Canadians Beg Quebec To Stay Canadian

The blue fleur-de-lis flag of Quebec waved proudly over Toronto’s central square Tuesday as 4,000 residents of this English-speaking city did what many ordinary citizens are doing around the nation these days: They begged Quebecers to stay in Canada.

Speaking in English or halting French, one speaker after another urged residents of the French-speaking province to vote no when they go to the polls Monday to choose whether to secede from Canada.

Standing in the audience was Evelyn Bellerose, a self-described senior citizen whose voice cracked and eyes filled with tears as she talked.

“We’re here to save our country,” she said. “We can’t survive without Quebec, and I don’t think they can survive without us. We feel it very deeply and are praying every day that Quebec will stay. We are senior citizens. This is all we have left.”

The Quebec issue has dogged Canada virtually since the confederation was formed in 1867, but rarely has it been more grave: The most recent polls show the forces of separatism with a slim lead.

In the last week or so, a poignant grassroots drive has emerged to supplement the efforts of the government of Canada and federalists in Quebec to turn around the vote. All across the second-largest nation in the world, Canadians who have never been to Quebec, Canadians who speak no French, even Canadians who are tired of Quebec’s restiveness are reaching out to their compatriots.

In Kathryn, Alberta, farmer Bert Brown plowed a two-mile long message in his canola field: “C’est Mieux Ensemble” (It’s Better Together). Working for 21-1/2 days straight, he plowed not only the message but a 1,000-foot fleur-de-lis at one end of it and a maple leaf of equal size at the other.

“I don’t even know how to frame it,” Brown said in a telephone interview. “It’s just the feeling that you’re part of something that’s pretty wonderful and has been around for 128 years and we shouldn’t be flippant about it not being around anymore. We have a kind of laid-back pride about being Canadian. We’re proud about things that separate us from the United States. We have less violence, we have good health care, and we have Quebec.”

At the other end of the country, in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, fourth grade students in Jim Rideout’s French immersion class drafted a joint letter to the people of Quebec asking them to stay. “We like to sing “O Canada’ in French and English because we are proud of our country,” the letter said. The 25 students worked out the wording themselves and took turns typing it into the word processor; Rideout said he helped only with French spelling and grammar.

One by one Tuesday, the 9-year-old fourth-graders came to the phone and told an American reporter why Quebec occupied such a place in their hearts.

“I don’t think it will be Canada anymore” if Quebec leaves, said Allyson Burrows. “It will just be a big gap.”

“It would be like it was split in half. I want the full country together,” said Sarah Maynard.

“It’s like a big family that would lose its child,” said Jenna Dunn.

“I don’t want my school to start being English, ‘cause I enjoy speaking French,” said Chelsea Barker.

Kaleigh Thibeau had a slightly more prosaic motivation: “Our maps would have to be changed, and we’d have to study them all over again.”

The students’ letter was faxed to six French-language newspapers in Quebec, but it is not clear it reached many readers. Database searches of three of the six papers give no indication it has yet been published, and French-language journalists in Montreal say only a few letters from outside Quebec are finding their way into the Francophone papers.

The Toronto Star asked its readers to write in and express their feelings about whether Quebec should stay or leave. More than 1,300 people did so, nearly all of them saying they hoped Quebec would remain. Said one letter writer: “I feel like the complacent spouse who took our relationship for granted and forgot to say how much it meant to me.”

In addition to publishing some of the letters in an eight-page special section, the Star’s management had the section translated and published in French. La Presse, Montreal’s largest French paper, initially agreed to distribute 350,000 copies of the section. But at the last minute, editors backed out of the agreement, saying publication would violate Quebec’s referendum-campaign laws. The Star distributed the French sections in Toronto in its Saturday editions and asked readers to mail them to people in Quebec.

“I feel people in Quebec don’t know” the message the rest of Canada is trying to send, said John Honderich, publisher of the Star. “Some of them are probably interpreting silence as indifference.”

Alain Dubuc, editorial page editor of La Presse, said his newspaper would like to have published the Star section but was told by Quebec’s elections commissioner that to do so would be illegal. In addition, he said, letters from outside Quebec have minimal value in the province’s internal debates.

“When they send the message, ‘We love you,’ we know they also don’t want to change Canada for Quebec to fit in. There is another message that is not said: ‘Shut your mouth.”’ In addition, he said, translating the letters is burdensome and non-Quebecers have little new to say. “Sometimes it’s a two-sided monologue,” Dubuc said.

Dubuc may have a point that Canadians feeling emotional about Quebec’s possible departure don’t necessarily feel generous. Many share the view expressed by one participant in the CompuServe on-line network’s Canadian discussion group, who wrote in an open letter to Quebecers:

“We all want you to stay in Canada, but if you decide to go it will be a lot like when a spouse who is dearly loved decides to leave. … We will be upset and perhaps a little bit angry and will not be in a conciliatory mood. … We want you to stay but if you leave you are gone and will be treated as any other separate country.”

Two times in the last five years, Canada has failed to approve constitutional changes that were designed to appease Quebec. Two provinces failed to ratify the Meech Lake accords in 1990, and voters all across Canada rejected another set of proposals in 1992.

People in the ROC, as the rest of Canada is jokingly called here, exhibit no mood to grant Quebec any special status that other provinces don’t get, even if the price of intransigence is separation.

“There’s no interest in further concessions,” said Vancouver radio talk-show host Bill Goode. “People are saying, let them decide, make no promises.”

There is no question, however, that many English Canadians hope Quebec will decide to remain in Canada. A candlelight vigil will be held in Vancouver this week, as will an “All Together Now” rock concert and rally in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

City councils are passing resolu tions, high schoolers are making phone calls, car dealerships are flying Quebec flags and Canadian celebrities are speaking out. At the Toronto rally, author Margaret Atwood told the audience: “I don’t know about you, but I’m a total wreck. I’ve lost five pounds in the last two weeks. It’s a mistake to think that just because the faces of Anglos don’t move when they talk, they don’t have feelings.”