Referendum Reality

Quebec separatist leaders have been called many things over the years. Stupid isn’t one of them.

René Lévesque, Lucien Bouchard, and Gilles Duceppe were intelligent, formidable political operators. Paul St-Pierre Plamondon belongs in that company. Disagree with their destination all you want; underestimate their ability to find a road at your peril.

Golfers who faced Tiger Woods in his prime weren’t bad golfers. They simply weren’t Tiger Woods.

Lévesque was outflanked during the constitutional negotiations remembered as the Night of the Long Knives. Bouchard’s sovereignty ambitions were ultimately frustrated by the federalism of Jean Chrétien and Stéphane Dion. Duceppe’s Bloc was swept aside by Jack Layton’s 2011 Orange Wave.

Different contests, different circumstances. But each is a reminder that even capable politicians face opponents with equal or better gamesmanship.

Enter Mark Carney.

Plamondon’s referendum timetable demonstrates keen awareness of precisely who’s sitting across the table. It isn’t Trump, who serves more as the excuse of convenience.

Yesterday, Albertans rejected beginning the process toward a binding referendum on separation. That result deserves attention in Quebec, even though the two provinces’ grievances are far from interchangeable.

Carney has given Albertans something more than just another lecture about Canadian unity. Where past Prime Ministers paid lip-service only to Western grievances, the energy agreement with Danielle Smith, followed by the advancement of the Pacific Link pipeline proposal, offers evidence that Ottawa is visibly working to prove otherwise.

Carney is a different animal, both internationally and domestically.

Plamondon isn’t blind, and besides that, the PQ is up to its rivers in Quebec’s more pressing issues involving housing, health care, public finances, and the cost of living. Better to keep separatist powder dry while Carney is taking federalism victory laps.

There is, however, a limit to the Alberta lesson.

Western alienation draws much of its force from economic grievances and the belief that Ottawa in the past cared only about Quebec and Ontario. Address those grievances and suddenly the narrative about leaving the comforts of home starts to wear a little thin.

Quebec’s sovereignty movement has more to do with language, culture, and the misplaced conviction it is a Nation embodied into its own future. Economics matter enormously, but a pipeline doesn’t appease the sense of entitlement.

Plamondon does not need to abandon his convictions to recognize an unfavourable moment.

He only needs to wait.

Trump has a departure date. Although it seems unlikely today, Carney’s political lustre may have one too.

I suspect Plamondon is watching both.