Queen Urges Canadians to Stay Calm, Settle Their Differences

Queen Elizabeth II plunged deep into Canada’s troubled political waters Sunday as she helped Canadians celebrate their national holiday with visits to both the English- and French-speaking sides of this bilingual capital city.

“I am not just a fair-weather friend, and I am glad to be here at this sensitive time,” the queen told a crowd of about 70,000 well-wishers on the lawns of the Canadian Parliament building. Switching between English and French in her speech, she took the view, dominant in English-speaking Canada, that unity should prevail and the country should return to normal.

“Knowing Canadians as well as I do, I cannot believe that they will not be able, after a period of calm reflection, to find a way through the present period of difficulties,” Elizabeth said as the predominantly English-speaking crowd cheered and waved thousands of red and white maple-leaf flags.

The enthusiastic welcome was to contrast sharply with the reaction she received later in the afternoon, when she crossed the Ottawa River to Hull, the capital’s sister city in Quebec.

Canada is experiencing a surge of separatist sentiment in the French-speaking province of Quebec, and even on the eve of the festivities for Canada Day--this nation’s equivalent of America’s Independence Day--Quebec’s political leaders were meeting to work out a decidedly independent strategy for the future.

On Friday, Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa and Jacques Parizeau, leader of the opposition Parti Quebecois, announced that they have set up a nonpartisan commission to canvass opinion across Quebec and draw up recommendations for the province’s future relationship with English Canada.

The two men differed on how the recommendations might be put to use: Parizeau advocated using them to write a new constitution for Quebec, while Bourassa said they could be the basis for negotiations with the federal government on new powers for the province.

Despite those differences, the Bourassa-Parizeau announcement was an unprecedented show of unity for the two men, who are archrivals for power in Quebec. Bourassa, a federalist, has spent his political career advancing the cause of union with English Canada, while Parizeau is a separatist who advocates political independence for the province.

Bourassa explained that change has now become necessary. “It is obvious that we cannot accept the constitutional status quo,” he said. He added that he hopes the commission will complete its work by the end of this year so that “everything” could be wrapped up by next spring.

Bourassa, a man famous in Canada for the ambiguity of his speeches, did not elaborate on what he meant by “everything.”

Given these goings-on in Quebec, it had been rumored that Queen Elizabeth, who to many Quebecers is a symbol of British imperial conquest, might cancel her appearance in the French-speaking province, which had been planned months before the feelings of separatism intensified. But she forged on anyway across the Ottawa River to French-speaking Hull, Quebec.

For the queen, the trip was a bridge too far. A crowd of disciplined but noisy Quebec nationalists lay in wait for her in Hull, eager not so much to boo her as to use her visit as a chance to taunt English Canadians. The Francophones, lined up on the sidewalk across from a park the queen was scheduled to tour, waved blue and white fleur-de-lis flags, brandished placards saying “Our Real Country Is Quebec” and sang “Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, hey-ey-ey, goodby,” as the royal motorcade rolled over the bridge.

The mayor of Hull, Michel Legere, boycotted the royal visit, saying the queen is not welcome in his city.

Elizabeth alighted in the midst of the cacophony, smiled at the crowds and then swept away from the chanting Quebecers into the park, where she accepted a bouquet of flowers from a child and met Canada’s 1989 “Maple Leaf Baby,” the first baby born on Canada Day last year.

Her activities got sharply contrasting marks from English and French Canadian onlookers on the opposite sides of the river.

“The queen gave a great speech,” said accounting student James Piper, who turned out for the events on the Ottawa side. “She reinforced what a lot of people believe in, which is a united Canada.”

In Hull, Quebecer Normand Lapointe saw it differently.

The British Royal Family “isn’t a symbol that we respect very much in Quebec,” he said. As for the new Bourassa-Parizeau political consultations: “It’s just beautiful,” he said. “The political study that’s going on in Quebec should be happening in every province. We know what we are, but what are they?”