William Watson: A house repeatedly riven by secessionism cannot stand

I’m not an absolutist on Canadian indivisibility. The Americans’ pledge of allegiance, which dates from the 1880s, not the 1780s, is to “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” But they had a civil war about divisibility.

I don’t know how many of the Fathers of Confederation, if any at all, felt they were building a country that would last forever. Or even for a thousand years, like the one many of them came from. Good for Canada if it lasts that long! But if it doesn’t, that won’t be especially surprising. The history of populated spaces is crammed with changing constitutional arrangements. Canadians are free and they’re democrats. If free, democratic people decide in sufficient numbers they want different arrangements, I can’t imagine many good arguments for stopping them, assuming they follow a deliberate, open, democratic process.

But serial secessionism is no way to live. In our household, we are watching season four of a Netflix political melodrama called “The Diplomat.” So far in this new season the two protagonists, an American power couple, are re-evaluating their marriage. Constantly. Much of their conversation concerns asking each other how we’re doing now. And now? And this current minute, too? It is an awful way to live.

Abraham Lincoln said “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” At the time (1858) the U.S. was divided, as he said, “half slave and half free.” He believed this could not persist, though many of his fellow Americans evidently did, as he lost the Illinois Senate race whose kickoff his House Divided speech marked.

Our divisions in Canada are much less serious than freedom versus slavery. (On that question humans are now about 100 per cent agreed, which marks clear progress from two centuries ago.) But it’s also probably true that “a house constantly considering secession requests” cannot stand.

We’ve just finished one referendum on whether Alberta should set processes in motion to have a binding referendum on continuing in Canada or going its own way. And there may well be another in a couple of years asking Quebecers something similar — though it is telling how the separatist party that is so confident of Quebec’s ability to make its own way in a dangerous world will wait until an unusually obstreperous and outspoken U.S. president (my Lord, all he does is speak out!) has left office before putting its toe timorously back into secession waters.

A third Quebec referendum would mark four times since 1980 that serious attempts to undo Confederation had been made.

In each case, federal politicians paid close attention. After 1980, Pierre Trudeau initiated constitutional changes, as he had promised during the referendum campaign to do, though what changes came were not, to say the least, what separatists wanted. After 1995, some minor federal powers were transferred, ones Quebec proved no more competent at exercising than Ottawa had, but there was also a “Clarity Act” designed to formalize exit procedures (“a clear majority on a clear question,” as the clarifying phrase went).

Before this most recent referendum there was prime ministerial solicitude to Alberta’s concerns, as well as mumblings about the possibility of constitutional changes. But there are limits to responding sympathetically to serial requests for devolution. Eventually there won’t be much of a Confederation left to save. Despite what many people who work in Ottawa seem to think, Canada is not its central government. But is there really a Canada without a central government?

Rather than making people feel they’re more in control, devolution mainly seems to strengthen centrifugal forces. Would rearranging the Senate in some modest way bring greater regional legitimacy to the federal government? The nine million people of Quebec have 24 Senate seats, as do 16 million Ontarians, 13.7 million westerners and two million Maritimers. (You can’t throw a rock in the Maritimes without hitting a senator!) Newfoundland and Labrador’s 552,462 people have six senators. Yukon’s 50,356 people have a senator, as do NWT’s 45,904 and Nunavut’s 43,091. How would we explain this distribution to the man or woman from Mars? If you were starting over, is this the distribution you would choose?

No one wants to be the prime minister who loses Confederation. But will the time never come when a federal prime minister says to would-be secessionists: you don’t like it here? Take your grievances elsewhere.

How do we keep people from trying to organize secession? It wouldn’t be very free or democratic to put them in jail for it. On the other hand, it’s probably best not to threaten to shut down the major industry in their region — only for the good of the planet, you understand? (They didn’t.)

A better strategy would be to make the case for Canada, emphatically, every time it’s challenged, even in Quebec. And to emphasize our shared values. Not medicare, peacekeepers (has anyone seen any of those lately?) and soppy left-wing political values that leave us lower-taxes, smaller-government folk cold. Rather: hockey, the cold, British institutions, civility, fair play, natural justice and our own unique interwoven history after a century and a half of officially living together, through better and worse.

At some stage, let us hope soon, we reach the point where the number of secession referendums defeated adds up to the galvanizing effect of a civil war.