To set and protect its own interests, Canada needed to set clear and demanding rules and conditions under which secession could take place. By making clear the difficulties and costs involved in separation, moreover, such rules might well cause Quebeckers to think twice before voting Yes in the next independence referendum. This was Plan B.
The essential components of Plan B were set out in a remarkable exchange of open letters in the late summer of 1997 between Stephane Dion, the federal minister for intergovernmental affairs, and the premier (Lucien Bouchard) and deputy premier (Bernard Landry) of Quebec. Dion's version of Plan B had three main elements. First, although Quebec was entitled to separate, a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) would be illegal under both Canadian constitutional law and international law. If Quebec wished to respect the rule of law, separation would have to be achieved through an amendment of the existing Canadian constitution. Since such an amendment would require the consent of other Canadian legislatures, including the Parliament of Canada, the details of the disengagement - e.g., the division of the debt - would have to be negotiated first, while Quebec was still part of Canada, not after a UDI. As part of this dimension of its Plan B strategy, the Chretien government had referred the question of the legality of a UDI to the Supreme Court of Canada [which, as we discussed above, makes it clear that a UDI is not permissable - Infanteer]
Second, Dion questioned the assumption that a 50 percent plus one Yes vote in an independence referendum would be sufficient to trigger even a legal secession process. "Secession, the act of choosing between one's fellow citizens," argued Dion, "is one of the most consequence-laden choices a society can ever make." It is one of those "virtually irreversible changes that deeply affect not only our own lives but also those of future generations," and should thus be subject to more than an ordinary majority decision rule. "It would be too dangerous," he continued, "to attempt such an operation in an atmosphere of division, on the basis of a narrow, 'soft' majority...which could evaporate in the face of difficulties." A more substantial consensus would have to be shown.
Third, Dion raised the contentious issue of the partition of Quebec. If Quebec could separate from Canada, he suggested, parts of Quebec might with equal legitimacy secede from Quebec and remain in Canada. Dion highlighted the right of Quebec's Aboriginal peoples to remain in Canada. This example was no doubt strategically chosen, for immediately before the 1995 referendum, three Aboriginal nations held their own votes on whether to stay in an independent Quebec. "The Cree voted 96% No; the Inuit voted 95% No; and the French-speaking Montagnais voted an astonishing 99% No." Clearly, there would be pressure for the partition of Quebec, and Dion asserted that no one could "predict that the borders of an independent Quebec would be those now guaranteed by the Canadian Constitution."
Archer, Gibbons, Knopff, Pal, Parameters of Power: Canada's Political Institutions; pp 120-121.
