Quebec’s campaign to push culture to the top of the Canadian political agenda – again – has begun. And this time the talk might get constitutional.

At the end of June, 71 high-profile politicians, intellectuals and celebrities blasted Prime Minister Stephen Harper for bleeding Radio-Canada/CBC dry in an open letter in Montreal’s French-language daily La Presse – ‘Compressions à Radio-Canada: danger! Le gouvernement menace la survie de Radio-Canada’ (Cuts at Radio-Canada: danger! The government is putting the survival of Radio-Canada in jeopardy).

It’s worth noting that the authors chose to publish their rallying cry on June 25, the day after Saint-Jean Baptiste Day, a provincial holiday which typically spurs an outpouring of Quebec nationalism: there’s a parade, a massive concert featuring popular francophone singers, and fleur-de-lis flags are suddenly omnipresent – on balconies and car hoods or worn like superhero capes by young nationalists.

Describing the public broadcaster as a key component of this province’s collective cultural memory, the authors warned that the ‘Quebec nation’ needs SRC to survive. The private sector won’t protect homegrown culture, only public broadcasting will, said the letter’s signatories, who included former Parti Québécois premier Bernard Landry; the most powerful labor leader in the province, Claudette Carbonneau (president of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux); pop singer Pierre Lapointe; TV stars Macha Limonchik and Dany Turcotte (the straight man on Tout le monde en parle); and Liberal Heritage critic Pablo Rodriquez.

The piece, which is part of a protest campaign organized by the province’s unions – ‘Je suis, nous sommes pour un service public de qualité/I am, we are for quality public broadcasting’ – also accused the Conservative government of persecuting culture makers.

By portraying cuts to SRC and other cultural institutions as an assault on Quebec culture, the campaign is sending a powerful message to voters here: the Conservatives aren’t protecting Canada’s francophone minority. Their hyperbolic warning of danger ahead will likely resonate with most French-speaking Quebecers, who, whether they want a separate country or not, believe their culture is eternally fragile. The veracity of their fear isn’t really important, it remains a common perception here – one that nationalists have been using to win votes for decades.

Those who make culture have political clout here; they are viewed as the voice and soul of the nation, the talent that keeps Quebec thriving on an English-speaking continent. Therefore, if even 10 of the high-profile Quebecers who signed the La Presse letter go on the talk-show circuit here and say Harper is a menace to Francophones, as so many did during the last federal election, it will hurt his party’s already precarious position in the province.

And the momentum to campaign against the Conservatives in Quebec is growing because the SRC cuts are just one item on a growing list of fumbles the government has made that displease this province’s creative class – and by extension, many of its voters.

First, it was last summer’s $45 million in cuts to the arts, a move which drew outcry here and essentially cost the Conservatives a majority. Harper then appointed the perfectly bilingual James Moore as Heritage minister to calm the Quebec waters. Despite his considerable efforts, Moore’s appearance on a popular TV talk show has left the lasting impression that he’s woefully ignorant of Quebec culture.

And Moore’s new Canada Media Fund hasn’t helped his profile here either. In an unprecedented show of solidarity, five industry groups representing directors, actors, writers, producers and technicians joined forces in June to blast the appointment of Guy Fournier to the fund’s board.

And there are more protests to come. The ‘Je suis, nous sommes’ campaign will go into high gear this fall to coincide with the new TV season, an annual media event in this province. Throughout September and into October, broadcasters embark on an aggressive, star-infused media campaign to seduce audiences. And it’s almost certain that when this province’s celebrity class makes their media rounds this fall, federal cuts to culture and the new CMF will be hot topics.

None of this bodes well for the Conservatives in Quebec and, perhaps, not for Canada in general. One union insider told me the audiovisual community is now so frustrated there is talk of pushing for a separate cultural agenda for Quebec. ‘We don’t know what else to do. It just appears that the Conservatives aren’t listening. Maybe it’s time to repatriate the CRTC.’

As part of its election platform last year, the Parti Québécois announced that, if elected, it would move to separate Quebec from federal cultural bodies such as the CRTC, the National Film Board and Telefilm Canada and request to transfer its share of federal money to its own cultural agencies.

In a recent Heritage committee report on the future of local TV, the Bloc Québécois members submitted a parallel report advocating for much the same thing: ‘There are two countries in this country: Quebec and Canada, and there is no better proof than a study of the television industry,’ it read. One could make the same argument for the film and music sectors as well.

Despite the Harper government’s recognition of Quebec as a nation, the prevailing view here is that he doesn’t understand Quebec culture and certainly isn’t going to do much to help it thrive. Just the kind of sentiment nationalists love to exploit.