Originally published in The Hub
After the Quebec referenda and the Supreme Court reference on Quebec separation, the Clarity Act was passed in Canada, laying out the ground rules for any province desiring to separate.
It is a process statute. It seems designed to give the Central Canadian Laurentian elite the opportunity to delay, obfuscate, and generally prevent a province from departing. Any province that passed a separation motion in the legislature would trigger years of negotiation, consultation, litigation, inter-provincial conferences, commissions, papers, and studies. And all this before a separation referendum was put to the people.
And this represents only the first of the two hurdles.
The first is intra-Canadian: to achieve wording on a referendum, a majority vote, followed by an agreement to allow separation. The second hurdle is extra-Canadian: to achieve recognition by another country or countries.
To get the rest of Canada to agree on separation is difficult enough, but to achieve statehood, the province would need recognition from other countries—nations prepared to say, “We acknowledge you as an independent state and will recognize you and deal with you to make treaties, agreements, and exchange diplomats.”
During the intra-Canadian negotiations, countries with their own separatist movements—Spain, the U.K., Turkey, and others—would actively resist the creation of any new state born of secession and would preemptively declare that they would not recognize its independence. The United States of old, wanting a stable northern border, would either remain silent or also preemptively declare a refusal to recognize statehood for the separatists. And U.S.-sponsored bodies, such as the World Bank, various UN Agencies, and others, would hew the same line. This would all be fodder for the delays and tactics of the Laurentians.
But we have a new paradigm.
Imagine a province taking a small step towards separation now, floating a trial balloon or holding a conference to consider the idea. Nothing untoward, just an exploratory step. Imagine further the Mar-a-Lago agent of change posting to social that the new province would be recognized as a new state immediately. And the post might include the promise of a new trade and security deal.
That’s a whole different story.
Britain would remain silent as they have with the 51st-state controversy. Europe would remain on the sidelines. Most of the external world would shrug or agree with the agent of change. Canada is not worth the bother, and agreeing with emanations from Mar-a-Lago is not a bad thing.
And what a wake-up call for the Laurentian elites. A couple of White House press releases could change the game.
The conversations around equalization, immigration, and representation in government, courts, and the deep state would suddenly become part of the art of the deal. Major projects like pipelines and tidewater access would suddenly become real. The dialogue around national defence might even change.
Don’t mistake my intention—to paraphrase Lucien Bouchard, I am not as much interested in separation as I am interested in a new arrangement with Canada. And the agent of change in Mar-a-Lago might help achieve this goal.