Alain-G. Gagnon 2010 Trudeau Fellow Université du Québec à Montréal biography Alain-G. Gagnon is a full professor of political science at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and has held the Canada Research Chair in Quebec and Canadian Studies since 2003. From 1982 to 2003, he taught at Queen’s, Carleton, and McGill Universities. He is the founding director of the Centre de recherche interdisci- plinaire sur la diversité (CRIDAQ) and the director of the Research Group on Plurinational Societies (GRSP). An internationally renowned researcher and political scientist, Alain-G. Gagnon contributes actively to the debate on the organiza- tion and future of Western societies. His work spans different fields of analysis, from regional development to the sociology of intellectu- als, political economy, and the questions of federalism and national- ism. His engagement is demonstrated in both his teaching of young researchers and his participation in public debate. His work has pro- foundly influenced researchers on federalism in Belgium, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Alain-G. Gagnon pioneered the comparative study of small nations and plurinational societies, a fast-growing field today, and has become one of the most influential experts on these issues. The collective work he co-edited with James Tully, Multinational Democracies, has become a must-read for political scientists. It assesses the capacity of different multinational states to combine justice and stability in the management of national and cultural diversity. His work on the multination—in particular his book The Case for Multinational Federalism: Beyond the All-Encompassing Nation—earned him the Josep Maria Vilaseca i Marcet award from the Generalitat de Catalonia in 2007. Recently he edited a major work on Canadian federalism that gave shape to what can be called the Quebec school of federalism. This book, Le fédéralisme canadien contemporain, was released by University of Toronto Press under the title Contemporary Canadian Federalism. With Michael Burgess from Kent University (Canterbury, England), Gagnon has just published Federal Democracies, which is expected to become a critical element in the study of comparative federalism. He is currently editing, with James Bickerton of St. Francis Xavier University, the sixth edition of Canadian Politics (University of Toronto Press). This book quickly became an important reference work in the field of Canadian poli- tics. Gagnon’s most recent book, L’âge des incertitudes : essais sur la diversité nationale et le fédéralisme (Presses de l’Université Laval, 2011), is being translated into 10 languages. Alain-G. Gagnon was elected a member of the Royal Society of Canada in 2008. The same year, he received the Award of Excellence of the Quebec Political Science Association. In 2010, he received the Santander Award of Excellence in Research from the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid. He was named a Trudeau fellow in 2010. abstract Born in Quebec’s Lower St. Lawrence region in the mid-1950s, Alain-G. Gagnon has long felt a moral obligation to advance a pol- itics of empowerment for communities in need of dignity. From his early work on local and regional development to his more recent research on multinational federalism, Gagnon has consistently advo- cated for the advent of a democracy that feeds justice. The decoloniz- ation movement in Africa and Asia, the Maritime Rights Movement, and—closer to home—Quebec’s nationalist movement and First Nations’ claims for recognition are some of the elements that have aroused Gagnon’s concern for regional and cultural circumstances. What does empowerment mean in a world that is increasingly globalizing and encompassing? How can such empowerment be achieved? In his Trudeau lecture, Alain-G. Gagnon addresses three distinct ways to give meaning to empowerment: regional mobiliza- tion, nationalist expression, and federal pursuit. lecture “Empowerment Through Different Means: Regionalism, Nationalism, and Federalism” St. Francis Xavier University march 21, 2012 In this paper, I engage the central idea of my discussion—the idea of empowerment—from three perspectives.1 At the most general level, I illustrate how the idea of empowerment is in many ways a byprod- uct of my intellectual rapport with two iterations of Pierre Trudeau and his legacy. From a more personal and emotive perspective, I will try to shed light on the centrality of the idea of empowerment during my adolescence in Quebec and my years as a young academic in British Columbia. Finally, bringing this contribution into the 21st century, I will focus on my work as an academic in a new Quebec preoccupied both with the process of continual emancipation and with its commitment to enshrining an intercultural model of nationhood within a multinational political setting. I strongly believe that there is a need to rethink Canada con- tinually. This is what drives my research and social engagement as a public intellectual. I understand Canada primarily as three s ocieties 1. Words of thanks go to Arjun Tremblay (PhD candidate, University of Toronto) and Alex Schwartz (Banting Fellow, Queen’s University, Kingston), who provided me with feedback on the first drafts of this text. A final word of thanks goes to Eric Bergeron, translator, and to Bettina B. Cenerelli for her comments and final editing of this paper. 62 alain-g. gagnon that continue to reimagine themselves on a day-to-day basis. I would argue that this can be achieved only via a political project that revolves around three pillars: moderation, dignity, and hospitality. Introduction The objective of empowerment has been the driving force behind most of my social and intellectual pursuits. It is an idea that has pro- vided meaning and hope for so many disenfranchised groups and communities across the globe. The Maritime Rights Movement of the 1920s and 1930s is a clear example of the quest for empower- ment.2 So too are the decolonization movements in Africa and Asia and, more recently, the women’s rights movements and the claims of First Nations peoples that have for too long fallen on deaf ears. My interest in the politics of empowerment is inextricably linked to the period of political upheaval surrounding my youth and adolescence. I was born at the tail end of the Duplessis regime in Quebec and grew up during the Quiet Revolution. As such, I wit- nessed first-hand the emergence of a generation of political actors who launched major institutional reforms that have fundamentally altered Quebec’s political and social landscape. Although there was no clear consensus on the road to be followed, virtually everyone agreed that things needed to change so that people could be properly educated, receive adequate health care, and find employment neces- sary for enjoying a decent life. Levels of unemployment in my native Lower St. Lawrence region during the 1960s were as high as those then prevailing in the Atlantic provinces. Fortunately, my parents had a farm—which they had inherited from their own parents—that could easily feed a family of six. Our grandparents lived with us, as did an uncle that 2. For a thorough account of this movement, refer to James Bickerton, Nova Scotia, Ottawa, and the Politics of Regional Development (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990). Empowerment Through Different Means 63 had been severely injured in Italy during the war. He was a proud member of the 22nd Regiment of the Canadian Army. He had not been conscripted. He had served voluntarily. Like many Quebecers, he wanted to travel the world and be a righter of wrongs. My uncle’s capacity to empathize with others has left a lasting impression on me. He was buried on June 24, 1968. I remember this very clearly, as this was the day before Pierre Trudeau and the federal Liberal Party came into office following their landslide electoral vic- tory. These two unrelated events became two defining moments for me and provide the backdrop for the ideas that I will be presenting below. I will proceed in three steps with a view to exploring the concept of empowerment and conciliation under the ambit of three distinct domains: regionalism, nationalism, and federalism. But first, let me get a little more personal with respect to my connection to the Trudeau community. A Trudeau Fellow The main objectives of the Trudeau Foundation dovetail nicely with my own values. Those objectives are to advance a sense of respon- sible citizenship, to situate Canada in a globalizing world, and to advance the cause of human rights and social justice. I have had the good fortune to be associated with other Trudeau fellows who have dutifully taken up these objectives. James Tully, Roderick Macdonald, Donald Savoie, Will Kymlicka, Jane Jenson, Joseph Yvon Thériault, and Constance Backhouse are known from their contributions to the advancement of a just democracy in the areas of Aboriginal rights, respect for cultural diversity, regional development, citizen- ship regimes, identity politics, and women’s rights. Not only are their contributions to the advancement of society unprecedented in the Canadian academy, but the conceptual tools they have developed have been adopted in many other countries. Each of these fellows brings something unique to the Foundation. 64 alain-g. gagnon Pierre Trudeau’s legacy has left no one in Canada indifferent. Among other things, he is remembered for his battle to secure Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, an instrument that primarily protects individual claims, as well as for his contribu- tion in developing a collective Canadian identity that could stand its ground against the influence of both the United States and the United Kingdom. He is also remembered for the patriation of the Constitution, an event that took place 30 years ago, albeit against the will of the Quebec National Assembly. In Atlantic Canada, Trudeau’s image as an engaged philosopher-king is generally well-received and contrasts sharply with the image of the current prime minister as a cold economist. In Western Canada, Trudeau’s reputation is sewn of a different cloth. There, Trudeau is remembered for the National Energy Program, the collection of high tax revenues, and the appro- priation of royalties from oil development. Former premier Peter Lougheed of Alberta, for example, accused Trudeau of having traded off Western Canada for the support of Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces. In Quebec, the name of Pierre Trudeau is associ- ated with contradictory stances. On one hand is his determination to provide individual French- and English-speaking Canadians equal access to federal public services—where numbers warrant, in the language of their choice—to build pan-Canadian institutions such as CBC/Radio-Canada and to entrench a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. On the other hand, he is remembered for the War Measures Act, for his opposition to Quebec’s special status within Canada, and for the 1982 patriation of the constitution. More than any other facet of his legacy, the latter two events have left a major imprint on Quebecers’ mindset. As a Quebec-based academic, I have had difficulty fully con- necting with Trudeau as a political leader—this, despite having found him particularly inspiring at the 1968 convention. I spent the entire day of Saturday, April 6 in our living room, watching the con- vention that led to his election as leader of the Liberal Party. I was Empowerment Through Different Means 65 glued to the television screen, totally immersed, checking each move by the contenders, including then health minister Allan McEachen, who, with a solid base from his native Nova Scotia, aligned himself with Trudeau on the second ballot, thus giving a clear indication of the camp to which he belonged. Negotiations between the con- tenders continued all day, in plain sight of the public. It was a thor- oughly exciting time. Looking back, I realize that at the age of 14, I found this political process far more exciting than do today’s young- sters enthralled by Call of Duty or other PlayStation video games. So it seems I have always been a nerd when it comes to politics. Empowerment Through Regional Mobilization In terms of geography and social capital, the Lower St. Lawrence and the Atlantic regions have much in common. People value hard work and are strongly connected to the land of their ancestors. Residents of the area can broadly be grouped into three categories: those involved in navigation and fisheries; those who plow the land, grow food, and raise cattle; and those who risk their lives mining coal and copper. Naturally, manufacturing and the service sectors have reached these regions, but the sea, forestry, and mines continue to do most to shape the region’s personality. Under varying circumstances, people in these regions have mobilized to improve the conditions of their employment, to make mines safer, and to obtain respect from their employers. In the early 1960s, the region of Eastern Quebec was selected for a pilot project known as the Eastern Quebec Planning Bureau (BAEQ). This was a time of particularly high social and political unrest in Quebec. My region was picked for the BAEQ pilot proj- ect for the simple reason that it was one of the most economically depressed areas in the country. Farming, fishing, and forestry opera- tions were experiencing very tough times. The choice seemed to be between surviving in this remote land or abandoning the commu- nity in favour of urban service centres. Obviously, if a large number