{"id":18833,"date":"2013-01-31T09:28:33","date_gmt":"2013-01-31T14:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=18833"},"modified":"2013-01-31T09:28:33","modified_gmt":"2013-01-31T14:28:33","slug":"talking-secession-again-and-again-and-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/01\/31\/talking-secession-again-and-again-and-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking secession … again … and again … and again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Wells<\/a> has a few thoughts on secession:<\/p>\n

The reason we have spent nearly 40 years debating the effect of referendum results a few points this side or that of 50 per cent is because we have all known for nearly that long that any separatist \u201cvictory\u201d in a referendum will be a close thing. If there ever were such a vote, 50 per cent plus a bit on a confusing question, then a sovereignist Quebec government would run into difficulties that don\u2019t have much to do with the text of the Clarity Act and would not be eased by Tom Mulcair\u2019s attempted compromise. <\/p>\n

The Supremes sing the hits better than anyone. In their opinion on the Secession Reference, the top court got everyone excited with Paragraph 88, which identifies (Andrew Coyne and many others have said it \u201cinvents\u201d) an \u201cobligation on all parties to Confederation to negotiate constitutional changes to respond\u201d to \u201cthe clear expression of the desire to pursue secession by the population of a province.\u201d Every six weeks ever since there has been an op-ed in Le Devoir invoking the \u201cobligation to negotiate\u201d as Quebec secessionists\u2019 trump card after a future third-time-lucky majority referendum vote.<\/p>\n

It would be so lovely if somebody read more than one paragraph. Having discerned an obligation to negotiate where few had seen one before, the Supremes then ask the obvious question: \u201cWhat is the content of this obligation to negotiate?\u201d That\u2019s a hell of a question, and since it comes precisely one paragraph after the one that gets everyone so excited, it\u2019d be swell if a few people followed what comes next. The justices promptly \u201creject two absolutist propositions.\u201d The first is \u201cthat there would be a legal obligation on the other provinces and federal government to accede to the secession of a province, subject only to negotiation of the logistical details of secession.\u201d To anyone who says a Yes vote must lead to secession on Quebec\u2019s terms, \u201cwe cannot accept this view.\u201d Make the Yes vote as big as you like \u2014 Quebec could still not \u201cdictate the terms of a proposed secession to the other parties: that would not be a negotiation at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

So a secession attempt would be just about infinitely more complex than the conventional wisdom usually assumes. I haven\u2019t even considered the near-certainty that local secessionist, purely dissolutionist, or U.S.-annexationist movements would pop up across Canada if Quebec began a secession attempt. But surely governments of good will can overcome dissent? Well, maybe, except that the last time Canada\u2019s governments attempted a coast-to-coast set of constitutional amendments \u2014 the Charlottetown process of 1992 \u2014 the unanimity and best efforts of every head of government in the land wasn\u2019t enough to ensure passage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s a powerful narcotic quality to any conversation that mentions the “Charlatan Accord” for most Canadians over the age of 40: you can see eyes glaze over and lids get heavy the instant that process enters the discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Wells has a few thoughts on secession: The reason we have spent nearly 40 years debating the effect of referendum results a few points this side or that of 50 per cent is because we have all known for nearly that long that any separatist \u201cvictory\u201d in a referendum will be a close thing. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,84,9],"tags":[715,113,114,752],"class_list":["post-18833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-government","category-law","tag-constitution","tag-quebec","tag-separatism","tag-supremecourt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-4TL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18834,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18833\/revisions\/18834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}