BY SUSAN BERMAN
MONTREAL -More than 10,000 people jammed the Montreal Forum for an "Artists for Sovereignty" concert September 30. "We're here tonight because we want equality," Francois Lamarre, a Quebec government worker, told the Militant.
"Oui, oui, oui" (Yes) the crowd chanted, many standing on their seats, before the concert began. The event, featuring many of Quebec's top musical performers, was organized to rally support for a yes vote in the October 30 referendum in Quebec.
"The decisions affecting our lives aren't made by us," Danny Ruel, a construction worker at the concert, explained.
"I'm voting yes because...this is the only way we can defend our national identity and control our own affairs," said another of the thousands of primarily young people here.
The upcoming referendum calls for giving Quebec the "exclusive power to pass its laws, levy all its taxes, and conclude all its treaties" in the framework of a "new economic and political partnership" with the rest of Canada. Quebec's Parti Quebecois government is the main proponent of a yes vote. Large numbers of workers and youth see the referendum as a tool to win the necessary power to fight the systematic discrimination that Quebec's French-speaking majority has faced since the founding of the Canadian state.
"The federal government wants to cut old-age pensions. With the `Oui,' we will be able to make our own decisions about unemployment insurance, welfare, and so on," said Hélene Dion. "Voting yes is a matter of dignity. We've been pushed around long enough."
Over 80 percent of Quebec's population of 7 million is French-speaking. Quebecois, 22 percent of Canada's population, constitute the largest oppressed nationality in Canada. Discrimination on the basis of their language has meant inferior living conditions for Quebecois and increased profits for capitalist employers in Canada.
Through several decades of battles against discrimination and for workers rights, Quebecois succeeded in combating many aspects of their unequal status. With the deepening capitalist crisis, however, conditions facing Quebecois are deteriorating.
Despite the fact that Quebec is Canada's second most populated and industrialized province, it is proportionally the poorest. In 1993, 20.7 percent of Quebec's population was living below the poverty level. More than 800,000 people in Quebec are forced to live on welfare and Quebec has one of the highest rates of official unemployment.
Quebec's per capita income falls below both Ontario and British Columbia. In Montreal, the largest city in Quebec and second largest in the country, median family income ranks 23rd out of Canada's top 26 cities. The three cities ranking below it are all h3>
Language discrimination
For many years, employers used language discrimination to ghettoize French-speaking workers in lower paying jobs. Despite gains made in winning affirmative action laws to make French the language of work, advances along these lines have stagnated over the last five years. The right to negotiate or deal with employers in French has been one of the demands in three recent strikes in the Montreal area.
Discrimination against Quebecois has also meant inferior education and health care. "The only way education will get better is with a victory for the `Yes' because the power will be here in Quebec," a student at the University of Quebec in Montreal told the Militant.
Unlike every other province, the Canadian constitution stipulates that Quebec have two religious public school systems - one Catholic and one Protestant. For many years, the Catholic school system was predominantly French-speaking and the Protestant system was predominantly English- speaking. Even though today both systems have French- and English-language divisions, the historic English network continues to be of higher quality.
The Quebec school system remains the most segregated in North America and a pillar for maintaining language divisions. Quebec has one of the highest high school dropout rates in Canada. English speakers in Quebec are twice as likely to get a university diploma as French speakers.
"We need a secular school system, one that is neutral and French-speaking," commented Lamarre at the Artists for Sovereignty event.
Massive education cuts being carried out by the Parti Quebecois government are making the situation even worse.
Government cuts on social gains
The hospital system is also segregated according to language. The English-language hospitals, backed up by private endowments, provide better quality care. The Quebec government has voted to close down seven hospitals in Montreal, precipitating a series of hospital workers' protests and a debate on government policy.
"The hospital closures are necessary," Lamarre argued. "They aren't cuts, but a reorganization of health services."
But other supporters of a yes vote in the referendum disagree. "The hospital closures are the most difficult thing to accept because they hit the most vulnerable." Dion said. "I don't think our leaders are the best. Many workers and students who support the referendum express distrust of the Parti Quebecois government because of its massive attacks on social programs.
Systematic discrimination
It is the systematic discrimination against Quebecois, and its impact on the daily lives of working people, that lies behind popular support for Quebec national rights and a yes vote in the referendum. As long as the situation remains, the Quebecois fight against discrimination will continue to be a central question in Canadian politics.
Recently the two largest locals of the Canadian Auto Workers union in Quebec - at General Motors and Pratt and Whitney - voted unanimously for a yes vote on the referendum.
Laurent Beaudoin, president of Bombardier, is one of the most vocal proponents of the no vote amongst Quebec's top capitalists. Beaudoin sent letters to his employees urging them to vote against the referendum in order to save his business investments and their jobs. Workers responded angrily to the letters, seeing them as blackmail.
When Quebec Liberal leader Daniel Johnson, who heads the "no" campaign, toured Bombardier's La Pocatiere plant, several workers had hand-painted signs by their worksites with "OUI" written in big letters. The supervisor came to take the signs down, but not before they got picked up on national television.
"He (Beaudoin) shouldn't get mixed up in what workers are thinking. We have the right to our ideas and I think he shouldn't interfere," explained Bernard Rossignol, one of the workers. "Businessmen can give their opinions but they should give them as individuals."
The Quebec Federation of Labor announced that it will hold a discussion and vote on the referendum in all of its locals.