On at least one point, however, federalists should not back off. It has been suggested that Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and his advisors are considering a bill requiring any vote for independence to pass by substantially more than the 50-per-cent-plus-one margin. Bouchard warns that anything more onerous will be considered an attempt to thwart the democratic will of the people of Quebec, etc., etc.
Nonsense. If, for example, we were to move the pass-or-fail mark to half of all eligible voters, rather than half of those who voted, we would simply be putting Quebecois on an even footing with Canada's aboriginal peoples.
Whenever a First Nation votes on a land claim, the federal government insists that it will only consider the claim ratified if two conditions are met: three quarters of all eligible voters must cast a ballot; and two-thirds of those who turn out must vote in favor. Two-thirds of three-quarters works out to precisely one half of the eligible electorate.
Four years ago the Gwich'in First Nation in the Mackenzie Delta of the N.W.T. voted on what was only the third comprehensive aboriginal land claim in Canadian history. As editor of the local newspaper at the time, I watched with more than a little fascination as Gwich'in Tribal Council staffers spent months canvassing the people in their four communities, tracking down those who were "on the land" in hard-to-reach hunting camps and outposts and traveling south as far as Ottawa to find those who couldn't afford to come home.
The energy they expended on a per-capita basis on the campaign far outstripped what federal or provincial parties would spend on election --s or referendum -- campaigns. Scores of public meetings were held, stacks of brochures printed and copies of the entire land claim document distributed at great expense.
I asked the leaders of the council if the ratification standard wasn't perhaps too high. The answer was always the same. "It doesn't matter. We will do what needs to be done."
And that they did. On polling day, turn-out was 95 per cent. Eight-five per cent of every living Gwich'in voted in favor of the deal.
A couple of years later, when the Inuit of what will soon become Nunavut voted on their land claim, the federal government raised the stakes even higher, asking for a similar majority standard in each of the three regions of the territory before ratification would be accepted.
Again, the Inuit leaders who had negotiated the claim shrugged and got down to the expensive task of canvassing their huge and sparsely-populated land. And again, the vote passed easily.
What the Gwich'in and the Inuit were doing was changing their constitutional relationship with the government of Canada. In exchange from certain rights to land and resources, they gave up all future claims. Remind you of anything?
Without question, a vote on taking Quebec out of Confederation can be considered a vote on the constitutional relationship with the government of Canada. Whey then do we not make Quebec jump through the same hoops as our aboriginal citizens?
To do otherwise implies a racist double standard.
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