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Blog of Adam Daifallah -- author, journalist, law student. Lover of politics, writing, golf, curling, fitness, fashion, bacon and maple products -- not necessarily (but probably) in that order. Partisan of the Anglosphere. Contact me via email at adam@daifallah.com. This summer I am joined by Keir Wilmut and Omar Soliman.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Catching up: on clean air and nations
I've finally come to grips with the fact that there's simply too much going on and not enough time to write about everything I want to write about. But, sitting here at the law library, there's at least two things I'm dying to address.
One, the Tories' Clean Air Act, which someone requested I write about in comments. What concerns me about this legislation is not so much it drawn-out timeline and rather unambitious goals, but 1) the way it was presented and, 2) the means by which the government will attain the legislation's objectives.
On the first, the Conservatives broke one of the sacred tenets of smart politics that is taught at all campaign training schools: always under-promise and over-deliver. The government built up expectations for weeks about their environmental package, even going so far as to hold a "pre-announcement announcement" media event in Vancouver with a handful of cabinet ministers to trumpet the forthcoming green plan. It was wrong and politically unwise to get people's hopes up and then deliver a legislative package that -- whatever its merits -- was bound to be spun as unsatisfactory.
On the second, all of the targets set by the government in terms of smog and emissions reduction are done by top-down government regulation. From what I can tell, having read only the news stories, there is little here in terms of incentive-based, free-market oriented ideas in the proposed bill. Why not? We knew the environmentalists would hate whatever was brought out. It was a lose-lose situation, just like kicking Garth Turner out of caucus. So why not use this opportunity to propose cutting-edge, conservative environmental policies that actually get results?
So, not only is the bill not conservative in any sense of the world, thus disappointing those on the right, it is also not going to do that much -- at least not immediately -- for the environment, which disappoints those who care about those issues. (And judging by polling, that is a lot of Canadians, especially younger ones.)
I'm now beginning to wonder if just taking the Liberal approach -- professing a commitment to Kyoto without actually doing anything to implement it -- would have been a better idea. At this point, it seems like it, as the bill is almost certainly going to die in the House and never be implemented.
Two, the whole "Is Quebec a nation?" issue, which is in the news today after the Liberal Party's Quebec wing ratified the idea. As has been written by the commentariat today, this is a sharp break with the Grits' Trudeauvian/Chrétienite past. Québec = une nation is one of those existential Canadian issues where the two solitudes have a deep, deep divide that is difficult -- if not impossible -- to reconcile. Some of it has to do with language: as French speakers know, the connotation of the word nation in French has more to do with the sociological sense of the term and has far less to do with independent statehood than in English. This complicates matters considerably.
I find that more often than not opinions on this issue break down by the diving line of those who either currently or have lived in Quebec, and those who have no connection to or haven't spent a lot of time in Quebec. (There are always exceptions, of course -- I'm not saying that someone who hasn't lived in Quebec cannot understand it, although I'd make the case that it would be quite difficult.)
Those who know Quebec -- and after living here for more than two years, I'm starting to get there -- will tell you that Quebec constitutes a nation. It isn't even a debate here. That issue was decided a long, long time ago. The debate in Quebec is whether the French Canadian nation ought to live in Canada or outside of Canada.
I don't know, as I haven't made up my mind yet, whether the Quebec nation ought to be officially recognized in the constitution. I am open to it. I know the idea is not popular outside the province, and there would be legal and political consequences for the whole country if it were ever implemented. Maybe we should just throw Will Kymlicka and Andrew Coyne in a room and let them duke it out.
But what I hope people understand, as I get the impression that a lot of people don't, is that whether or not Quebec is a nation is a closed issue in Quebec. And it has been for a long time. The issue up for debate is whether the Quebec nation should live inside or outside the Canadian state, and if the former, whether recognition of that nation should be included in the Constitution Act or not.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 1:08 PM
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