McGill Journal of Political Studies 2014 April, 2014 | Page 24

In contrast, the Italian Risorgimento
held national unification as its intrinsic
goal and was not a compromise or compact
between two peoples. The label Risorgimento
given to the movement for the liberation
and political unification of Italy means,
“to rise again” and represents the rebirth
of the Italian people as a unified state27.
The political division that existed on the
peninsula for more than thirteen hundred
years fostered a strong attachment to
community and regional affairs as well
as an extraordinary set of diverse social
institutions, cultures, and languages, which
did not exist in colonial Canada at that
time28. The Napoleonic hegemony over the
Italian peninsula between 1796 and 1814
helped to foster political nationalism and a
sense that an Italian state ought to exist29.
In addition, since the Austrian Empire ruled
the northern states, a common desire existed
amongst Italians for liberation from foreign
rule. This culminated in the 1848 revolts
in the North led by the state of Piedmont.
However, by 1849, all the uprisings
collapsed lending credence to Giuseppe
Mazzini’s view that the struggle for Italian
unification must take precedence over the
issue of what framework of governance
best suited Italy, for example whether to
adopt a federal or unitary design. After
1849, the Kingdom of Sardinia was the only
remaining parliamentary monarchy in Italy
and as a result the political leaders of the
House of Savoy in Piedmont were the only
hope for Italian unification. Consequently,
in 1861 the parliament proclaimed Victor
Emmanuel II King of Italy making Rome
its capital30. Since the majority of political
leaders believed that federalism would
weaken the fragile unity of the new Italian
state and undermine its intrinsic purpose by
being “inevitably slow …and only too ready

for disagreement,” federalism in Italy was
eclipsed by a unitary system31.
In contrast to the Risorgimento,
negotiations among political leaders from
the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and
Nova Scotia were not regarding the rebirth
of a people, but concerned the facilitation of
cooperation. These negotiations resulted in
the Imperial Parliament’s adoption of the
British North America Act of 1867, which
united those three colonies into a federal
state. Unification in Canada was desired as
a means of facilitating economic growth,
territorial expansion, and military defense.
However, the preservation of existing
colonial governments and boundaries was
desired by French Canadians, a majority
only in Quebec, who were unwilling to
place all power in the hands of a central
government where they would be a
minority32. Federalism therefore was
a necessary compromise in which the
creation of Quebec as a subnational unit
in 1867 permitted the predominantly
francophone society to develop as it pleased.
Paradoxically, the federal system designed to
accommodate the Quebec sub-nation gave
rise to one of the most powerful secessionist
movements in the modern world33. Since the
rise of the Quebec sovereignty movement in
the 1960s, political power in Canada has
been flowing to the provincial governments
due to demands of Quebec nationalists for
greater autonomy.

Sabetti, The Search for Good Government: Understanding the Paradox of Italian Democracy, 85.
28
Ibid., 30-32.
29
Ibid., 33.
30
Ibid., 40.

31

27

24 | McGill Journal of Political Studies 2014

Pre-Institutional History 2: Language vs.
Dialect
Language has historically been the cause
of dominant political divisions in Canada.
The distinct difference between the English
and French languages has shaped the federal
institutional structure, just as the regional
character of these cleavages charted the
Sabetti, The Search for Good Government: Understanding the Paradox of Italian Democracy, 34.
32
Stevenson, Federalism.
33
Cameron, The Paradox of Federalism: Some Practical
Reflections, 317.

success of Canadian federalism. However,
Italy is more regionally fragmented than
Canada and contains about 15 main
linguistic groups clearly different from
each other, which roughly correspond with
regional subdivisions34. Considering Italy
is a unitary state whose institutions are not
designed to accommodate regional linguistic
diversity, why then has the French-English
linguistic cleavage caused more political
tension within the Canadian federal
state and the emergence of a secessionist
movement? The answer lies in the difference
between language, dialects, and linguistic
minorities, and how language is a powerful
variable that defines national identity.
French and English are F