Plus ça change: Cycles of history and the 2004 federal election

Inroads, Winter 2005 by Schachter, Harvey

What it does do, however, and this is my main point, is alienate opinion in the rest of Canada. One lesson, I believe, of the past two decades is that Canadians have put paid to the idea of making constitutional concessions to try to turn sovereigntists into federalists, a transformation the latter obdurately refuse to undergo however many concessions are promised (and, of course, those concessions are rarely if ever delivered, another reason for sovereigntist skepticism about renewed federalism). The bottom line is that a sovereignty movement is fine if it succeeds in achieving sovereignty, but it is a lousy, actually counterproductive, basis for negotiating reforms in the existing system.

Recurringly, the Conservatives pay the price lor "dealing with the devil" (I used the phrase ironically, though some seem to have taken me literally) - with sovereigntists who talk a lot about their rights and demands on the rest of the country, but admit no obligations on their part toward the rest of us, which is no basis at all for shared political community. It is in this context that I used the admittedly loaded term "appeasement," which does convey the idea of concessions offered to those whose appetite simply grows with the eating. The Liberals, on the other hand, hang on to the less threatening federalists in Quebec through thick and thin.

Phil Resnick accuses me of being a Liberal apologist. That may be, and it's by no means the first time I have heard this charge. But in this I am trying to be an analyst, and explain objectively why, as I put it, for the Conservatives nothing fails like success, and for the Liberals nothing succeeds like failure. And by the way, I do not take evidence of rising Ontario discontent with the Liberals as in any way challenging my proposition. Indeed both Diefenbaker and especially Mulroney came to office in 1958 and 1984 with majority support in all regions of the country, with the Liberals reduced to marginality everywhere. Yet within four years for Dief and nine years for Mulroney, the Tories were blown away and the Liberals were back, for 21 years under Pearson and Trudeau, and 11 years under Chrétien.

It is precisely to explain how apparent Conservative hegemony in English Canada proves transitory while Liberal hegemony proves more durable that I have pointed to the two parties' very different connections with Quebec. Of course there is more than this to the paradox, but I do think it is a strong explanation - and I frankly see little reason to think it is changing.

Of course, history sometimes holds surprises, but I wouldn't bet on it.