Categories: General
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Brian Lilley is Senior Correspondent for Sun Media on Parliament Hill.
Brian has been covering politics for the last 10 years. Five of those years were spent as Ottawa Bureau Chief. More about Brian here.
Lilley’s Pad
Thoughts and opinions from a seasoned reporter on Parliament Hill
Eric,
You better shave dude….you are starting to look like the Iranian Leader, Ahmadinejad.
Brian you are way off base in your idea that Canada is a “federation”. We are not and never have been. We were, and remain, a constitutional CONfederation (the opposite of a federation). Where this differs with your concept of federal absolutist affiliation, is that a Confederation is consensual association of separate sovereign within right entities (provinces), by voluntary agreement which can be dissolved any time by democratic process. There is NO law which binds a province to the confederal association in perpetuity. ANY province can chose, at any time, to leave if it so chooses by local referendum.
The acceptable constitutional method of referendum is the same as the process by which we choose governments at all levels – specifically, 50% plus one. This formula was good enough for choosing government or dissolving government or for entry into confederation and it is certainly proper for exit from confederation. The SCC agrees and this formulation and that makes Chretien’s desperate revisionist “Clarity act” a legal and constitutional farce. In Canadian democracy 50% plus one IS a clear majority as our demonstrable democratic record makes obvious. That is not to say that a mandate this close would not be exempt from a recount or ballot scrutiny, but if the final scrutinized count is 50% plus one, the people have spoken and the courts and governments must respect the out come.
If Quebec (or Alberta or Ontario or BC) chooses to leave confederation there is little the federal government or the other provinces can do to interfere with the democratic will of that sovereign province’s electorate. This is the one consistent reality of our confederal constitution.
Personally I believe that under the current unbalanced collectivist federal redistribution of wealth, Quebec will not leave, if anything it is Alberta and Sask. who have the motivation to leave.