LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : Jacques Parizeau : Creating a New Nation From French Quebec

To his admirers, Jacques Parizeau is the avuncular, albeit formal, ex-college professor and economist, focused with brilliant intensity on a nearly 30-year-old dream of making his native province of Quebec a new nation, independent from the rest of Canada.

To detractors, he is an arrogant fantasist, dwelling on archaic rivalries between English- and French-speaking Canadians and bent on breaking up a country that a recent U.N. study ranked the world’s most livable.

Parizeau, 64, was elected premier of Quebec on Sept. 12, on a platform of independence and a promised province-wide referendum on the issue within 10 months. It should have been a moment of undeniable triumph for Parizeau, leader of the Parti Quebecois, which has long advocated separation as the best route for preserving Quebec’s French language and culture in North America. Instead, his victory was immediately cast as ambiguous, at best.

The Parti Quebecois won only 44.7% of the popular vote, well below what was forecast. That was good enough for 77 seats in the 125-member provincial Parliament, only because the opposition was split between two other major parties, the Liberals and the Parti Action Democratique. Meanwhile, polls show support for independence--or sovereignty as it’s called here--dropping to between 32% and 42% of the Quebec electorate.

The decline troubles some separatists, notably Lucien Bouchard, opposition leader in the Canadian national Parliament and Parizeau’s sometimes uneasy partner in the movement for Quebec sovereignty. Bouchard has said there shouldn’t be a referendum until the separatists are sure they can win. (This interview was conducted before Bouchard’s recent life-threatening illness.)

If Parizeau is disheartened, however, he does not show it. His only concession to the polls is a slight adjustment in his target date for the referendum--now slated, he says, for some time in 1995. As is his custom, he concedes few obstacles to Quebec independence, whether it’s the large public debt it would inherit or the concerns of Quebec’s influential English-speaking minority.

Parizeau’s politics extend into his personal life. A widower with two children, Parizeau, in 1992, married Lisette Lapointe, an activist in his political party. Talking recently in his office in the provincial capital, Parizeau speaks flawless English with a plummy accent--perhaps influenced by his study at the London School of Economics. He is fond of irony and underlines it with deep laughter, but the dominant impression is of the former professor imparting a lesson.

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Question: Most Americans probably see Canada as a success and a good place to live, even with its problems. Their first question to you might be, why do you want to leave it?

Answer: It’s something that has matured for a long time, and that’s why it takes such a democratic form. There is no violence. Everything is concentrated on the vote . . . .

Here you have a lot of people living in a country that has an excellent reputation abroad, but we just refuse to live with each other . . . . Quebeckers have had a long history on this continent, and they’ve been shoved, moved, into all sorts of situations within Canada. When the Canadian confederation took place in 1867, a lot of people in Quebec said, “Could we have a referendum?” They said, “Oh, no. In the British tradition, the Parliament can do anything, excluding changing a man into a woman, and, therefore, no referendum”--and that was that. We entered confederation.

This time around, we’re nice. We say we’re going to have a referendum before we get out. That’s a remarkable improvement in relation to the shoving that we’ve known in the past . . . . People (in Quebec) are rather confident that they can define their own future, and we’ve come to the point where we’re going to define our own future. So it’s a long, long evolution, with times when it was one step forward, two steps backward, and times when it was two steps forward, one step backward. But we’re coming to an end.

Q: Is it still your intention to have the referendum on independence in 1995?

A: Yes.

Q: The latter part of ‘95, the early part of ‘95? When?

A: On the path of history, who gives a damn?

Q: The latest polls show opposition to sovereignty at around 60% of Quebec voters, and no sovereigntist party or position has ever won a majority vote in Quebec. Given that, what’s the source of your optimism that you will win a majority vote for independence?

A: I’ll put the question the other way around: How do you have an idea as potent as the independence of a country that, in vote after vote, gets between 40% and 50% of the votes and say, “I’m sure it’ll vanish”? Some politicians can be more skillful than others and get beyond the 50%. Others might be less skillful and get below 50%. I can’t say, “I’m a superb tactician and I’m sure I’ll get beyond 50%.” Other people will have to comment on how skillful I am. But it’s now a question of tactics and strategy. Get me a half-dozen Ontarians who put their feet to the Quebec flag, and I’ve got it. . . .

Q: How does the United States come into this equation? Obviously, you have an interest in keeping the United States neutral and in getting quick U.S. recognition of Quebec if you win a referendum.

A: I can’t and shouldn’t imagine that the (Clinton) Administration would do anything other than the usual words: “‘We prefer that Canada remain as a whole, but the future lies in the hands of Canadians and Quebeckers.” We’re happy with this and, by the way, everyone is in Canada, both federalist and separatist . . . .

We’ve been discussing with the State Department and Commerce and the National Security Council, “What happens, if . . . . “ And it really boils down to . . . will we be a member of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement)? I think, in relevant circles in the United States, it’s well known that the trade between Quebec and the United States is 40% of the trade between the United States and Mexico.

There are people in the States who have been discussing the fate of Chile within NAFTA. Trade between Quebec and the United States is nine times--nine times!--the trade between Chile and the United States. Trade been the United States and Quebec is 2 1/2 times the trade between the United States and Brazil. So, of course, we will become members of NAFTA.

And it’s quite clear, within the relevant circles in the United States, that the main reason why the free-trade agreement between the United States and Canada came through, despite considerable opposition within English Canada, was the fact that in Quebec it was a nonpartisan issue. Both parties (within Quebec) were, in fact, free traders . . . .

There are going to be hitches. Some of the negotiators in the United States have never quite stomached the fact that cultural properties were excluded from these agreements. They obviously are going to try to reopen these talks with Quebec. But we won’t be without allies, under such circumstances. Our best allies, our strongest allies, will be English Canada.

Q: Over the last 20 years, Quebec has become increasingly multicultural. Yet, the roster of Parti Quebecois members in the National Assembly is entirely white and only one member comes from a family that speaks English at home. Is this a concern to you and, if so, what do you do to improve your credibility with minorities and English speakers?

A: What you say is not entirely historically correct . . . . Mr. (Joseph) Facal (the Parti Quebecois M.P. from Fabre, near Montreal) does not belong to a visible minority, but he comes from Uruguay. He was born there. I know Uruguay is not among the so-called minorities, but it just happens he’s from there. I suppose there are presentable minorities these days and non-presentable minorities or cultural communities. We’ll never have a great number of them until such time as these cultural minorities split their vote. At the present time, they’re all voting Liberal. So be it. But it doesn’t represent a smear on our reputation . . . . It’s not that we don’t try, but until such time as some of these people in the cultural minorities will accept, will take a chance, with the Parti Quebecois, we won’t have many representatives . . . . We always reach out. We will and we continue.

Q: Restrictive language laws have created much controversy here. Some members of your party favor reimposing the ban on English on outdoor signs. Some also favor extending the requirement that all business be conducted in French to small businesses with as few as 10 employees. Do you anticipate such changes in the law?

A: We want a society that normally functions in French. Undoubtedly, that legislation, to start with, was a shock in our society. But it did help a great deal to have that thing understood, that we want to operate normally in society in French.

One of the essential things here is that businesses operate, at least internally, in French. Externally, if you’re in contact with markets in the United States, you won’t start to negotiate in French with St. Louis. But, internally, they should operate in French, as they do in French in France and as they do in German in Germany. That is the logical thing to do. Laws help. At one point, laws overkill. And that’s always a question of judgment. At what point have your laws created enough of the environment that you’ve accomplished your purpose?

. . . There’s a great deal to be done with respect to businesses, particularly small business. It’s not a normal situation where you ask people here if you can’t speak English, you can’t have this or that job in a company that has 20 employees. It’s not a normal situation. So, we’ll insist, and we’ll go on doing that sort of thing, until we think we’ve reached a normal situation.

Q: What do you say to young English speakers who say they don’t think they can fulfill their potential in Quebec and need to move elsewhere?

A: Well, it’s probably inevitable as a reaction, and life corrects this as time goes by. You can imagine being 17 or 18 and saying that sort of stuff, and then you realize that when you become a young parent, you send your kids to the English school where you went, it’s still there. And when your wife is sick, you send her to the (English-speaking hospital) and that half the radio stations in Montreal are English speaking . . . . All these kids are bilingual, the large majority. But they say, are they (the Parti Quebecois) going to suppress our schools? Will the (hospitals) still be there? Well, the (hospital) will be there. Their schools will be there, the Montreal Repertoire Theater will still be there . . . . The constitution of a sovereign Quebec will incorporate all these things . . . .

Q: I’d like to ask a few economic questions. Some recent analyses suggest that with its provincial debt and its share of Canada’s national debt, an independent Quebec would be among the most indebted nations on Earth.

A: Oh yes, heavens, because of Canada. Canada is, and because Canada is, we are. They’re quite right.

Q: How would that affect Quebec’s ability to take on the additional responsibilities that come with independence?

A: The additional responsibilities come with additional tax sources . . . . We want to administer our own taxes. And we can make an effort, once we have shouldered our part of the debt, to try to start to stop that indebtedness. The situation of the federal . . . deficit is much worse than the provincial situation. They’re in a jam now . . . . Government programs on top of one another, both governments trying to do the same thing with respect to the same people. There’s a huge wastage. There’s something like at least $3 billion of wastage because of that overlapping of federal and provincial programs . . . . Until we’ve conducted our own studies, and they’ve just been started, we can’t be any more specific, but $3 billion seems a reasonable explanation.

Q: You’ve said you intend to use Canadian money as Quebec currency should Quebec achieve independence. Isn’t it a distinct disadvantage for an independent country to turn over its monetary policy to another nation, as you would be doing?

A: You’re quite right, but as the judge says, it’s the balance of inconvenience. We won’t have anything to say on monetary policy for quite a while, but what else is new? All we’re saying, for the present time, is look, we’re going to have a go at administering our own taxes, defining our own laws and signing our own treaties. And who knows, as time goes by, and as people in English Canada recover their smile again, maybe we can talk a little about monetary policy.*