Nearly every time Quebec holds provincial elections there is a chance that a new country could be formed. The upcoming provincial elections on March 26 have put these forces into motion once again.

To understand the situation, some review is needed in Canadian and Quebecker Civics 101 (Identical to COCO 011). The government of Canada, similar to the US, is based on federalism. Compared to the US, Canada gives more power its provinces, the historical and political equivalent of states. Quebec is the second largest of the 10 Canadian provinces by population and largest by area. Quebec was one of the initial four provinces that entered into the Canadian confederation. Quebec is strongly influenced by French culture due to the fact that France first colonized the area before ceding the territory to Britain in the Seven Year War. The most apparent legacies of French colonization are the predominance of Roman Catholicism and French language (the rest of Canada mainly speaks English). Due to a complex combination of the aforementioned traits and others, Quebeckers have an unusually strong sense of provincial identity compared to other Canadian provinces.

This sense of identity has led to the formation of federal and provincial political parties whose platforms focus on making Quebec an autonomous country. Parti Quebecois (PQ), a provincial party, is the most influential proponent of independence. The major provincial opponent of separation and main enforcer of the status quo is the Liberal Party of Quebec. A third Quebec political party, Action Democratique du Quebec (ADQ), consistently receives about 20% of the vote. Until recently the ADQ supported separation, but now it proposes merely more provincial independence. These three parties are the major contenders for assembly seats. Quebec government is based on the parliamentary system, in which the party that gains the plurality of assembly seats creates the government. Leger Marketing polls in the past month have demonstrated that although the Liberals have a few percentage point advantage, PQ has a decent shot at gaining the plurality.

For the past year, PQ has been calling for a third referendum on the status of Quebec as a province. The last referendum in 1995 was defeated by 0.48 percentage points. According to the most recent Leger poll, 44% of Quebeckers would vote for separation, while 56% would vote against. Again, it is unlikely that a referendum would pass, but it is not unbelievable. So it seems that in order for Quebec to secede and become its own country, PQ must gain a plurality in the upcoming election and then the referendum must pass by a majority. Both steps would have to overcome some slight odds, but certainly neither is unthinkable.

But even this is just the beginning of the process and the problem. Many Quebeckers - even the Liberal Premier Jean Charest, a staunch federalist - maintain that Quebec can legitimately secede from Canada unilaterally. The easiest way to understand their conception of separation is to look at the text the 1995 referendum, which would most likely be used for a third referendum:

Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign, after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership, within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Quebec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995? Yes/No.

In the Tripartite Agreement on “The Parti Québécois Government's Sovereignty Plan (1995),” the PQ, the ADQ, and the Bloc Québécois (the federal equivalent of PQ) clarified their intentions for the referendum. In this document, they state that in the case of a passed referendum, Quebec would negotiate with the federal government for one year to dramatically alter the current federal-provincial relationship into something that resembles the position of the US states under the Articles of Confederation -in short, near autonomy. In the case that these negotiations fail or take longer than one year, Quebec’s assembly will unilaterally declare Quebec an independent country. It is important to note that this plan is not a legal document, but simply a statement of intention.

In contrast, the federal government and other provincial governments generally accept that Quebec could secede if it went through extensive negotiations with the federal and provincial governments, but could not secede unilaterally. This was reinforced by the Canadian Supreme Court ruling in Reference re Secession of Quebec that federal and provincial governments would have the obligation to allow Quebec to secede, as long as Quebec was reasonable in negotiations. All relevant governments have made it clear that if carried out properly, Quebec could legitimately secede. However, there is the possibility that the government of Quebec could consider the referendum passed, while the rest of Canada considers it failed.

The Canadian Supreme Court, as well as other political bodies and individuals, have ambiguously stated that for the referendum to be considered valid there must be a “clear majority” on a “clear question.” The problem with this is that the assembly of Quebec believes that any majority (50% + 1) is sufficient to demonstrate the will to secede, while the federal government has only stated that some “larger” majority is needed for this decision, because of the importance of this issue. There is also a differing of opinion on the significance of a referendum. The federal government maintains that a referendum holds no legal ground and should only be used to assess public opinion, while PQ seems to suggest that the referendum holds some more power in it of itself.

An interesting, yet unfortunate, paradox could arise if a referendum were to win by a slim majority. Would Quebec be breaking Canadian or international law if it seceded from Canada without federal permission, but with the will of the majority of Quebeckers? The Canadian Supreme Court has declared that Quebec does not have the right to unilateral secession in either arena. In the arena of Canadian law, the main complication is a temporal issue. If Quebec secedes and in doing so breaks Canadian law, what legal obligation does Quebec, as a now autonomous country, have to its old legal system? The situation is akin to outlawing suicide: if you do it successfully how can you be punished? The question of whether or not Quebec has the right under international law is all but irrelevant, since international is simply haphazard selective use of precedence and rarely even considered in non-violent actions by states, since nothing can really be done.

Realistically, Quebec would never unilaterally secede from Canada. Even though the federal government would not nor could not prevent Quebec’s secession in any serious way, Quebec would be screwed if it was founded on poor terms with Canada, which would sandwich it to the east and west, and the US to the south, which would certainly support Canada proper. Although it is clear that Quebec would have to negotiate with the rest of Canada in order to secede, it is very unclear what form these negotiations would take. There is almost no talk of what issues would need to be discussed or possible solutions. This silence stems from mutual unwillingness to show their cards until the last moment, as either side would risk preemptive concession by doing so. Furthermore, the federal government has intensely debated on whether or not Quebec should leave or be allowed to leave rather than the method of secession. This is probably an intentional ploy to make secession a frightening unknown. If Quebeckers knew exactly what would happen after separating from Canada, separation would become a safer and more popular option.

So what issues would most likely need to be addressed? The most complicated and directly related issue is how First Nations would mesh with an independent Quebec. Individual nations would have to undergo negotiations with the new Quebec and Canada. Some nations would undoubtedly associate themselves with a new Quebec nation; yet, some others would still wish to associate with Canada proper. This would create huge complications with extraterritoriality nested in more extraterritoriality. The division of national debt and federal assets located in Quebec would also need to be settled. Citizenship would have to be redefined or clarified. These are only a few issues that would need to be settled.

Finally, how would secession affect Canada proper and Quebec itself? Needless to say, Canada would be screwed over. Canada would still function and there is no risk that other provinces would secede, but everything would become much more complicated, even after negotiations. The most glaring impact to Canada is that it would be split into two non-contiguous sections by Quebec. The federal government would have to rearrange the budget, taxation, representational procedures, and countless other federal activities. The Canadian economy would also be somewhat destabilized by the uncertainty caused by the creation of a new country, right in the middle of their merry nation.

Quebec would also mildly suffer from secession. Like the rest of Canada, uncertainty in the newly formed nation would weaken the economy. Also, the government of Quebec would have to work double time to cover the services provided by their former federal government. Particularly, Quebec’s international clout would be significantly diminished from their former status as part of Canada. Quebec would have much less sway in making economic and political deals with other countries. In short, Quebec seems to have little to gain from secession besides national pride. If anything, the current threat of secession benefits Quebec the most as only a threat, because now the federal government is trying to appease Quebeckers with increases in federal funding.

Perhaps the oddest detail of this referendum and possible, yet unlikely, secession is that such a complicated issue could be provoked by so little. Historically, almost every secession or creation of a new state is associated in some way with a war or imminent threat of war. From Montenegro to Congo, from Taiwan to Argentina, even to the US, nearly every country was formed by fighting a war or by being given independence after an occupying nation is defeated by a third nation. There is a small possibility that Quebec could be one of the first nations to spontaneously become a country without any hint of force. Although it would not be the best decision for Quebec or the rest of Canada, it would be ironically momentous in its uneventfulness.