Barely three days after you read this, the map of Europe could once again change. On September 18, a referendum will take place in Scotland asking a single question, “Should Scotland be an independent country?” If a successful ‘yes’ vote is passed, the nation that currently forms an integral part of the United Kingdom will become its own country for the first time in over 300 years.
Despite the fact that this vote appears to be unimportant to Canadians, an independent Scotland could become the catalyst for drastic changes in our own nation.
Most of us are too young to remember the fervour of nationalism in Quebec and their demands for independence. In the past 40 years, there have been two referendums regarding the creation of an independent Quebec.
The first, held in 1980, produced a lopsided result, with 59 per cent of voters opting to remain part of Canada. The second vote, held almost 20 years ago, was much closer, with Quebec remaining a Canadian province by a mere 1.16 per cent of the vote.
In recent years, support for sovereignty has faded in the province, as evidenced by recent elections on both the federal and provincial levels. A side effect of the NDP’s “Orange Wave” in the 2011 election was the Bloc Québécois’ complete decimation as a federal party, when they lost 44 of their seats to the NDP, and gained only one.
At least one group in [Canada] will watch and hope for an independent Scotland.
This left them eight seats shy of official party status, and they have been reduced to two since that election.
On the provincial level, the Parti Québécois has not fared much better. Despite winning a minority government in 2012, their most recent campaign this past April resulted in their worst result for the popular vote since 1970.
Despite these defeats, the sovereigntist movement in Quebec has not disappeared, even though many argue that the provincial government has achieved ‘de facto’ independence due to its control over so many of its education, immigration, taxation, and cultural policies.
They even call their provincial legislature the National Assembly of Québec. Some Canadian political experts refer to this protracted struggle as the “neverendum referendum.” It seems no matter how much de facto independence Quebec achieves — even to the point of being recognized as a nation within Canada by Prime Minister Harper and the Canadian government in 2006 — they will not be happy until they achieve true independence.
What worries me is that a successful bid for independence by Scotland could result in a new surge of Québécois separatist feelings. If nothing else, it would set a legal precedent for a process by which portions of a country could legally vote to separate from the whole.
Historically, this separation has only been accomplished by force of arms, and is often subject to military resistance on the part of the nation that would end up being divided. This was the case in the US Civil War and, more recently, the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
I will be watching for the results of Thursday’s vote with great interest. Though many are hoping for the bid’s defeat, there is at least one group in our country who will watch and hope for an independent Scotland. The Québécois sovereigntists are the heirs of the Auld Alliance.
