POLITICS : Western Canada to Quebec Separatists: Love It or Leave It : Rest of nation is tired of bending to keep French-speaking province. Polls favor hard line on secession.

By CRAIG TURNER

Aug. 12, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

CALGARY, Canada —

As Quebec voters prepare for an anticipated fall election on whether to separate from Canada, the rest of the country is sending a new message to would-be separatists: Love it or leave it.

In a reversal of 30 years of Canadian popular sentiment and public policy, Quebeckers are being told not to count on any more compromises or concessions in exchange for staying in the country, and to expect tough negotiations on terms if they vote to depart.

The message is coming most loudly and clearly from Western Canada, where resentment of the national obsession with Quebec is strongest.

“People say we’ve tried to make the country a better place for Quebec and . . . the question now is, ‘Are you in or are you out?’ ” said Stephen Harper, a member of Parliament from Calgary.

“It’s time [for Quebec] to put up or shut up,” adds Dave Rutherford, a popular Calgary radio talk-show host whose conservative opinions warm the airwaves daily.

Such attitudes--and polls indicate they are widespread in most of Canada--could have a profound and unpredictable impact on the Quebec referendum, now expected in October or November.

Some argue that hard-line tactics could backfire by inflaming nationalist feelings in Canada’s only French-speaking province and driving more voters to pick independence. That does not seem to be happening yet, and the prevailing attitude seems to be that it is worth the risk to resolve the issue once and for all.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that one reason Canada hasn’t been able to successfully grapple with its financial problems and other issues is due to the threat of separation,” said Harper.

A few even contend Canada would be better off without Quebec. David Bercuson and Barry Cooper, two University of Calgary professors, argued in Canadian Business magazine last year that “Quebec and Canada must go their own ways. Although the short-term costs will be high, the longer-term costs of Quebec’s staying in Canada, but with bags forever packed and one foot always out the door, promise to be literally without limits.”

It’s no coincidence that these outspoken voices come from Calgary, a brawny oil and cattle center of 800,000 people at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Calgary celebrates its “redneck culture”--a term not as connotative of intolerance here as in the United States, but emblematic of outspoken disdain for the Eastern Canadian Establishment and especially its deference to Quebec.

As many Westerners see it, Canada has coddled Quebec for 30 years--often at their expense--in an effort to keep it from bolting the country. French was declared an official national language on a par with English; Quebec benefits from a de facto quota system for government jobs and contracts; Canadians pay inflated prices for milk mainly to protect Quebec dairy farmers; millions of tax dollars have been transferred out of prosperous Western provinces into poorer Quebec as “equalization payments.”

All of this was done in the cause of protecting Quebec’s language and culture within the Canadian nation. And yet separatist sentiment remains.

“We’re being played for suckers. Quebeckers are quite clever, and they’re playing us like a violin,” Rutherford complained.

Most English-speaking Canadians appear to be coming around to the same view, whether or not they articulate it as bluntly.

“What you pick up in the West is an amplified version of what’s felt across the country,” said Roger Gibbins, head of the political science department at the University of Calgary. “The unwillingness to compromise on the Quebec issue reflects reality. . . . Even those people who are inclined to look for a middle ground are increasingly skeptical that a middle ground can be found.”

The newest wrinkle in the separatists’ plan is to couple Quebec independence with an offer of continued economic association with what would be left of Canada, in an arrangement modeled on the European Union. But Canadians outside Quebec have no enthusiasm for such a plan, and it has only reinforced the hard-line voices from the West.

“We’re not interested in these 1 1/2-country options,” said Harper. “We want one country, and we want them in it, but if they want to be independent, then they should be an independent country. . . . They want the benefits of confederation but none of the burdens or responsibilities.”

Meanwhile, polls in Quebec continue to show that support for independence--even when linked to economic association with Canada--hovers between 42% and 45% of the electorate, largely unchanged since last spring.

If that changes, could the spirit of compromise make a comeback? A recent national survey showed that although most Canadians remain opposed to an economic association with an independent Quebec, a majority thinks that is exactly what will happen if Quebeckers vote for separation.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

View on Separation

Polls show a much harsher attitude toward Quebec in the rest of Canada if a split takes place.

If Quebec votes for sovereignty, do you think there should be an economic and political association between a sovereign Quebec and Canada?

Should be:

Quebec: 75%

The rest of Canada: 28%

Should not be:

Quebec: 17%

The rest of Canada: 67%

How do you think the rest of Canada should approach negotiations on issues that need to be worked out if Quebec votes for independence?

Compromise/resolve: