Harper uses “separatists” to shore up western support: prof

In his five-minute televised address to the nation on December 2, Prime Minister Stephen Harper mentioned “separatists” four times.

“This is no time for backroom deals with the separatists,” the embattled politician warned, referring to a Liberal-NDP coalition which received a pledge of support from the Bloc Québécois.

But French Canadian audiences of the address heard something a little different. When speaking in the country’s other official language, Harper replaced the word “separatists” with “souverainistes”.

“It’s part of an attempt to strengthen his support in the West and in English Canada by creating a kind of hysteria,” SFU history professor Jack Little said. “That somehow democracy is going to be subverted by separatists who are going to destroy the country.”

Little has taught at SFU since 1976 but grew up in Quebec and lived there through the province’s tumultuous 1960s.

Illustrating the potential consequences of such rhetoric is a message that Little said was left on his voicemail on December 2. Somebody wanted to speak with the expert on Quebec about the War Measures Act.

“He said that he had inside information from Harper’s government” Little recalled. “That Harper might have to invoke the War Measures Act because of this separatist plot.”

“That’s the kind of hysteria that he has whipped up,” Little added.

In 1970, then prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act in response to the kidnapping of a British diplomat by the Front de libération du Québec, a separatist group responsible for more than 200 bombings in Canada.

Trudeau’s use of the War Measures Act was later criticized for the sweeping powers it gave to police and the threat it posed to civil liberties.

The words “separatist” and “sovereigntist” have distinctly different meanings, Little noted. A Quebec sovereigntist is not seeking a complete break from Canada while a separatist could be, though the issue is far from black and white.

Furthermore, it is not even the Bloc Québécois—the federal party that Harper has criticized the Liberals and NDP for associating with—that is most closely aligned with separatism in Quebec, Little said.

The provincial Parti Québécois has made the strongest push for a sovereign French-speaking province. And, according to Little, even its position on a break from Canada fluctuates over time, sometimes hardening but often softening.

Little described Harper’s use of different language when addressing different audiences as “pretty two-faced” and predicted that the strategy will backfire in the long run.

You can follow Travis Lupick on Twitter at twitter.com/tlupick.