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Meet Keith Henderson, genius >> Is Equality's enfant terrible ahead of his time, or a pain in the neck? by PHILIP PREVILLE
They were the first to start yammering incessantly about how political uncertainty cripples the economy, a mantra since adopted by the Liberals in both Quebec City and Ottawa. Even Lucien Bouchard was forced to admit it, once. They were the first to point out that any unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) by the National Assembly would be the illegal and revolutionary act of a rogue state. After more incessant yammering, they forced Ottawa to refer the UDI matter to the Supreme Court, and the nation's nine wisest magistrates decided, in effect, that Equality was right. Equality was also the first to ceaselessly repeat the mantra, "If Canada is divisible, so is Quebec." The mantra became a post-referendum rallying cry for federalist revenge. Even Prime Minister Jean Chrétien admitted the mantra had a ring of truth to it. And Equality spearheaded a series of municipal resolutions--unity resolutions to supporters, partition resolutions to detractors--in which dozens of city councils pledged to defy any UDI issued by Quebec City. Over a two-year period, devout Canadians stormed their local city halls, badgering and bullying those in charge of garbage collection and snow removal to stand up for Canada. And at almost every one of those city hall meetings, there was Keith Henderson, sitting proudly, silently, in support of the grassroots movement he helped create. Panicky anglos wanted to do something!, so Henderson gave them something to do. And Henderson could see past the end of his nose: these people, he knew, were all voters; this movement would make them all Equality voters. And for all this--for putting words in the mouths of everyone from the Prime Minister to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, for essentially writing Jean Charest's no-referendum-no-constitutional-demands platform, for galvanizing anglo anger into a political force to be reckoned with--the people of Quebec rewarded the Equality Party with 0.31 per cent of the popular vote, an increase of 0.02 per cent. In all, about 16,000 people cast their votes for Equality last Monday. Meanwhile, Henderson himself garnered 1,163 votes in the riding of NDG. Local PQ candidate Chantal Pelletier more than tripled Henderson's tally, with 3,886 votes. Liberal Russell Copeman won hands down with 22,627 votes. Even this turn of events eludes Henderson's genius. "I don't know what happened," he admits. "I thought the work would pay off, but I'm also a realist. Big-party politics in a mass democracy works through television, mass media and millions of dollars. It's hard for a small party to compete. But we've been through this wilderness before and we will carry on." Henderson has a point. During elections, media follow the big boys around by the busloads; in between elections, they suddenly have time on their hands and go looking for groups of people, however small, who do a lot of, shall we say, incessant yammering. But when you take a closer look at Equality's successful slogans--separatism hurts the economy, a UDI is illegal, Quebec is divisible too--you soon come to realize Henderson has made a political career out of stating the obvious. But there's another bit of common sense running around Quebec that Henderson has yet to tackle: the vague notion that Canada needs to be fixed. "We don't agree with that at all," Henderson says. "Canada is the most decentralized nation in the world, and now the decentralists want to take it further. It cannot be permitted." Can Keith Henderson convince all of Quebec that Canada works just fine? "If Canadians make it clear to Quebecers that they must either choose Canada or they're out for good and there will be no more booty, they'll choose Canada. The problem will disappear." All he has to do is put those words in someone else's mouth.
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Perhaps it's time someone admitted that Keith Henderson is a fidgety, shifty-eyed political genius. Ever since the 1995 referendum, and even before, Henderson and his Equality Party troops have arguably been the most dominant political force in Quebec.