Canada’s forty-fifth general election concluded on April 28. Though the margin was relatively slim from a historical standpoint and this will again be a minority Parliament, the Liberal Party increased both its popular support and its seat count. Prime Minister Mark Carney will likely hold the reins of power until the New Democratic Party selects a new leader, at which point it may withdraw its support on motions of confidence.

For five weeks, the parties crossed swords over the cost of living and the Trump Administration’s threats—debates that will continue on the floor of the House of Commons. But the campaign was also marked by a short-lived controversy on the very nature of Canada, a controversy that had little to do with tariffs or the threat of annexation. Bloc québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet stated that Canada is an artificial country and one with little significance. Those remarks drew strong rebukes from other party leaders and the premier of Nova Scotia.

The statement is strange in that Blanchet, who has sat in Ottawa for six years and will receive a generous pension from his so-called artificial country, has seen people from all regions of Canada come together to ponder and address issues of common concern. But we may also wonder what exactly qualifies as an artificial country.

Would the United States, a country built on Indigenous lands by enslaved labor and by immigrants from every other nation, qualify as natural or legitimate? Would any beyond a small set of European countries that experienced the nineteenth-century “springtime of nations” meet Blanchet’s standards?

These questions are not purposefully facetious. The Bloc leader was indirectly expressing support for Quebec autonomy and independence; he was defending the legitimacy of a people with a common language and traditions and a defined, centuries-long territorial presence. Still, the reference to artificial countries implies that multinational states are illegitimate—that the independence of Quebec, and perhaps Scotland and Catalonia, derives from the natural order of things.

The study of nations and nationalism is a rich field to which a short blog post cannot do justice. The problem of definition is complicated by the different philosophies and political traditions of case studies and of scholars who study them. However, taking the popular will as a starting point, as Blanchet at times does, we would likely err in the right direction by echoing Ernest Renan. With refreshing simplicity, Renan deemed nationhood un plébiscite de tous les jours, a daily plebiscite. He did not deny the significance of other factors, but recognized that the desire to live together and work and sacrifice to common ends determined the fate of nations.

Of course, in Quebec, there have also been actual plebiscites on the future of the province, both concluding in favor of Canada. In the last twenty years, only once has the Bloc earned more than 40 percent of the popular vote in Quebec. Its provincial counterpart, the pro-sovereignty Parti québécois, has been out of government for eleven years, the longest such stretch of its history. In 2022, Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon led the party to the worst defeat of its history. If Canada is an artificial country, as Blanchet states, it seems ordinary Quebeckers are even less impressed with the alternative.

Between the two referendums, Brian Mulroney sought a new federal arrangement that would secure Quebec’s support for the new Constitution “avec honneur et enthousiasme” (La Presse, April 27, 1984, A5). The failure of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords (1987-1992) led to a momentary spike in support for sovereignty. Critics could believe that Quebec’s problems were not in its stars but in the very fabric of Confederation. A profound mistake had been made in the 1860s, it seemed, and ever since Quebec had been both mal mené and malmené.

In reality, where Mulroney failed, French-Canadian leaders had succeeded more than a century earlier. Through their elected representatives, the people of Quebec helped shape Confederation, which was greeted positively. It may be tempting to argue that French Canadians in Quebec were duped in 1867—that the Roman Catholic Church and supposedly self-interested political leaders led them astray. This is doing a disservice to the idea of historical agency and to the facts of the matter.

The British North America Act resurrected a state in which French Canadians were the majority. Such had been the case of Lower Canada, though without responsible government. After the Rebellions of 1837-1838, Britain imposed a union of Upper and Lower Canada: from the Detroit River to Gaspé, people would live under a common government as part of a single, shared colony. A shift in Britain’s trade policy, the granting of responsible government, and ministerial instability quickly raised questions about the suitability of the constitution of 1840. The need to strengthen the colony’s fiscal situation and the threat of American annexation also weighed heavily in the decision to seek a new constitutional arrangement. In the end, the British North America Act created the province of Quebec and granted French Canadians the opportunity to set policy that reflected their concerns. This was no small victory.

The opinion of the Courrier de St-Hyacinthe (July 3, 1867, 2), which also reported on the celebrations held across the province, was fairly typical:

The Union of the Canadas [implemented in 1841] was inaugurated under auspices quite different from those of the cradle of Confederation. Conceived in injustice, contrived to drown us, the Union did not work to our advantage and was washed of the stigmata of its original sin only through the intelligent patriotism of our Lafontaines and our Morins.

In creating the Union, England was not granting the Canadas a constitution requested by the people: she was imposing her will upon us.

How the times have changed! Today, England barely asks to have a deliberative voice in the councils where we are laying the foundation of our destiny. English statesmen did not make our constitution; it is us, Canadians, who are its authors. The mother country has but ratified our endeavor and enshrined it in law. ‘You have devised a constitution,’ we were told in London, ‘and we approve it as it is because we do not wish to inconvenience you in your home and you are naturally the best judges of that which concerns you. We are involved as a formality, to sanction what you have done.’

Is this conduct not generous? Does it not demand our gratitude? Now, it is our responsibility to take advantage of the means that the Province rests in our hands to shape our glorious future.

We should also recall that the outcry against Confederation in Quebec was led in part by English speakers who would be minoritized within the new province. James O’Halloran, the member for Missisquoi, stated in 1865:

The reason why so large a portion of the people of Lower Canada of French origin will not consent to a legislative [non-federative] union, is the very reason that makes it desirable to the English speaking population of Lower Canada. We are in favor of a legislative union. We desire that Canada should be a united people, ignoring sectionalism, and basing our institutions upon one broad principle of Canadian nationality, which shall blend all races, and in time obliterate all accidental distinctions of language, religion, or origin. Our French-Canadian fellow-subjects will not consent to this . . . Let me call the attention of honorable gentlemen, more especially of those from Upper Canada, to the position in which this proposed Constitution now before the House would place the English-speaking people of Lower Canada.

In any event, the federal arrangement proved sufficiently flexible as to allow the gradual expansion of powers assumed by Quebec. Today, the province may as well be independent in matters of culture. In fact, the success of the autonomist position may explain its political struggles in the last twenty years. This position having met most of its objectives, few Quebeckers see in Ottawa an existential threat. To go further, in a world of increasing economic turmoil and foreign threats, Canada provides stability, protection, and greater peace of mind. None of this is artificial.

Yves-François Blanchet cares little for multinational states. Living with others means living with occasional conflict, after all. But the opportunity to accept and then transcend differences is not to be taken lightly. For all of the country’s failings, this opportunity has been at the center of Canada’s story for centuries and today we would be hard-pressed to find a higher purpose—or something of greater significance in the life of a nation.