Conclusion

Michael Burgess had already concluded that ‘Canadians must ‘federalise' the democracy and buttress the legitimacy of the state', and that they need to make serious efforts to ‘renew and restate the moral basis of Canadian fed­eralism' (Burgess 2000, p.

In the Canadian context, as in any other multinational federal democ­racy for that matter, federalism and democracy must be conceptualized and understood as being interdependent. The fact that the quest for autonomy and self-determination is at the centre of much contention between Quebec and Ottawa is due to too thin a conception of democracy favoured by the anglo­phone majority group or nation, rooted in the spirit of political monism (see Gagnon 2010). In other words, if only one demos, that of the all-encompassing sovereign political community, is recognized as legitimate, then Canada is con­demned to fail in its attempt to instill a federal spirit.

In a multinational federal state, two or more national communities have accepted some kind of a pact, a covenant, sharing some jurisdictions through a central government, while the constituent national entities still enjoy substan­tial autonomy through self-rule. In fact, that is the only way a political associa­tion may be fair to its constituent national entities, ensuring that being part of the overarching federal community does not prevent each from sustaining its own national particularism.

If, then, the central state in a multinational federation argues that there exists only one legitimate demos in the polity, it is flouting the principles of self-restraint, damage limitation and political empathy. In summary, only a firm and sustained multinational conception of federalism may provide a fair politics of contentment between partners. For that reason, ‘moving beyond autonomy' would have major repercussions for thinking about and realizing social justice in the context of multinational federal democracies. There is a clear need to move beyond the ‘all-encompassing nation', and federalize our democracies.

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