CANADA-POLITCS: Quebec Indians Spurn Separatists

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Barbara Borst

MONTREAL, May 16 1996 (IPS) - The native population of Quebec has sent a sharp message to the French-speaking politicians who advocate the separation of the province from the rest of Canada: They reject it.

Through referenda, strident speeches and international advocacy, Canadian Indians have made it plain they want no part of n any push for independence. Their message, in turn, angers French- speaking separatists, who came within 54,000 votes of winning a provincial referendum on sovereignty last October, losing by 49.4 percent to 50.6 percent.

The separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ), led by Lucien Bouchard, has already promised to try again but they’ll do so without any support from the Inuit and Cree people – more than 90 percent of whom voted to stay in Canada.

The PQ claims Canada’s territory could readily be divided between the two “founding peoples” – descendants of French and British colonists – but that Quebec’s territory is inviolable. Not so, say the native peoples, whose ancestors inhabitated these lands long before European colonization began in the 16th century.

Ghislain Picard, chief of the Assembly of First Nations for Quebec and Labrador, says that ten Indian nations plus the Inuit (Eskimo) lay claim to more than half of Quebec’s 1.5 million square kilometers.

“The political landscape can’t be changed unless we consent,” he argues. “We have the right to self-determination, to choose what is best suited for our future.”

Chief Billy Two Rivers, spokesman for the Mohawk Council, warns that Quebec’s secession may hurt the Indian nations within the province.

“History tells us any kind of break-up of a country always leads to civil war,” he says. “Is Canada going to stand for a unilateral declaration of independence by the province of Quebec? Certainly the Indian nations won’t.”

Positions on both sides are unchanged but the rhetoric has been toned down since January, when the opposing sides delivered veiled threats of violence. At that time, when Bouchard had just been sworn in as Quebec’s premier, tempers flared over claims that Quebec could be partitioned to keep aboriginals and the province’s English-speaking minority in Canada.

Memories remain fresh over the bloody 1990 confrontation between Mohawks and provincial authorities, but Bill Namagoose, executive director of the Grand Council of the Cree, says the greatest danger comes from urban centres where the divisions over separation are sharpest.

“When you divide a country, you get the realm of violence,” Namagoose says. “During that moment, nobody will care what the Cree and Inuit are saying. The question will be what is happening in Montreal.”

Peter Vorias of the World Anti-Fascism League, a Montreal-based human rights watchdog, says that discussion about partition is highly inflamatory and easily exploited by extremists.

“The potential for violence is very, very strong,” he warns. The league sent a report to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in February highlighting “racism, xenophobia and intolerance” in Quebec over sovereignty.

“A showdown is the last thing we want,” Two Rivers contends. “But the militancy of Quebec is sometimes hard to take.” The Mohawk claim that “a province in Canada has no legal right to separate,” he says.

That claim is the focus of a court battle that has inflamed Quebec-Canada relations anew. The federal government decided to intervene in a case contesting the legality of a referendum as a basis for independence. The Quebec government, which threatened to call a snap election and another referendum, seeks a ruling that Canada’s constitution has no bearing on Quebec’s right to self- determination.

Shirley Bishop, press attache for Quebec’s minister for aboriginal affairs, regional development and natural resources, says Quebec will seek independence by democratic means, but that its territory cannot be divided.

In 1983 the Quebec National Assembly recognised the autonomy of aboriginal nations but specified that their rights could only exist within Quebec and could not infringe on the province’s territorial integrity.

“We were the first government in Canada, in North America to recognize aboriginal nations,” Bishop says. Despite differences on sovereignty, Quebec officials and native communities work closely on more immediate concerns such as economic development.

Picard says cooperation on education, public security and justice continues but there is little progress on native claims to vast reaches of the province. Bouchard’s government has made no high-level overtures to aboriginal peoples, he argues.

“We’re aware of their position. They’re aware of our position,” he says. “That shouldn’t stop us from the realities day to day that we have to deal with.”

“Some offerings have been made,” Two Rivers acknowledges. But he adds the proposals reveal “a very colonialist attitude. We all get along under Quebec for Quebec.” Relations with federal officials are “not always the best,” but they are less patronizing than with Quebec, which “colonises” immigrants by requiring that their children attend French-language schools.

“They claim the right to self-determination and deny it to other peoples,” Namagoose says. “They want to kidnap us and transfer us to another sovereign country. That’s happened four times in history.”