By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, September 16, 1997; Page A14

The premiers of Canada's 11 English-speaking provinces and territories met here this weekend in search of a way to persuade Quebec, once and for all, to remain part of the country. What they found were differences among themselves so deep that they decided to go home early and hold local public hearings on the issue before making any decisions.

In what amounts to their first formal step to prepare for the next Quebec sovereignty referendum, perhaps as soon as a year from now, the provincial politicians gathered to discuss the conundrum that has plagued Canadian politics for 30 years – how to give Quebec's French-speaking majority enough status and power to feel content with the federal system without giving so much that the residents of the rest of Canada feel slighted.

It is a debate with a grim track record. Twice in the past decade, Canadian leaders have crafted broad "national unity" agreements, only to have them fall apart because of public opposition. It is a history that has fueled Quebec's French-separatist movement with a feeling that reconciliation with English Canada is impossible. And it has left many English Canadian and federal politicians hesitant about risking a third attempt at agreement.

The meeting here Sunday was tough going, in part because attitudes outside Quebec have hardened just as much as they have inside the province, where in 1995 separatists fell one percentage point short of winning a referendum on whether Quebec would leave Canada.

Some of the premiers think that time is short and that a separatist victory in Quebec is inevitable without dramatic action by the rest of Canada. "You cannot fight something with nothing," said Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow. "[Separatists] have something. They have a message of separation. . . . They've got a passion to their issue."

Others feel Quebec deserves no special deal; at least one premier, British Columbia's Glen Clark, has begun researching contingency plans for his province in the event Quebec does declare its independence.

With that gulf dividing them, as well as a feeling that most of their constituents are weary of the whole debate, what they reached was a decision not to decide. The Calgary Declaration, as it is being called, goes so far as to acknowledge that Quebec has a "unique character" that is "fundamental to the well-being of Canada." But beyond that, there is no talk of addressing Quebec's traditional grievances or giving it the type of recognition in the Canadian constitution seen by many as critical to keeping the province in Canada. That is too touchy a step to take, they say, until Canadians themselves have said where they feel Quebec fits.

At least 11 public meetings will be held this fall, with each of the English-speaking jurisdictions designing its own. The aim will be to produce what Alberta Premier Ralph Klein called "a formal expression of what it means to be Canadian" that could be approved by provincial legislative bodies. The process, they hope, will yield enough goodwill – a "Valentine card," in the words of one commentator – to convince rank and file Quebecers that they belong in Canada and should reject separatism for good.

Quebec's separatist premier, Lucien Bouchard, was invited to the session but did not attend. However, the fortunes of his Parti Quebecois formed the backdrop to the eleventh-hour discussion held here Sunday. Analysts predict Bouchard will dissolve the Quebec provincial parliament and run for reelection as premier next year, a race that must precede the next sovereignty vote and will be an important barometer of the separatist movement's strength.

In pledging to launch a broad national discussion on Quebec's place in Canada, the premiers are hoping to avoid another referendum altogether by helping Quebec Liberal Party leader Daniel Johnson defeat Bouchard in that race. Johnson favors keeping Quebec in Canada, and the premiers said they will not even consider discussing constitutional and other concessions unless Quebec is led by a pro-Canada politician.

"This process is intended to say to Quebec that there is an alternative" to the separatists, said Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon. In response, Bouchard's government dubbed the Calgary session "blackmail" and said it demonstrated that English Canada is as opposed as ever to recognizing Quebec as a "distinct society" – a phrase that is accepted by many Quebecers as embodying their right to control local culture and laws, but one that has lost favor among English-speaking Canadians who see it as guaranteeing special rights or powers to Quebec. The phrase does not appear in the Calgary statement; it was replaced with what the premiers consider the fresh and innocuous words "unique character."

"This whole sinuous process, and all these etymological pirouettes, take place for a reason: a determination not to recognize a visible and identifiable reality, the Quebec people," Jacques Brassard, Quebec's minister of intergovernmental affairs, said today. "This is an attempt to help out Mr. Johnson and the Liberal Party of Quebec. . . . So let's take note of that interference."

The Calgary meeting comes after a summer of jousting, most of it carried out by letter-writing surrogates, between Bouchard and Prime Minister Jean Chretien over the rules and international ramifications of a separation vote. Federal politicians, including Chretien and Reform Party leader Preston Manning, now head of the official opposition in Parliament, generally praised the premiers' efforts today as a good starting point for a national debate. At best, they said, it could produce consensus in the rest of Canada about reforms that Quebec would also accept.

But there's also a risk that it could produce 11 different statements about what Canada ought to be and thus provide little relief in a French-English divide that dates to the days when colonial soldiers of both nationalities clashed on the battlefields around Quebec City.

"People talk about the notion of closure" to this issue, said University of Toronto political scientist Nelson Wiseman. "But the reality is we are never going to have closure. As long as you have the . . . fact that 90 percent of the people in Quebec speak French, you are going to have a problem. It's like thinking that when you abolished slavery in the U.S., you were going to have closure on the race issue."