The question of unity in Canada may be settled in the months ahead. Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau has called a general election for May 22. If the latest polls prove prophetic, he could lose, and politics could divide in a dangerous way, with almost all of English Canada voting for the Progressive Conservative Party and only Quebec voting for Trudeau's Liberal Party. On top of this, Premier René Lévesque of Quebec has promised his province a referendum on separation sometime after the federal election, at the latest in early 1980. An outsider might expect Canada, with this kind of calendar ahead, to be engaged in a grand national debate. But, in fact, little debate is going on. Most Canadians, especially English Canadians, seem bored with the whole issue of unity and Quebec.

The reason for the ennui is that many Canadians do not take the danger of Quebec secession seriously enough for serious debate. They simply do not believe that Premier Lévesque really intends to take Quebec out. Perhaps they are right. But, if they are not, they are giving him an advantage in tactics.

There is a good deal of confusion over Lévesque's intentions. In fact, it is hard to tell these days whether he is pushing the people of Quebec toward independence or, whether they are pushing him away from it. This confusion over the intentions of the leader and over the feelings of the people weakens any prognosis for the predicament of Canada. But the predicament remains. Canada is a land of 23.5 million people in, which one large segment, comprising a population of 6.3 million, more than a quarter of the whole, feels in the main, alienated and apart.

Premier Lévesque's Parti Québécois, which came to power in November 1976, is pledged to independence. But polls indicate that the people of Quebec would vote against a clean break from Canada. So Premier Lévesque has said that he will ask Quebecers to approve something called "sovereignty-association” - a sovereign Quebec nation still tied, mostly economically, to Canada. This, according to the polls, might win approval in a referendum.

Some Quebec intellectuals believe that Lévesque, bowing to public opinion, has given up the idea of independence and only intends to use the referendum to bargain for more autonomy for Quebec. After all, his party, though it dominates the legislature, won fewer than half the popular votes in the 1976 election.

But other analysts are not so sure about this. In their view, Lévesque may be cajoling reluctant Quebecers and guiding them step by step along a path that will lead inevitably to independence. There are precedents. As a Montreal historian claimed recently, independence had the support of no more than a third of the American colonists a year before July 4, 1776.

Quebecers appear content with their government. Polls indicate that the 56-year-old, chain-smoking Lévesque, a United States Office of War information correspondent during World War II who later became the best-known newsman on French Canadian television, would continue in power if a parliamentary election were called now. His government has pushed anti-corruption and consumer-protection laws through the Quebec National Assembly and has upset English-speakers and delighted French-speakers with a law that makes French both the business and official language of Quebec. On top of this, the Parti Québécois has a chauvinist style that fits in with nationalist feelings. In Ottawa, for example, Lévesque acts, and is treated by the press, not as one of ten provincial premiers but as leader of the second nation of Canada.

But in the end, the record of Lévesque and the Parti Québécois must rest on the confusing issue of “sovereignty-association”. There is little confusion about what Lévesque says he wants. In a speech to the Quebec National Assembly last October 10, Lévesque said, “Quebec will be sovereign when its National Assembly will be the only Parliament that can legislate on its territory and Quebecers will have no other taxes to pay than those they themselves have decided to impose.” In this definition, sovereignty though perhaps a less emotional word, clearly means the same as independence.

But, in the same speech, Lévesque said his government wanted to negotiate for an official association with Canada that would start to function at the time that Quebec became sovereign. "It is well to mark the double objective of our constitutional steps," Lévesque said. ''There is no question, in our minds, of obtaining sovereignty first and then negotiating association afterward. We not want to break our union with the rest of Canada. We want to transform it radically."

What would this association be like? Claude Morin, the Quebec Minister of Intergovernmental Relations and the party’s main strategist for independence, tried to explain in a recent interview. "The only comparison," he said, "is with Europe of the future. We want to be what the European Common Market hopes to be in ten or fifteen years. Quebec and Europe are heading toward the same place from different directions.”

A Parti Québécois working document, prepared for the national party congress in May, envisions a Quebec-Canada association that is a common market run by a directorate made up of an equal number of ministers from each sovereign country. The association could have joint representation in international financial organizations and in certain bodies of the United Nations. In some countries, the association might even share an embassy. In short, Lévesque and the Parti Québécois are promising political independence without the use of that shock word independence, close relations with the rest of Canada and continued economic interdependence. It is a promise of independence without cost.

But there is a catch. Lévesque and his government could conceivably issue a declaration of independence on their own someday, but they could never issue a declaration of association on their own. Association has to be negotiated. This has persuaded some Quebecers that Lévesque is only bargaining. He expects less than he promises. “The moment you talk of negotiating,” said Rejean Landry, a young political scientist who teaches at Laval University in Quebec City, “there is no way to end up with absolute sovereignty-association. You end up with something else.”

But this is not the only conjecture that can be made on the evidence. Lévesque might be interested in a negotiated settlement but not as an end in itself. He might look on it as more of a first step than a compromise. Increased autonomy, in his view, might be acceptable now, but only as a way of getting reluctant Quebecers used to the idea of independence later.

On the other hand, Lévesque might look on negotiation as a ploy, successful, for Lévesque, only if it breaks down or is rejected. Asked what he would do if English Canada refused to negotiate, Levesque, in an interview with The Montreal Gazette at the end of last year, said, “Quebecers are not an aggressive people, but, on the other hand - I’m talking about the society I know best - they don’t like to be gypped, especially when they express their democratic opinions.” More recently, the national executive council of the Parti Québécois has suggested that, if English Canada rejects association, the Quebec government should hold a second referendum asking voters to approve sovereignty alone. This strategy must be approved by the national congress in May. But it is obvious that some party leaders believe that an out- right rejection of association by English Canada could be used to fan feelings of separation.

It is thus shortsighted for federalists to feel complacent about Quebec. Lévesque has not, as many English Canadians believe, backed down. The results of the Quebec referendum are still vital for Canada as a whole, no matter how bored Canada is with the whole issue.

Stanley Meisler reports from Canada for The Los Angeles Times.

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