In 1991, a top separatist lawyer and policy-maker made a surprising statement.
The First Nations and Quebecers “are going to have to talk together because they both, or all, have the right to self-determination,” said Daniel Turp, a law professor at the University of Montreal and top policy advisor to separatist leader Lucien Bouchard.
“In terms of legitimacy, the aboriginal peoples, the aboriginal nations on their territory, are quite ahead of the francophones of Quebec,” he said at the Belanger-Campeau hearings into Quebec’s future.
Turp added, “In my opinion, the fact that (aboriginal peoples) constitute peoples who are self-identified as peoples would give them a right to self-determination at the same level as Quebec.”
Last year, a minor scandal erupted in separatist ranks over Turp’s statements and separatist officials said he was merely expressing his own opinion. Turp was also reportedly told to no longer speak to the media.
“I don’t want to discuss anything with your paper,” Turp finally told The Nation this month, caught at home after months of not returning our calls.
The rights of the First Nations are the downfall of the justice of the separatist enterprise. So argues Paul Joffe, a Montreal lawyer, in a new book prepared for the Grand Council of the Crees.
In this 400-page tome, Joffe points out that for purposes of self-determination and secession, a “people” can be made up of different ethnic or linguistic groups “only if there is October 20, 1995 a common will or voluntariness to form a single ‘people’ among those involved.”
Since the First Nations in Quebec each choose to identify themselves as distinct peoples, they cannot be forcibly included as a part of the “Quebec people” for secession purposes, he says.
Contrary to separatist “myth,” Joffe maintains that there is no rule under Canadian or international law that ensures the present boundaries of the province of Quebec would be those of a Quebec state.
According to international law, he says, an independent Quebec’s borders would be those over which a Bouchard (Parizeau?) government could assert “effective control.”
This appears to rule out Eeyou Astchee, the Cree homeland, and other First Nations territories where the populations are firmly opposed to separation from Canada.
The military question was one of the first issues raised by Bouchard after he assumed leadership of the sovereignty campaign from Parizeau. If Quebec separates, he said, its government will attempt to seize all the F-18 fighter-bombers stationed in the province to form the backbone of Quebec’s new armed forces.
Joffe notes that the PQ government has resorted to the threat and use of force against Aboriginal peoples in the past On a final point, it is of some note that Premier Parizeau chose Oct 30 as voting day—”Matt Night”
It is apparently a time-honoured tradition on this night for many Québécois youths to eat pickles and milk, crap in a bag and set the bag aflame on the matts of unsuspecting house-dwellers. What could it possibly mean?
