CANADA : Foreign Offices to Close as Quebec Cuts Costs

For a quarter of a century, Quebec delegations have worked as sort of shadow embassies and consulates to their Canadian counterparts.

They have served to remind the world of Quebec’s distinct place as the center of French language and culture in North America, to promote trade and investment, and, when a separatist government is in power in Quebec City as it is now, they tout the province’s aspirations toward independence from the rest of Canada.

Imagine California maintaining a cadre of diplomats in strategic countries around the world, giving a voice to Gov. Pete Wilson to contradict the U.S. State Department whenever he disagreed with President Clinton. Sometimes, that sort of thing happens with Canada and Quebec.

But Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard has embarked on a new austerity campaign aimed at trimming the government’s debt, among the highest in Canada, and orders have gone out to shutter most of the province’s foreign offices, including the one in Los Angeles.

“The government is not doing this with a great deal of happiness, but there had to be some hard choices made,” Louis Duclos, Quebec’s delegate to Los Angeles, said in a telephone interview from his Brentwood office. “When you’re closing [public] hospitals in Montreal, it’s tough to justify the expense of keeping people abroad.”

Duclos, an ardent advocate of Quebec independence, has happily argued the case for separation to business people, academics, the media and nearly anybody else who would listen in his 13-state area of jurisdiction. He often is paired with Dennis Browne, Canada’s consul general in Los Angeles, for discussions of the pros and cons of separatism. Browne, of course, represents the “con” side.

Duclos said he has found Californians more receptive than most Americans to the possibility of Quebeckers founding their own country. “I think people here are more open to change, more used to change,” he said.

The Los Angeles delegation officially closes April 30, but Duclos, his wife, Suzanne, and their son, Alexandre, 12, will remain in town until the end of the school year in June before returning to Quebec City, the provincial capital. The No. 2 diplomat in the office, economic services officer Luc Carignan, also is being recalled. Nine other employees live in Southern California and will be laid off.

Sylvain Simard, Quebec’s minister of international relations, said the province will keep open diplomatic offices in New York, Paris, Mexico City, Brussels, London and Tokyo; 13 others will close, including, in the United States, Atlanta, Boston and Chicago.

Simard said that, in some places, Quebec will try to move its diplomats into Canadian embassies or consulates; they already work side by side in Hong Kong, Vienna and Damascus, Syria. Simard implied to reporters that they will continue to make the case for Quebec separation.

“Absolutely not,” snapped Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps, at the idea of Canadian officials promoting Quebec separatism. While Canadian officials will continue to work closely with Quebec’s overseas representatives on matters such as immigration and trade, they will draw the line at providing diplomatic cover for those promoting the breakup of the country, she said in Ottawa.

“It’s not up to us to take up the slack for Mr. Bouchard,” Copps said.