Author: Professor André Lecours, School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa
This blog is part of a series on the domestic political implications and international echoes of the independence bid in Catalonia. The series is a collaboration between the Centre on Constitutional Change and the Institute for Comparative Federalism at EURAC Research in Bolzano/Bozen, Italy.
The media coverage of the Catalan self-determination process in Canada
Canada and Spain have often been compared by social scientists on the basis of their nationalist movements. It is, therefore, unsurprising that Canadian print media followed the Catalan self-determination process fairly closely. Also unsurprising is the fact that coverage has been particularly close in Québec. Indeed, there have been significant intellectual (and political) links between Québec and Catalonia at least since the 1990s.Catalonia occupies a special place in the comparative universe of minority nations for Québec’s intellectual and political French-speaking elite. Historically moderate and expressing the self-determination claims of a culturally-distinct territorial community, Catalan nationalism has been viewed as a good reference for Québec parties, especially those formally seeking the independence of the province such as the Parti Québécois (PQ) and the Bloc Québécois (BQ) (which operates at the federal level). Furthermore, Catalonia has been considered an excellent partner for Québec’s paradiplomacy (much more than the Basque Country, whose history of political violence have turned off Québec politicians).
Québec’s Le Devoir newspaper followed the Catalan process particularly closely. Le Devoir is the most explicitly nationalist newspaper in the province, and it has historically been supportive of independence. It is left-leaning and viewed as an ‘intellectual’ newspaper. As it covered the 2010 Spanish Constitutional Court decision on the reformed Catalan Statute of Autonomy, the secessionist turn of Catalan parties, the 2014 consultation, the 2017 referendum, the sentencing of secessionist leaders, the Puidgemont exile, and everything else associated with the process, Le Devoir took two main angles. The first angle consisted in establishing parallels with Québec’s experience. From Le Devoir’s Québec nationalist perspective, the Catalan struggle for self-determination was recognizable and laudable. It also showed that secession as a self-determination objective was still a pertinent political objective. Le Devoir generally views secession as an inherent right of minority nations (akin to the so-called right to decide), and it explicitly supported Catalonia’s secessionist push as did the PQ and the BQ (the BQ invited Carles Puigdemont to Québec, but his entry was denied by federal courts). The second angle involved the response of the Spanish state to the Catalan self-determination process. The newspaper’s columnists often expressed astonishment, and even outrage, at the outlawing of independence referenda, and the questioned the democratic nature of Spain.
If Le Devoir reluctantly acknowledged that the Canadian federal government handled Québec’s secessionist claims better that the Spanish central government did Catalonia’s, this argument was at the center of La Presse’s analysis of the Catalan process. La Presse has always opposed the independence of Québec but considers peaceful self-determination politics and consultations (including independence referenda) legitimate and democratic political exercises. In covering the Catalan process, La Presse drew comparisons between Catalonia and Québec (insofar as a primarily autonomist movement morphed into one where secessionism was strong in both cases) while at the same time focusing on what it saw as the wiser Canadian approach to secessionism (namely accepting, and participating in, an independence referendum). The interest of La Presse for the Catalan process has sustained, with the newspaper conducting an interview with the Catalan foreign affairs minister Victòria Alsina Burgués in 2021.
The most read Canadian English-language newspaper, the Globe and Mail, also covered the Catalan self-determination process, although not to the extent of Le Devoir and La Presse. Much like La Presse, the Globe and Mail argued that a Canadian-like approach to managing secessionism would have been preferable. In contrast to La Presse, however, the Globe and Mail pointed to the federal parliament’s Clarity Act – controversial among many in Quebec - as a key formalization of an approach consisting in accepting independence referenda while setting parameters.
Finally, the coverage of the Catalan process in Canada tended to draw some lessons from the Catalan experience in relation to Québec or the broader question of self-determination. Unsurprisingly, Le Devoir looked at the situation from the perspective of the Québec secessionist movement. The conclusion of its columnists tended to be that Catalonia showed the continued relevance of the struggle of minority nations for independence. The Globe and Mail’s conclusion focused on the political stability of the state. Its columnists generally argued that while accepting independence referenda involved some measure of risk of a majority voting in favour of secession, the odds were that independence would be rejected and that the state could avoid a major crisis.
Author
André Lecours is Full Professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. This blog is part of a new series on the domestic political implications and international echoes of the independence bid in Catalonia. The series is a collaboration between the Centre on Constitutional Change and the Institute for Comparative Federalism at EURAC Research in Bolzano/Bozen, Italy.
Read other blogs in our Catalonia series
- Introduction – Democratic system and territorial integration: the effects and consequences of Catalonia’s quest for independence – Francisco Javier Romero Caro
- Democratic system and territorial integration: the effects and consequences of Catalonia’s quest for independence – Ana Carmona Contreras
- Constitutional erosion in Spain: the Catalan pro-independence crisis – Núria González Campañá
- The quest for independence in Catalonia: Between the rule of law and the principle of democracy – Alberto López Basaguren
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