We learned this week that the Trudeau government intends very officially to challenge Bill 21 before the Supreme Court, and that it could do the same for Bill 96.
It was predictable.
The message is clear: no matter how much Quebecers debate among themselves about their collective identity to set the parameters of their secularism, no matter how much they seek to defend the French language by updating Bill 101, in the last instance, it is Ottawa who will decide what they are allowed and what they are not allowed.
Ottawa
They may have led many debates on these questions, but their democratic opinion will count less than that of the Canadian courts, interpreting a constitution that we have not signed.
Quebeckers may want to ensure that the future of Quebec is written in French, but they risk seeing Bill 96 mutilated by Ottawa, which pretends to believe in the legend of the persecution of Anglos, which is all the same joke of the century.
What was bound to happen is happening: a Canada-Quebec constitutional crisis is looming. We are heading to a Meech 2, which will stage the clash between multiculturalist, English-speaking Canada and national, secular, French-speaking Quebec.
How will Quebecers react to this denial of democracy?
How will they react when they feel again deep inside the precariousness of French not only in the metropolis, but in the greater Montreal area?
Legault
The question now is how will François Legault react. Will he just play “angry guy”? Or will he sooner or later decide to politically force destiny in the face of what will present itself as Quebec’s last chance to embrace its destiny?
We are witnessing in real time the quiet rebirth of the national question. And whatever those who like to bury it say, the idea of independence will resurface.
