catholic Church has been a far more important guardian of French Canadian cultural integrity than any government. But with Quebec's historic Quiet Revolution during the 1960s, which freed the state from the control of the Church and produced for the first time in the province's history a modern secular bureaucracy, the focus of nationalist sentiments finally shifted to the provincial government. In so doing, Quebeckers redefined the nationalist question in political and independentist terms.

NATIONALIST SENTIMENT is diffused in varying degrees throughout the French Canadian population. Nationalism has been exacerbated in Quebec because of the persistent confusion between class antagonism and linguistic and national divisions. The English Canadians have historically dominated the ranks of the business elite, so when French workers conflict with management, they conflict with an English management. Class antagonism assumes the form of national antagonism, and reinforces the already present nationalist element.

An important contemporary source of nationalism is the provincial civil service. Created rapidly during the Quiet Revolution, it has channelled the empire-building impulse common to most bureaucracies in a nation-building direction. Because of the language barrier separating French civil servants from the English corporate world, Quebec's bureaucrats are less immediately sensitive to conservative business influence than are most other bureaucracies. The consequence of rapidly creating a nationalist and non-business oriented civil service is that the bureaucracy itself is a powerful motor force for Quebec's independence.

Meanwhile, despite the focusing of political debate on the cultural question, the issue of the economic cost of independence will in all likelihood continue to be decisive. All the polls taken since the P.Q.'s election demonstrate a far higher degree of support for formal independence with close Canadian economic ties and few economic risks, than for a complete break with Canada.

Quebec's problem, like all longstanding historical ones, can not be reduced to any simplistic solution. Nationalism is still alive and well in Quebec, although it is not clear that independence of the P.Q. variety will in fact offer any substantive advantages to French Canadians that could not be obtained within the present federal system. Against the potential benefit arising from independence must be pitted the question of economic cost. That question has already received the bulk of Quebec's attention precisely because the substantive benefits of independence are far from clear. Unless these benefits can be clarified, it is doubtful that the independentists will win their bid for formal autonomy.