On blockage

Most of the talk from Ottawa this week has understandably revolved around two opposition motions: the Libs' on wasteful spending including ten percenters, and the NDP's on prorogation. But in between, the Bloc also got a chance to present a motion - and in so doing, they made a few choices worth pointing out.

Here's the text of the Bloc's motion:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government demonstrated in its Speech from the Throne and its Budget that federalism does not fulfill the goals and requirements of Quebec, as there were no commitments to allocate $2.2 billion to Quebec for harmonizing the QST and GST, to provide the forestry industry with an assistance plan equivalent to that given to the automobile industry, to offer stimulus measures to the aeronautics industry, to meet Quebeckers’ expectations regarding the environment, and to enhance programs to assist the less fortunate in Quebec.

So what's noteworthy about the Bloc blaming everything on federalism? Only the fact that it was repeatedly offered a chance to actually focus its criticism, and made a conscious choice to rail against "federalism" generally rather than the government (or even governments) responsible for its substantive concerns. And in so doing, it forfeited any chance of having its motion actually pass.

Here's Thomas Mulcair's speech in response to the motion, describing the NDP's efforts to work out some compromise wording:

I would like to start by saying that we have carefully studied the motion. We initially contacted the Bloc to discuss a possible change in the wording. I wish to apologize to our extraordinary translators as I will be stumbling back and forth between the two versions of the motion. The French version states:

Que, de l’avis de la Chambre, le gouvernement a fait la démonstration dans son discours du Trône et dans son budget que le fédéralisme ne répond pas aux aspirations et aux besoins du Québec en ne s’engageant pas [...]

I would have automatically translated the French terms aspirations et besoins by “hopes and needs”. Thus, we were very surprised to see that they were rendered by fairly different terms, “goals and requirements”. It was as though the reader would be required to espouse the ultimate goal of the Parti québécois, Quebec's sovereignty. The English does not render the sense of the French term “besoins” but instead chooses to use the term “requirements”, in the sense of something that has to be done.
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We contacted the Bloc to determine if it would be possible to change the translation. The Bloc refused outright, which was an indication that this was about playing a political game rather than pointing out that Quebec had not been given its fair share. With the Bloc, it is all about strategy and tactics.

It is often said that the Conservative government and the Prime Minister are always looking for an angle. When the Bloc refused such a simple request, we began to worry.

Never giving up hope, however, the leader of the New Democratic Party, the member for Toronto—Danforth, contacted the leader of the Bloc Québécois to propose an amendment. He told the leader of the Bloc that, if his real aim was to blame the government for its behaviour with regard to Quebec and not to say that the problems set out here are the product of federalism pure and simple, he agreed with him. I am not proposing an amendment at the moment, but will do so later.

He suggested the following minor change. After the word “federalism”, the words “as practised by the Conservatives, among others” would be added.
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With this amendment, it would have been very easy to agree with the Bloc's proposal, because this is divisive federalism. Federalism of exclusion, as practised by the Conservatives today and the Liberals before them, is at the source of the problem.
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When the Bloc rejected this amicable change proposed by the NDP leader, we realized what was happening. We realized that, as usual, the Bloc was choosing to withdraw and stick to its ideology.

And Mulcair made one more appeal for a change in wording which would have had a strong chance of passing in light of its direct focus on the Cons:

We could have worked with the Bloc had it been willing to amend its motion to say that the goal is constructive criticism for the future. Conservatives are being blamed, which does not preclude possible criticism of the Liberals, mainly for their stand on harmonization, but the Bloc would not listen.

In order for this to remain in the public domain, I wish to move an amendment.

I move, seconded by the hon. member for British Columbia Southern Interior, that the motion be amended by adding, after the word “federalism”, the following: “as practised mainly by the Conservatives”.

So how did the Bloc respond? Here's the reply from Pierre Paquette:

Mr. Speaker, we could accept the amendment if we could introduce an amendment to the amendment saying “federalism as practised by the Conservatives, the Liberals and the NDP”.

I therefore reject the amendment.

Now, in mentioning only the three national parties in Parliament, I suppose one could try to spin the response as reflecting Bloc approval for the Greens' brand of federalism. (Hey, the Greens can probably use the break.)

But the more plausible interpretation is that the Bloc is so bent on railing against "federalism" in general that it's deliberately ignoring the question of who's actually responsible for its grievances - and more importantly, that of which national parties might actually have some interest in acknowledging and correcting them. And one has to figure that the more the Bloc styles itself primarily as a critic of federalism rather than a remotely constructive voice for Quebec, the more likely voters will be to question whether there's any point in electing Bloc MPs.