Separatists shoot themselves in foot over Jean

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Article

No matter how you look at it, a sovereignist-led witch-hunt may yet turn out to be the best thing that could happen to governor general designate Michaëlle Jean and the prime minister who appointed her.

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While whatever damage the affair might have caused has so far been contained elsewhere in Canada, in Quebec the controversy is turning to Martin's advantage.

From the start, Jean's appointment was immensely popular, a rare Martin initiative that connected with Quebecers.

But while a popular appointment alone is hardly enough to cause a sea change in attitudes toward federalism in Quebec, the ensuing controversy is impacting negatively on sovereignty.

For once in Martin's tenure, the silent majority in Quebec is squarely on his side.

From the start, sovereignist strategists saw the selection of a popular Haitian-born francophone Quebecer as the next governor general as a signal that the free ride they have been enjoying since the sponsorship scandal broke may be coming to an end. But now, at the initiative of some of their own, a bad news day for sovereignty has been turned into a week-long public relations disaster.

In particular, the controversy is taking a toll on sovereignist efforts to attract more support within the cultural communities.

It has certainly rubbed the Haitian community — possibly the most sympathetic to the cause of Quebec sovereignty — the wrong way.

That was in evidence earlier this week when Haitian-born writer Dany Laferrière wrote an open letter to newspapers to stress that the significance of the appointment to his struggling community was much greater than anything a handful of hard-liners might dig up about Jean's husband.

As one caller on an open-line radio show put it yesterday, if the sovereignists who are behind this campaign wanted to turn every member of a visible minority in Quebec into a staunch federalist, they would not proceed otherwise.

Another caller wondered why it was that sovereignists should suddenly be checking out the political credentials of Canadian appointees.

The affair has also put leading sovereignists from Gilles Duceppe to the Parti Québécois leadership hopefuls on the spot for their collective silence since the affair began.

In Quebec, it is largely a given that Jean and Lafond accepted the obligations to Canada that come with their new role.

With the growing prospect that the PQ will return to power over the course of the next governor general's mandate, few here doubt that their sheer presence at Rideau Hall will be a powerful federalist weapon in the event of a referendum rematch.

PM Martin is laughing all the way to the bank on this one, and now even the Monarchist League of Canada supports Jean's appointment.

[Riverwind]

Another caller wondered why it was that sovereignists should suddenly be checking out the political credentials of Canadian appointees.

My opinion on Jean has been swing back an forth on this one. My current thinking that if the sovereigntists are the ones making the biggest issue out then that means the appointment is good for federalism. Sort of an 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' argument.

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Top Canada post nominee declares loyalty to nation

It is incredible to listen to the paranoia of some of the posters on this issue. Just because one is a Conservative, and one dislikes the PM, is no reason to put down one of Canada's most respected journalists because one disagrees with her opinions.

There have been occasions when I have not enjoyed Hebert's opinions and that is understandable. To attempt to discredit her with garbage accusations because one dislikes her opinions is over the top though, and should have no place in political debates.

[THELIBERAL]

This is really something! Think about this for a minute! The separatists are against her appointment and so are the Conservatives!

Why are the Conservatives against her appointment?

Because they think she is a separatist!

AMASING ISN'T IT? Any Conservative like to explain this to us please!?

[Riverwind]

This is really something! Think about this for a minute! The separatists are against her appointment and so are the Conservatives!

I believe the reason the separatists are upset at her appointment because they hoped to get her to actively campaign for the yes side in the next referendum because she is a telegenic member of an Francophone ethnic community. If my guess is correct then Canada is much better off with her as GG than rejecting her at this point in time.

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Article

Jean was not without her defenders Tuesday, including NDP Leader Jack Layton who said her past views are less important than her current ones.

"It's time to look forward," said Layton. "Here we have an accomplished woman who has said she loves this country and is willing to take on the responsibilities of being a spokesperson for it. I think that's something that should be celebrated."

At least we have some people that are standing apart from the maddening crowd!

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Now even Harper supports the GG.

I suppose that is the final nail in the coffin of the people that opposed her nomination.

[shoop]

f**k mirror post a freaking link to back up your statements .... please

[Riverwind]

f**k mirror post a freaking link to back up your statements .... please

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, on a visit to Halifax, said he was pleased with Jean's profession of faith in Canada.

He was less willing to let Prime Minister Paul Martin off the hook for the way he handled the appointment process and the ensuing controversy.

http://www.canada.com/national/story.html?...c6-e5d549f2d5e4

[cybercoma]

Until Jean comes out and explains her ties and shows her total support for this nation, she is nothing more than a friend and supporter to kidnapping seperatist murderers to me.

[shoop]

Thanks Sparhawk.

mirror, probably not the last nail in the coffin for this issue. See how posting links provides for a fuller, more well-informed debate. Or is that something you wish to avoid?

[mirror]

Thanks Sparhawk.

mirror, probably not the last nail in the coffin for this issue. See how posting links provides for a fuller, more well-informed debate. Or is that something you wish to avoid?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

shoop......please stick to debating the issues as our moderator has requested and keep the slurs to yourself.

[mirror]

'Proud to be Canadians'

Later in the day, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, who had been demanding reassurance from the Prime Minister about the couple's commitment to Canada, said he accepted Ms. Jean's statement and wished her well in office.

And with that, Ms. Jean, who will become governor-general on Sept. 27, may just have survived her first test of public life.

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As well, she was amazed that Canadians were buying the allegations, by a group of hard-line separatists in Quebec, that she and her husband were sovereigntists, sources said.

"She was very reluctant to believe initially that people would take seriously the claims of these people," the well-placed source said. "She is not naive. . . . She thought it lacked such credibility and it was such an absurd thing, and a dimension of that, too, is that she was also personally offended that after making the decision she made that she should have to, because a couple of these guys with their obvious motivations speak out, that she should have to justify and validate her loyalty to the country."

I find it hilarious that comments by a few separatists put some Canadians into a tizzy about Jean's loyalty to Canada.

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NDP Leader Jack Layton said while he was pleased Jean had "cleared the air," he hoped future governor general appointments would be made following an open and transparent process. At present, the appointment is made by the prime minister without consultation with opposition leaders or provincial premiers, let alone non-partisan groups such as those holding the Order of Canada.

This is the crux of the problem, that the appointment was not made after consultations with the other party leaders, at least Layton & Harper, forget Duceppe, especially because it is a minority government. With this issue PM Martin is once again acting like a tin pot dictator.

[shoop]

Thanks Sparhawk.

mirror, probably not the last nail in the coffin for this issue. See how posting links provides for a fuller, more well-informed debate. Or is that something you wish to avoid?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

shoop......please stick to debating the issues as our moderator has requested and keep the slurs to yourself.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hmmm, not really a slur at all. Just illustrating how other people are behaving appropriately without resorting to your whining and threats of calling the moderator at every turn.

But thanks for sticking ture to form.

[mirror]

Jean was late taking her cue

Those who would settle for nothing short of a blood test to determine whether a federal public figure has ever been in positive contact with Quebec sovereignty will not be satisfied by the terse statement issued yesterday by governor general-designate Michaëlle Jean.

Everyone else should ponder whether he or she would accept a similar statement from a non-francophone Quebecer echoing the unequivocal assurance given by Jean and her husband Jean-Daniel Lafond that they are committed to Canada. If the answer is yes, then move on to other less divisive issues.

I think people run the risk if they push this issue too much of having it turn into possible charges of rscism. Jean after all has unequivacally stated that she is committed to Canada.

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Lord comments helped separatists, MP charges

This whole debate now has nothing whatosoever to do with the GG's loyalty to Canada and everything to do with partisan politics whether it is the comments of Savoy, Lord, Frum, Coyne, and whoever else.

[mirror]

Enough of the silliness over the opposition to our new GG designate.

Let's put this baby to bed, eh!

Michaelle Jean's defining moment

As Canadians can see from the embarrassing admissions of Prime Minister's Office Principal Secretary Hélene Scherrer regarding the choice of the new governor-general, Paul Martin doesn't like to be bothered with details.

Martin wanted Michaëlle Jean because he correctly assessed the impact her nomination would have in Quebec, where the Bloc threatens to overrun many of the remaining 21 Liberal seats. However venal and self-serving the motivation behind the choice of a French-speaking Haitian-born Canadian, Jean is an inspired nomination that will resonate with the nearly one million members of Quebec's French-speaking cultural communities--Sephardic Jews, Lebanese Christians and Arabs, Maghrebans--who make up a sizeable and growing slice of the provincial demographic.

Martin is fortunate that Jean is what she appears to be ‹ a multilingual crowd-pleaser who can think on her feet. He's also fortunate that the opposition to her nomination is sounding more and more like a lynch mob, be it from Ottawa-area Tory MP Pierre Poilievre who wants us all to e-mail the Queen, to the Quebec secessionist movement's radical fringe who would have us believe the new G-G's consort was an apologist for the Front de libération du Québec.

Martin is especially lucky that Conservative Opposition Leader Stephen Harper and his bumblers make the PMO team look almost professional by comparison.

But the uproar over Jean's nomination may prove to be a defining moment in francophone Quebec, where it's a given that public figures must profess to be Quebeckers first and Canadians second.

Ever since former premier Daniel Johnson made the critical error of telling Quebeckers he was first a Canadian, you'd be hard put many prominent francophones outside the business world who would dare repeat that. It's also why ultrafederalist-Tory-turned-provincial-Liberal-Premier Jean Charest had to support the National Assembly motions condemning the federal Clarity Act and declaring Quebec a nation. It's this province's version of a loyalty oath.

That protective need to subscribe to the collective rightthink is even more pronounced within Quebec's cultural community, where both Jean, a Radio-Canada anchor and her partner, filmmaker Jean-Daniel Lafond, made their living.

Like the Vatican, Radio-Canada thrives on dogmatic consensus; it's not for nothing that among journalists, the network's East-End headquarters is known as la maison mére--the mother house.  Since the Quiet Revolution, Rad-Can has seen numerous ideological purges, from the bloodbath that followed the 1959 producer's strike led by the likes of the late PQ premier René Lévesque, to the 1980 post-referendum housecleaning of those suspected of sympathizing with the sovereigntist movement.

All that changed when TVA and Quatre-Saisons began challenging Radio-Canada for viewership. Unlike CBC Television in the rest of Canada, Radio-Canada is a major cultural force in Quebec, both for Quebec's ingrown and infinitely recyclable entertainment industry and for the millions of Quebeckers who prefer French-language programming over English or American television. It didn't hurt to have sovereigntist credentials at a time when just about every family in Quebec had members debating the merits of independence and federalism around the dinner table. People changed sides depending on the players and whether Quebec was in a federal or provincial election cycle.

At the same time, Quebec writers and filmmakers began reexamining the events leading up to the October Crisis of 1970. Nearly 60 percent of Quebeckers weren't born when the first bombs went off in 1963. For many of those under 40, names like Rocky Léja, Pierre Vallières, François Shirm, Jacques Lanctôt and the Rose brothers don't have the same meaning as they do for those who lived through the screaming headlines and the black-and-white photos. 

Part of that re-examination lay in questioning accepted wisdoms, such as why the Sûrété du Québec didn't arrest the Rose brothers before their cell snatched Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte, or who really killed him (conspiracy theories range from the CIA and the RCMP to the French secret service). Another aspect was the social rehabilitation of those perceived by a new generation of salon sovereignists to have been true revolutionaries, men and women who paid for the blood on their hands with years in prison or exile.

It's ironic that many of the books and films which emerged as a result were funded by the Canada Council, the federal Publishers' Assistance Program and Telefilm Canada. FLQ apologist filmmaker Pierre Falardeau and felquiste-turned publisher Jacques Lanctôt, arrested in 1970 in connection with plots to plant bombs and kidnap the Israeli and U.S. consuls, wouldn't have enjoyed their current notoriety without financial help from the Canadian taxpayer.

That was the context in which Jean and Lafond had to make a living. One can suspect they played at being salon separatists to win the confidence of people like Francis Simard and Pierre Vallières, but in a ideologically complex, shifting media marketplace like Quebec's, what advantage lay in being dogmatic federalists? One has only to look at the fate that befell federalist producer Robert Guy Scully ‹ cashiered ignominiously by la maison mére after the Gomery probe revealed his role in selling federalism ‹ to realize that heartfelt federalism doesn't fly in Quebec.

Last week, even as the Martin PMO was being shown yet again as a comically incompetent political improv theatre, Jean was saving Paul Martin's bacon with her resolute repudiation of any ties to the secessionist orthodoxy.

That's why the secessionists and their cheerleaders, people like Gazette columnist José Legault, must push their Lafond-is-a-traitor agenda with such fervor. They_ve all grasped how much damage the Jean/Lafond combination will hurt them among Quebeckers who will perceive of Jean as a symbol of how it no longer needs to be one or the other.

No wonder the secessionists choose to ignore the fact that Vallières, the co-author of the seminal Négres blancs de l'Amerique, renounced Quebec independence prior to his death.

As for the Tories, anyone stupid enough to sign onto their witchhunt appears to have forgotten that the late Robert Bourassa considered calling a sovereignty referendum and that most of the federal Liberals' Quebec caucus flirted with independantisme at some point in their lives.

Whatever she once was, Jean has made it clear she's a Canadian. That's good enough for me, and I was there throughout the bombs, the bodies and the troops. Canadians should respect that.

Moi aussi.

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Duelling opinions over dual citizenship

As for Michaëlle Jean, she may take heart in the fact that the Queen, whose representative in Canada she is about to become, appears to have multiple citizenships, 17 at last count. Among them: Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Not, however, France.

I have dual citizenship but it does not in any way preclude me from being loyal to Canada, or Quebec for that matter.

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Politics of Quebec, then and now

Malcolm Reid, author of The Shouting Signpainters, the 1972 account of literary nationalism in Quebec, sums up that argument as follows: "It is wrong to understand our situation in Canada as a minority that will be solved with more bilingualism and more biculturalism. The point was, `We are colonized. We are an internal colony.'"

(Jean said this week that she and Lafond have never subscribed to the sovereignist ideology that was on display at the Quai des Brumes or any sovereignty movement and, to be sure, she participated at the periphery of the discussion.)

Indeed, there were many things about life in Montreal during the 1950s and 1960s that paralleled European-style colonial rule. Wealthy Anglophones lived in the best houses and ran the companies, while francophones crammed into the East End and worked in the factories.

And as Africa and Central America fought off colonial rule in the 1960s, so too, the intellectuals reasoned, would the Québécois, says Patricia Smart, Professor of Quebec literature at Carleton University.

"They were discovering that `We are colonized too.' And they really were in those days," she says. "It was the whole idea that they didn't believe in themselves, that they had no self-confidence."

And so in the 1960s, the literary revolutionaries organized themselves into a number of militant independence groups in Quebec, like Vallières' FLQ, Chamberland's Parti Pris and the Rassemblement pour l'Indépendence Nationale party, which Ferretti helped found.

But before that anticolonial revolution could be waged, the need for it evaporated.

Politically, with the rise of the Parti Québécois in 1968, Quebec's pro-independence movements were largely gathered into one — with a common goal under the party's popular founder Rene Levesque.

"The revolution that they were hoping for — an independent Quebec with a strong socialist system — you could say that it had been achieved," says Reid.

They don't need "le pays" they once fought for anymore.

And so, if Michaëlle Jean actually agrees with the pur et dure separatists that sat around the Quai des Brumes 15 years ago, as some suggested this week, she must find herself as the lone supporter of a outdated movement whose day came and went long ago.

I just wish people who want to comment of this GG issue would at least have some understanding of the current Quebec. It seems like a lot of people are living in the past.

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I am really looking forward to our new GG. I have seen some of her documentaries on CBC and she is a talented woman. Canada is fortunate to have her:

The reality of the vice-regals

Michaëlle Jean is a cancer survivor and the child of a single mother who emigrated from Haiti. Ms. Jean had long been estranged from her father and sister until recently. She is known to be deeply concerned about racism, violence and gender equality.