Quebec challenges
Canadian
Federation
MORE THAN 200,000 people came туто
LApres
Meech 1 into the streets of Montreal on June
24, the Quebec national holiday.
Counting the display in the evening, more than 500,000 people were involved during the day. Opinion polls had already indicated before the collapse the same weekend of the ine collapse une same weekend or the
Lake Meech accords, which had attempted to reintegrate Quebec into the
Canadian federation, that support for
Quebec as a distinct society;
the agreement was careful however to avoid granting right selfthe to through the inability to carry out constitutional reforms, as has been shown by the
Oka crisis with the Amerindians (see accompanying article). The federal gov-
60% and 70%. RONALD CAMERON T HE road to and from Lake
Meech started after 1982, when, at the time of Trudeau's Liberal government, the Canadian state "repatriated" its constitution from the hands of the British Queen. This was Trudeau's answer to the 1980 sovereignty referendum of the then Prime Minister of Quebec, Rene Levesque. The provincial Parti Quebecois government headed by Levesque refused to endorse Trudeau's unilateral reform. Since then Quebec has technically not been part of Canada.
The new attempt to reach a constitutional agreement was put forward at Lake Meech in 1987 by the Prime Ministers of the 10 provinces on the initiative of Trudeau's Conservative successor, Brian Mulroney. Despite the fact that it was rejected by the majority of worker and national organizations in Quebec, this accord became the rallying point of the autonomist struggle, which the Liberal Prime Minister of Quebec, Robert Bourassa, wanted to win, evidently in alliance with Mulroney.
In fact, these accords gave Quebec no more areas of control than had been recognized in similar agreements over the previous ten years. The crowning point of the accord was a clause formally recognizing determination. Some left Canadian nationalist currents, while evading the issue of the distinct society clause, emphasized the rights of women, Amerindians and individuals in order to reject • these accords and ride out the wave of chauvinism with regard to Quebec in Canaernment cannot give concessions to national or territorial demands, since any concession tends to place its own legitimacy in question. Canadian politics will be bogged down in regional rivalries aggravated by economic slowdown.
The crisis also finds expression in defections from the federal Liberal and Conservative parties. Brian Mulroney has lost his main lieutenant in Quebec, Lucien da's anglophone population.
Some more pragmatic political personalities, of the school of ex-PM Trudeau, envisaged the need for an increased centralization of the federal state at the expense of Quebec national rights.
A constitutional reform, such as Lake Meech, demands a consensus by the legislative assemblies of the ten provinces and the federal parliament, three years after the signing of the accords. This period ended on June 23, 1990, the eve of Quebec's national day.
Surreal atmosphere at Lake
Meech
Intensive week-long secret negotiations took place in what even the Prime Ministers described as a surreal atmosphere. These worthies were already on the verge of walking out when an Amerindian provincial deputy from Manitoba made use of procedures to prevent the legislative assembly in that province from ratifying the accords. The house of cards collapsed.
The failure at Lake Meech marks the start of a profound crisis of the Canadian state. This crisis of unity, of legitimacy and federalism, is expressed first of all
Bouchard, who has formed a Quebecois bloc of defector deputies in the federal parliament.
This bloc got trade unionist Gilles Duceppe elected in a by-election in Montreal with 66% of the vote, leaving the federal parties to share out 30%. Mulroney's candidate got 3%. The aim of the Bloc Quebecois is to defend Quebec's interests in Ottawa, despite Bouchard and co's stated support for Mulroney's overall policies.
The rejection of the Lake Meech accords came as a shock in Quebec. The post-referendum trauma after 1980, the return to private life and scepticism about collective action are all things of the past. Quebecois sovereignty is possible again. But there is a battle underway to define the precise road to follow to realize aspirations for self-determination.
Basically, the bourgeois political forces in Quebec are trying to create a relation of forces to "negotiate" sovereignty with the federation, whether this is a part of, or separate from, Canada or free exchange with the US.
Robert Bourassa's project is to find the weakest possible variant of this perspective and to channel national sentiment in a 19 way that will not involve a break with the
Quebec's sovereignty stood at between
CANADA federal state or threaten the stability of the present socio-economic system. The impression of making gains will camouflage the fact that the basic instruments of the Canadian state remain.
He wants to set up a parliamentary commission that can bring together representatives of the Quebecois establishment, entrepreneurs, financiers and political figures such as Bouchard and the leaders of the Parti Quebecois (PQ). This commission would suggest a constitutional line of action for Quebec from now until next spring.
For Lucien Bouchard, this relationship of forces demands that all socio-political forces in Quebec fall in behind the banner of sovereignty/association. His group in the federal assembly is meant to serve as a transmission belt for this project.
The PQ, meanwhile, finds its projects threatened. After the collapse of the party's electoral base after 1980, Jacques Parizeau took over from Levesque's successor, Pierre-Marc Johnson. Parizeau came to power criticizing Johnson for diluting the Q's stand for independence. Today Parizeau wants to see a prosovereignty leadership without sacrificing the Q's respectable image, by participating in the national unity movement. His assent to the use of the Canadian army against the armed Amerindian group, the Warriors, is the clearest proof of this.
Sovereignty and national liberation
The thinking in these circles is that the establishment of a strong pro-nationalist relationship of forces will give these political forces a valuable means of influence at the federal level, enabling the realization of sovereignty without turmoil. In terms of such a strategy, the establishment of a sovereign Quebec does not imply the national liberation of the Quebecois people. The idea is to reinforce Quebec's position within North American capitalism. The free trade agreement with the US, adopted last year by the federal parliament, has the unanimous support of the Quebecois political leaders, including Bourassa, Parizeau and Bouchard.
In reality, however, the dismantling of the Canadian state requires a clear and definitive break. The other options will lead back into the shifting sands of negotiations over a new statute. A unilateral declaration of independence is the only way for Quebec to enter onto the path to its liberation. Lithuania is already being cited as an example and a warning, although the pro-federalist forces are sure to point up the differences between Quebec and the Baltic States. Finally, complete independence raises the question of the social nature of a sovereign Quebec.
In May and June two union confederations in Quebec, the Teachers Federation 20 Trade Unions National Confederation of
), adopted the per spective of independence for Quebec. Simply giving form to a widespread sentiment among the unions' membership, these resolutions were adopted almost without debate. This may seem surprising given that these same organizations refused to take a clear position on the 1980 referendum. But times have changed.
With its explicit support for the PQ and. with its overall social-democratic tradition in electoral terms, the position of the Federation of Quebec Workers (FTQ), affiliated to the Canadian Labor Congress 0) may seem more independence. However, although the FTQ came out for a "yes" vote in the referendum, its positions remain compatible with a new statute negotiated within the Canadian framework.
The positions of the three union federations are important milestones in the development of an independent workers movement, whose absence weighs heavily in Quebec. The unions are steering clear of partisan political action, but after taking these pro-independence positions, the question of a political alternative is on the table.
Union support for bourgeois candidacy
The CSN's Gilles Duceppe stood on Bouchard's Bloc Quebecois ticket in a by-election on August 12. The union centrals gave their support to Duceppe's candidacy, which thus enjoyed a very wide political base. It included youth from the federal Liberal Party breaking with a centralist concept of the federation, the local deputies from the provincial Liberal Party as well as city councillors, the official support of the PQ. different nationalist groups and the New Democratic Party of Quebec (NPD-Q), a formation consisting of Quebecois Socialists and Democrats who had split from the federal NPD. Nonetheless, the union movement cannot count on the leaders of the national movement to promote its social goals.
While Bouchard's group does not have party discipline he himself has supported Mulroney over such matters as the recriminalization of abortion, the introduction of the indirect Tax on Products and Services (TPS), and the trade agreement with the Americans. The stand taken by the union centrals provides a starting point for a discussion on an alternative to Bouchard's line. There is a long way to go.
To advance towards a political alternative, the union movement must start to challenge the total control by the bourgeois political parties over the national struggle. The unions have the possibility to increase their weight in the national movement. But it remains the case that the workers' movement cannot fully take the lead in the national struggle without its own independent political party. *
International Viewpoint #191 • October 1, 1990
Native
Americans confront the state
IN SCENES horribly reminiscent of the massacres of native peoples by white armies in the 19th century, the
Canadian armed forces employed more than 3,000 soldiers and over 350 armored vehicles In early
September to occupy the whole of the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawake on the south bank of the St.
Lawrence river, less than ten kilometers from
Montreal. They also surrounded the last twenty armed resisters and a hundred other Native
Americans on the Mohawk reserve of Kanesatake, 20 kilometers north west of
Montreal.
MICHEL LAFITTE
HE ONLY Mohawk territories
T that are not occupied either by the Sureté de Quebec (SQ — the
Quebecois police force) or the
Canadian army are the hunting grounds of
Donnacona, 50 kilometers north of Montreal. But 95% of the Mohawks of Quebec 2 live in the occupied areas.
The current crisis is only the culmination of several centuries of attempted genocide by all the regimes of European origin in the Americas, and of active or passive resistance from the native peoples.
For several years, the Conservative federal government of Brian Mulroney has been slashing public expenditure. Native peoples have been among the foremost victims of this policy — cuts in subsidies for health and social welfare, reduction of the personnel of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, cuts in the money
allocated to post secondary education for native peoples, and so on. The response of the native peoples has been very varied, ranging from rallies and demonstrations to occupations and lawsuits.
The question of land rights also remains very central to the concerns of native peoples. The events of this summer were sparked off by a police attack on July 11 on a barricade erected by Mohawks on the reserve at Kanesatake. The thousand Mohawks of the area were attempting to stop the municipality of Oka from transferring land that they have claimed for over 150 years to a private golf club. The historic burial ground of the reserve, as well as the only virgin pine forest to survive in the region, are also found on these lands. No level of government (municipal, provincial or federal) had agreed to negotiate. Only some ecologists, concerned about the forest, had given their support to the Mohawks. It seemed to be a minor conflict. But small conflicts become big when they take on the character of a symbolic and exemplary struggle.
On July 10, the mayor of Oka asked the SQ to implement a judicial injunction from the Superior Court of Quebec instructing the Mohawks to dismantle their barricades on the roads and railways which cross the reserve and the municipality of Oka. The Mohawk community strengthened the barricades and about 15 armed members of the paramilitary group, the Warriors Society of the Mohawk Nation, previously absent from the reserve, joined the community.
On July 11, over 100 SQ agents attacked the barricades using heavy assault rifles, concussion grenades and tear gas. In the shooting that followed, an SQ corporal was killed, in circumstances which remain unclear. The SQ, which has become accustomed over the past ten years to brutalizing native peoples, encircled the reserve and stopped the entry of provisions and medicines.
In solidarity, members of the community of Kahnawake, protected by armed warriors, established barricades around the reserve to the south west of Montreal and cut all access to the Mercier bridge across the St. Lawrence river. They threatened to blow up this bridge (one of five which give access to Montreal from the south bank) if the SQ attacked the Kanesatake community again. The SQ immediately encircled the Kahnawake reserve with their own barricades, depriving the 7,000 permanent inhabitants of the reserve of supplies and medicine. Some
CANADA
2,000 armed policemen surrounded the two reserves until the entry into action of the Canadian armed forces on August 29.
On July 12, the minister of Indian Affairs in Quebec, John Ciaccia, agreed to negotiate at Kanesatake. The subsequent negotiations have been disrupted by the repeated refusal of the provincial government and, later, the federal government, to discuss any thing other than the lifting of the barricades and the unconditional surrender of the armed natives. The federal government offered to buy the lands of the Oka gulf club, but this was to be done with funds already allocated for the reserve.
Propaganda campaign and racist mobs
The mass media exploded in denunciation of the Mohawk "terrorists". The general sympathy among the Quebecois population for the Mohawks began to erode under the tide of anti-Mohawk declarations coming from all the bourgeois politicians and virtually all the media. A phenomenon new to Quebec emerged — angry racist mobs, led to a large extent by former policemen of the SQ and heavily 1. The Canadian armed forces consist of a small number of professional soldiers (40,000), equipped and trained primarily for counter-insurrectionary struggle. Only the Israeli army has a higher ratio of officers and non-commissioned officers to ordinary soldiers and a higher ratio of mobile arms. 2. There are between 80,000 and 100,000 people in Quebec who identify themselves as being of native origin, out of a total population of 6,500,000 — between 1.0 and 1.5%. French speakers constitute 80% of the population and English speakers 8%. Other ethnic groups, of recent immigrant origin, are for the most part integrated into the still dominant anglophone community. 3. In 1608, Samuel de Champlain, the leader of the first French colonists, attacked the Mohawks. Between 1608 and 1667, there were three wars between the French colonists and their native allies and the Iroquois (in this case their Mohawk compoinfiltrated by previously marginal far right groups. But it was the "anti-terrorist" declarations of Mulroney and Quebec premier Robert Bourassa which legitimized the racist mobilizations.
As for the leader of the Parti Quebecois (the main nationalist party in Quebec), Jacques Parizeau, his denunciation of the "weakness" of the Bourassa government has only opened the road to the xenophobic nationalist sects. The frustrations of proindependence Quebecois have thus heen channelled into traditional ultraCatholic and ultraanglophobe themes. Slogans have appeared against "the new AngloIroquois alliance"3 The roots of the current crisis can be found in the history of the native nations and their relations with white Canada. Nobody knows the size of the native population of North America before the first European colonists arrived at the beginning of the 17th century. Onc thing is certain - it was very much bigger than traditional white historiography has maintained. Some scholars estimate that there were at least a million people speaking Iroquoian (farmers, unlike many other native Americans who were nomadic hunters) before the arrival of diseases transmitted by the Europeans. The demographic and social impact of the epidemics which raged in the course of the 16th century was enormous.
After an initial period of collaboration, the native peoples began to resist the genocidal incursions of the colonists and the French, English, Dutch and Swedish armies. One of the first groups to lead this resistance in the north east of the continent was the Iroquois confederacy. And the Iroquois nation which was located the furthest to the east and bore the brunt of the European attacks was the Mohawk nation.
150 years before the establishment of nent). In these wars, the Iroquois accepted arms first from the Dutch and then from the British. In the course of the wars, the Iroquois won several victories against the French colonists. These are characterized by official historiography as anti-French massacres. During the conquest by the Iroquois of territories controlled by the Hurons (Wendats), allies of the French, three French Jesuit missionaries were killed, becoming the "holy Canadian martyrs" of Catholic hagiography. From 1667 onwards, there was a peace treaty between the French, the Iroquois and the Hurons and it was at this time that the reserve of Kahnawake was established. 4. The term "tribe" is completely chauvinist — as the African film maker and author, Ousmane Sembène, has ironically put it, "is it not obvious that 14 million Hausas are only a tribe whereas 200,000 Icelanders consti- 21 tute a nation?".
CANADA the first European colonies, around 1450, five people-nations which spoke variants of the same language, and which occupied all the north of what is now New York state, united. This union of the Mohawks, the Onondogas, the Oneidas, the Cayugas and the Senecas called itself, and still does, "Haudenosaunee" or the Confederacy of the Long House. The European invaders called them the Iroquois, and the mythology propagated in Quebecois school books and in the hagiography of the "holy Canadian martyrs" of the Catholic church 3 testify to the power and tenacity of this confederacy.
The structure of this confederacy was complex, combining the broadest unity with the minimum of coercion. Each nation was divided into an equal number of matrilinear clans. Each clan of each nation had the right to a certain number of representatives to the Confederacy Council, who interpreted and applied the Great Constituent Law. These representatives (who the whites called "chiefs" although they were not military chiefs, the latter being named only provisionally, for the duration of a struggle) were named by the matriarchs (the Mothers) of the clans. The biggest and strongest nations on the military plane (the Mohawks in the east and the Senecas in the west) had less representatives than the others to block any desire for domination. The goal was a consciously chosen unity. Without complete consensus, nobody could pretend to act in the name of the Confederacy. Native peoples divided during
Revolution
This structure, at once centralized and democratic, made the Haudenosaunee the most powerful native people of the north east of North America. At the time of the American Revolution, the Confederation was not able to arrive at a unanimous position. The Mohawks opted for an alliance with Britain, whilst some small groups allied themselves with the rebel colonists and the majority remained neutral.
After the defeat of the British, the majority of Mohawks and a great part of the five other nations crossed the new white frontier and settled on reserves in what became Quebec and Ontario. But they never recognized this frontier, and in 1792 a treaty between Britain and the new American republic confirmed the right of the Iroquois to pass unhindered across the frontier with their goods. There are today nearly 25,000 Mohawks in all, and 1012,000 in Quebec, on the three reserves of Akwesane, Kahnawake and Kanesatake and in Montreal itself.
Successive white governments, whether US or Canadian, have not been content simply with stealing the land of the native peoples, or killing them with alcohol, dis22 ease or bullets. They have always tried to i assimilate them to bourgeois values — individual private property, male domination and capitalist democracy with suffrage restricted to men.
Over a period of years, white federal governments have created Band Councils (on the Canadian side) and Tribal Councils (on the US side) to administer the funds "granted" to the native peoples.
Generally less than 20% of the inhabitants of the reserves participate in the "elections" to the Band Councils or the Tribal Councils - they are perceived at best as being irrelevant and at worst as a simple relay of white power.
The relationship of the native peoples six in the 19h c of Canada to the anglophone/francophone division of that country has been complex. In the 19th century, the beginning of an alliance was forged between French speakers and a big part of the native peoples of British North America against the anglophone drive to assimilate them. The majority of the native and mixed race peoples of Quebec and the Canadian west used French as a second or maternal language. At the time of the execution of the mixed race leader, Louis Riel, in 1885, there were mass demonstrations in Quebec leading to the mobilization of the Canadian army. Iroquoian language dying out among youth
To counter this alliance, the federal government decreed in the early part of this century that English would be the only language taught on the reserves. This had two effects amongst the Mohawks. Firstly, Iroquoian became a minority tongue as a maternal language amongst the Six Nations, almost disappearing amongst the youth. Secondly, English replaced French as the language of communication with the white majority, distancing the Mohawks from the Quebecois majority. Amongst the other native nations of Quebec, only those denied official recognition by the white bureaucracy retained French as a language of communication with white society.
Yet the tradition of the "Long House" of the Great Law, has never totally disappeared among the Six Nations. In the 1960s, amidst the revolt of all the non-white peoples of North America, a movement developed that was both a renewal of native culture and a demand for territorial rights.
Unnoticed by all but a few whites, the Long House, the traditional sociocultural-religious (and in the final analysis, political structure, began to regain its influence among the Six Nations. This was particularly true amongst the Mohawks. The "traditionalists" contested the Band Councils, with growing success.
In the mid-1970s, the Long House sanctioned the creation of the Warriors Society, according to the tradition of the Great Law where the military leaders were sub-
International Viewpoint #191 • October 1, 1990 ject to the authority of the representatives of the clans and the nations. They were to replace the white police forces and defend the rights of their people.
Since World War 2 more and more young Mohawks, on the Canadian side as much as the US, have found employment in the US Marines. It was the Mohawk veterans of the Vietnam war who were to constitute the Warriors.
The macho ethos of the Marines did not prepare these Mohawks for a protracted struggle. When some Seminole native peoples in Florida found a legal loophole in the mid-1980s which allowed them to open lucrative casinos on their reserve, the US government found the ideal way to foster "native capitalism" as a solution. Congress speedily adopted the "Indian Gaming Act" encouraging the creation of such casinos.
Some of the Warriors, impatient in the face of the apparent impotence of the "old guard" of the Confederacy, were seduced. On the US side of Akwesasne casinos were opened, creating a few hundred jobs at five or six dollars an hour for Mohawks, whilst the "investors" pocketed millions.
Because of this situation, a conflict developed between the Warriors and the Confederacy Council, tragically culminating in a mini civil war at Akwesasne in the spring of this year. Since then Akwesasne has been occupied by the Suretés from Ontario and Quebec and by the State Troopers of New York.
At Kahnawake, there was also a conflict about gambling and the sale of cigarettes? although this dispute never degenerated into physical battle.
### Competing political structures on reserves
Thus at the beginning of the current crisis, there existed three more or less competing structures on the Mohawk reserves —the Band Council, the Confederacy Council and the Warriors Society. But the frontiers between the different groups were not very clear. Mohawk culture does not promote vendettas or permanent political factions and extremely fluid alliances between currents are common practice. A form of permanent election of representatives, recallable at any time, was part of the Great Law of the Six Nations. On the other hand, native Americans, like any other people, are not immune from internal conflicts or even sometimes the settling of accounts.
The refusal of all layers of government and media to even try to recognize and understand the native nations explains in part their confusion in the face of the multiple changes of the Mohawk delegation to the negotiating table. But this has also served as a pretext to repeatedly break the negotiations and finally to send the army onto the reserves.
On August 12 the government accepted the Mohawks' demand that a team of
observers from the International Federation of Human Rights investigate the situation. Their report, made public on August 26, criticized the failure of the federal and provincial governments to respect the agreement on the free passage of provisions, medicine and spiritual leaders. On August 27, when the Bourassa government again suspended negotiations and resorted to the army, the observers withdrew.
At Kahnawake, the army and the Warriors agreed to dismantle the barricades without bloodshed. At Kanesatake, there was no agreement but it seems that the matriarchs of the clan intervened to block any attempt at armed resistance by the Warriors.
Meanwhile the negotiations reached deadlock, even though the federal government said for the first time on September 1 that it was ready to negotiate on the territorial demands of the community of Kanesatake. The SQ has not yet intervened, leaving that to the army, but hundreds of agents still surround the two reserves. The SQ can be expected to make many arrests — they have already been accused of maltreating and even torturing Mohawks arrested since the assault on July 11. At Kanesatake, 30 arrests are already reported.