Aging & Wisdom Quote by Kim Campbell

Campbell’s line is a velvet glove over a steel political reality: in Quebec, memory is never just memory. By saying Quebecers “don’t want to relive old battles,” she’s naming the province’s defining fault line - sovereignty versus federalism - while implying it’s yesterday’s news. It’s a rhetorical feint that lets her acknowledge the emotional weight of past constitutional fights without granting them fresh oxygen. The phrase “old battles” miniaturizes decades of grievance and ambition into something like stale drama, a subtle rebuke to political actors who thrive on reopening wounds.

Then she pivots to “build for the future,” a deliberately optimistic verb that flatters the listener. “Build” casts Quebecers as pragmatic makers, not ideologues; it’s an invitation to identify with stability and prosperity rather than rupture. Subtext: responsible people choose economic and social progress over constitutional brinkmanship. It’s not neutral; it’s a moral framing.

Context matters because Campbell governed in the early 1990s, when the constitutional file was radioactive: Meech Lake’s collapse, Charlottetown’s failure, the approach of the 1995 referendum. English-Canadian leaders often tried to speak to Quebec without sounding patronizing or panicked. Campbell’s sentence walks that tightrope by projecting calm and normalcy - the tone of a country telling itself it can move on.

The intent, ultimately, is containment. She’s offering Quebec a dignified off-ramp from perpetual constitutional crisis, while also reassuring the rest of Canada that the “national unity” question can be managed with forward-looking pragmatism rather than another round of symbolic trench warfare.