Partnership

The word "partnership" has many different meanings and reflects many different realities. When applied to political relationships between countries, the term is typically understood as referring to a particular model of political organization, such as an economic union, a sectoral political partnership, a confederation, or the European Union, which involves both federal and confederal arrangements. Sometimes “partnership” even refers more specifically to particular supranational political institutions, such as a parliamentary assembly, a council of the union, or an arbitration tribunal.

But a partnership can also be understood as referring simply to some form of coordinated, concerted action. In this sense, the term no longer refers to specific institutions or a particular model of political organization, but simply to matters that have been the subject of an agreement between the countries concerned.

In the context of Québec’s sovereigntist movement, the concept of partnership is a logical extension of the economic association between a sovereign Québec and Canada that was first proposed when this movement emerged in the late 1960s and was taken up again in the Québec referendum of 1980 (see sovereignty-association). But the term “partnership” itself did not appear in sovereigntist discourse until June 1995, in connection with an agreement reached among the Parti Québécois, the Bloc Québécois and Action démocratique du Québec. In this context, the term was used to designate a set of specific institutions whose basic purpose would to be govern the operation of the economic union between a sovereign Québec and Canada.

Since the sovereigntists first defined “partnership” in this way, they have modified their approach to this issue somewhat. After a year of discussions that began in 1999, the Bloc Québécois adopted a set of guiding principles concerning this partnership at its January 2000 party convention. The Bloc stated that it was in the interests of both Québec and Canada to establish a partnership dealing with economic and political matters. The party declared itself staunchly in favour of such an agreement between two sovereign countries. The Bloc believed that this partnership could cover not only economic matters (debt sharing, customs and monetary union, and free movement of goods, services, people, capital and labour), but also political matters such as the rights of linguistic minority communities and Aboriginal peoples. The Bloc also believed that it would not be appropriate to state a preference for any particular model of partnership in advance. According to the Bloc, the negotiators might decide to recommend informal economic integration or a formal economic union, which would involve at least some shared institutions. Other possibilities might include an economic union with sectoral political agreements, or an arrangement similar to the European Union. At the Parti Québécois party convention in May 2000, the delegates passed a resolution that took a very similar stance.

Since that time, for many Québec sovereigntists, the most important thing has no longer been whether Canada responds favourably to the idea of such a partnership, but rather that Québec maintain a policy of reaching out to Canada and propose a responsible management of the transition to sovereignty that takes Canadians’ interests into account. According to these sovereigntists, Québec can become a sovereign country and nevertheless create conditions conducive to respecting Canadians’ need for unity, by encouraging continued economic and political ties between Atlantic Canada and the rest of Canada, west of Québec. Thus, according to these sovereigntists, Québec’s departure from Confederation should not be seen as an attempt to destroy Canada.