3.4. Open Federalism and Trudeau 2.0

Since the election of Jean Charest (a former leader of the pcp in Ottawa) as Quebec premier in 2003 and the victory of the Conservatives at the 2006 federal election with a mandate to explore a new approach depicted as ‘open federalism', the Quebec national question seems to have been on the back­burner (see Langlois 2018).

1. Put an end to a severe fiscal imbalance between governments' reve­nues and fields of jurisdiction and augment provincial accountability;

2. Respect exclusive provincial jurisdictions;

3. Limit Ottawa's spending power in areas of exclusive provincial juris­dictions; and finally,

4. Recognize a role for Quebec within international forums starting with a Quebec presence within the Canadian delegation at unesco.

Open federalism brought some electoral gains for the pcp in Quebec (10/75 seats: 24.6 per cent) in the 2006 general election, but the Conservatives failed to make further inroads subsequently. Voters felt the party had too quickly put the open federalism philosophy on hold, causing it some political setbacks in the province in the general elections of 2008 (10/75 seats: 21.7 per cent), 2011 (5/75 seats: 16.5 per cent) and 2015 (12/75: 16.7 per cent). The Liberal Party of Canada (lpc), which had attracted a lot of political support in Quebec, at least until the 1982 unilateral patriation of the constitution, after regaining some support following the disappointments of Meech Lake and Charlottetown under the Conservatives, seemed to lose momentum in the province, espe­cially among francophones.

From 1993, Quebeckers turned their backs on the two main federalist con­tenders and instead supported the Bloc quebecois (bq) in 1993 (54 seats), 1997 (44 seats), 2000 (38 seats), 2004 (54 seats), 2006 (51 seats) and 2008 (49 seats). At the 2011 general election, in a striking political shift, Quebec voters voted en masse for arguably the most left-leaning party represented in the House of Commons, the New Democratic Party (ndp), which succeeded in electing 59 candidates, while the bq won only 4 seats. At the 2015 general elections, the bq secured 10 seats, and the ndp 44. It is too soon to know the exact repercussions of these party shifts. It seems fair to say, though, that, with a view to keeping at bay nationalist, autonomist and independentist Quebeckers, the series of Conservative governments in Ottawa (2006-15) did the best it could, for some time, not to alienate Quebec voters. Failing to gain any political ground, how­ever, it changed its strategy by appealing to other regions and communities situated outside of Quebec.

At all events, since 2015 the Liberal government has notoriously failed to take seriously the long-standing demands from Quebec. While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pursues his own father's political vision, celebrating Canada as the first authentic ‘post-national state' in the modern world, he has also expressed—at least in his discourse if not in his actions—a clear desire to acknowledge the crucial need to treat Canada's Indigenous peoples more fairly. However, this unprecedented concern with a proper recognition of Indigenous peoples in the federation has gone in tandem with a clear lack of consideration for Quebec's new approach favouring a renewed Canadian federalism.

On 1 June 2017, the Quebec government released its Policy for Quebec Affirmation and Canadian Relations, proposing a plurinational and an asym­metrical conception of federalism.

a vision of federalism that makes it possible for it to affirm its national identity while participating in Canada. This vision is supported by his­tory, and also by contemporary political thought, which sees federalism as the best way to manage the cohabitation of various national commu­nities within a single state....

In Quebec’s view, the affirmation of its national character and its acceptance by Canada are closely related to the basic ideal of federalism. A process to ensure the recognition of national identities appears to be the natural end result of the Canadian project, aiming, on the one hand, to recognize the collective identity of the Quebec nation, but also, on the other hand, to give the French language its rightful place in Canada.

QUEBEC 2017, pp. 93-4

On the very day the new policy was released, Justin Trudeau, without even taking the time to appraise the document, declared to journalists that ‘we are not opening the Constitution’ (McGregor 2017). Put differently, from his per­spective, there was absolutely no need to discuss the merits of the policy. Once again, the governing Liberal Party of Canada embraced the politics of contain­ing the aspirations of Quebec, rather than appealing to a politics of content­ment, demonstrating its lack of the federal spirit.

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