Scotland의 분리 독립을 간곡히 만류하는 Canada의 두 신문 사설. Globe and Mail : theglobeandmail/globe-debate/editorials/an-open-letter-to-scotland/article20579017/ Toronto Star : thestar/opinion/editorials/2014/09/14/scotlands_fateful_vote_on_independence_editorial.html Globe and Mail GLOBE EDITORIAL Dear Scotland: An open letter from your Canadian cousins The Globe and Mail Published Friday, Sep. 12 2014, 5:40 PM EDT Last updated Friday, Sep. 12 2014, 6:30 PM EDT Dear Scotland, You probably don’t know this, but you made us. The first European to cross the continent and reach our Pacific coast was Alexander Mackenzie – a Scot. Our first prime minister and chief Father of Confederation, Sir John A. Macdonald? Scottish. So too our second PM. Our country’s national dream, a railroad from sea to sea, was realized in 1885 when Sir Donald Smith, head of the Canadian Pacific Railway, drove The Last Spike at Craigellachie – a place named after a village in his homeland. The man who did the most to create Canada’s system of universal public health care, and chosen as “The Greatest Canadian” in a national survey of CBC viewers, was Tommy Douglas. He was born in Falkirk. The thistle and the red lion rampant on our national coat of arms identify you as one of our four founding nations; half of our provincial flags contain a Saint Andrew’s cross; and one of our provinces – Nova Scotia – is named after you. There are said to be more pipers and pipe bands in Canada than in Scotland. And nearly five million Canadians identify their ethnic origin as entirely or partly Scottish, which means we have almost as many Scottish-Canadians as you have people. You made us – and as a gesture of thanks, we’d like to offer some advice on how to avoid unmaking yourself. This bit of history you are living right now? This referendum thing? We’ve already been through that. We may be a young nation but we have far more experience than you on this issue. We nearly tore our country apart. Twice. The independence side in your referendum campaign is to be commended for a few things. There’s no ethnic nationalism at the heart of the Yes movement, and that is no small accomplishment. And the question to be asked on the 18th of September – “Should Scotland be an independent country? – sounds remarkably clear and simple. The Quebec independence movement never dared ask anything so straightforward, because outright independence has never been favoured by anything close to a majority of the Quebec population. Compare your question with the one asked of Quebeckers in 1980: “The Government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations; this agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, levy its taxes and establish relations abroad – in other words, sovereignty – and at the same time to maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency; any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will only be implemented with popular approval through another referendum; on these terms, do you give the Government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?” The Scottish question is shorter and simpler. But is it really clearer? It has not escaped the notice of us, your cousins from across the seas, that much of the case made by the Scottish Yes campaign is neatly described by our fuzzy 1980 question. “Sovereignty” but maintaining “an economic association”? Check. A new country, but also a plan to “negotiate a new agreement” with the old nation? Check. A Yes vote portrayed as promising co-operation rather than a severing of ties? Check. And the idea that you can leave but keep the currency? Sorry, we’ve heard this song before. The Yes campaign in Scotland, as reasonable as it imagines itself, seems to believe in the unreasonable proposition that you can improve your marriage by getting a divorce. It doesn’t work that way. The Yes campaign also promises that post-divorce negotiations will take place in an atmosphere of complete calm and rationality – and that rump Britain will give it what it wants. But that glosses over the fact that the other side has demands, too. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said recently that, if Britain didn’t let an independent Scotland continue to use the pound, Scotland might refuse to assume its share of the national debt. Mr. Salmond has the greatest interest in maintaining the fiction that normalcy will reign and reason will rule in the event of a Yes victory – and yet the mere mention of a hypothetical negotiation has even him testily making threats. How well do you think it will go if things move beyond the hypothetical? Having looked over the edge of the precipice that you are marching up to, and having dipped our toe into the volcano more than once, we can tell you: It will not go well at all. There is an alternative to independence: federalism. It’s something we’ve been practising and perfecting for a century and a half. You’ve been at it for a decade and a half. Give it time. We’re not sure if the “Devo Max” plans to devolve nearly complete responsibility for taxation to the Scottish Parliament, plans being floated by the British government in the final days of a referendum, are necessarily the way to go. But some devolution of taxing authority can take place. The Scottish Parliament has little power to raise its own revenues – whereas Canadian provinces have a full range of taxation and spending powers. That’s federalism. That’s how strong subnational and national governments can coexist. Once upon a time in Quebec, the independence option was the choice of the young, as it is in Scotland. That time has passed; most young Quebeckers today do not imagine that their very real economic and social challenges will be addressed by drawing a new border. But it took us a half-century to get to this point. The same can happen for you, too. So, dear cousins from beyond the seas, here is our advice and our plea: Stay in the United Kingdom. Let time pass and passions subside. Make changes happen, but within the U.K. And meet us back here in, say, 2040. You can take the U.K. apart then, if you still want to. We think you will not. And we know this: If you take it apart now, you can never, ever put it back together again. Toronto Star Scotland’s fateful vote on independence: Editorial Can Scotland go it alone as an independent country? Of course. But that would mean quarrelling with success. Published on Sun Sep 14 2014 Could Scotland’s 5.3 million people make a successful go of it as an independent country? Och, aye. Of course. They have a strong national identity and proud heritage, their own Parliament and progressive political culture, North Sea oil and gas, and a highly educated, hardworking and egalitarian population. By any standard, independence is doable. And that’s exactly the positive, forward-looking pitch that has brought Alex Salmond and his Scottish National Party within a whisky’s toast of going it alone when Scots vote on independence this week. The campaign to bolt the once-mighty United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland after 307 years has come down to an uncomfortably close finish after a remarkably civil debate, teetering between a narrow Yes for independence and a narrow No. Whatever the referendum result on Thursday, Scottish nationalism is bound to remain a powerful political force. The prospect of a split has left a hitherto complacent British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose austerity-driven Conservative-led government is loathed in Scotland, flying the Saltire, the Scottish flag, over his offices in a feeble show of respect. Cameron also made a desperate 11th-hour foray to Edinburgh to salvage the Unionists’ complacent, bloodless campaign. He belatedly promised Scots “major new powers over tax, spending and welfare,” and declared that he would “be heartbroken … if this family of nations is torn apart.” The Queen is reportedly uneasy. There’s alarm in financial circles, with major banks threatening to decamp to England. And the markets have pummeled firms with Scottish ties. Canadians who lived through the gut-wrenching final days of the 1995 Quebec referendum that very nearly shattered our own country can sympathize. However achievable independence may be, creating a young nation by busting up an old one is an emotionally fraught business. As the Star has said before, we hope the Scots will choose to stay. There’s more to be gained by improving on the union than by setting off on an unclear course. That’s not the pitch from nationalists, of course. Apart from appealing to identity and pride, Salmond has promised Scots that they can have it all: Independence, prosperity from North Sea oil and gas, the Queen, the pound and better social programs to boot. Like the Staples slogan — “That was easy” — it’s an alluring pitch, similar to the Parti Québécois’ promises here. Whether Salmond can deliver is another matter. While few Scots doubt that independence is feasible, many can’t see it working more to their advantage or more cheaply than the current system, whose costs are shared among the United Kingdom’s four nations and 64 million citizens. In a globalized world, there’s strength in numbers. Many worry, with reason, about the cost of setting up whole new governing institutions. They know that North Sea revenues are finite and dwindling. There’s concern about carrying Scotland’s share of the national debt. And Scotland could use the pound only by ceding its new-found sovereignty. Westminster would set the rules on banking, spending and taxation. The consequences can be painful, as smaller European countries found during the financial crisis. While Scots aren’t buying the alarmist Cameron/Unionist argument that they may be about to jump off a cliff, many have a healthy appreciation for the risks that Salmond and the nationalists have sought to downplay and for the sheer irreversibility of a break. The psychic shock alone of sundering the Union would be huge, and its fallout hard to foresee. A bloody-minded England could make any breakup all the more painful. And when all is said (though not yet done), why quarrel with success? As The Scotsman newspaper argued in support of staying in the Union, “Scotland is a prosperous, peaceful, successful country …. We are better together …. Scotland’s best interests lie not in creating division but in continuing in the Union and using its strengths to help us continue in our success.” What can Canadians, spectators in this drama, contribute to the debate? Only this: We too have gone down this road, in 1980 and in 1995, and opted to stick together. In the end we reckoned that Confederation and the strength in diversity that it affords is too precious to throw away. It is a choice that the majority of Quebecers today, decades later, do not regret.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 20:48:33 +0000
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