We’re having trouble deciding whether to laugh or cry about Premier Jean Charest’s decision to demand a seat for Quebec at next week’s "friends of Haiti" meeting of foreign ministers, organized by the federal government as a first step toward planning reconstruction, not only of buildings but of Haiti’s whole economy.

Hillary Clinton will be there, and Bernard Kouchner the French foreign minister, and their opposite numbers from Brazil, Mexico, and other countries with a role in Haiti. Canada will be represented by Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, who happens to be a Quebecer.

They’ll have a lot to talk about, as a glance at the headlines demonstrates. And yet Charest has chosen to make this vast humanitarian catastrophe, and the whole future of Haiti, into one more opportunity to play the Quebec nationalism game. In almost the same breath, he saw fit to call on Ottawa to cover Quebec’s costs in welcoming survivors who’ve been arriving at Trudeau airport.

Let’s imagine that Quebec gets a seat at the table next week, complete with a little flag on the table. Either Quebec will agree with Ottawa on the subjects raised, which makes provincial participation redundant, or else Quebec will disagree, which can hardly be good news for Haiti’s 9 million people. Perhaps they would agree to wait for a rebuilding plan, until Quebec and Ottawa can sort out jurisdiction. Perhaps Charest would like the United Nations to organize a referendum in Haiti on the question of Quebec’s role. Perhaps the governor of Florida should be at the table, too. What nonsense it all is.

This is nationalist narcissism on a disgraceful scale. Need we mention that the Parti Québécois, having been given political cover by Charest, jumped in to endorse his demand ?

Here’s a suggestion for our nominally-federalist premier : Forget a seat at the conference. Concentrate on the practical details of the necessary federal-provincial agreements to set a compassionate but realistic short-term policy on immigration and adoption cases. Then reduce the cost of Quebec’s wasteful foreign-affairs department from $125 million to, say, $25 million, by scaling back our luxury "délégations générales" in Paris and New York, closing the ones in Brussels, London, Mexico City, Munich, and Tokyo, and the rest of our 25 (!) offices abroad. Then donate the $100 million saved, on a recurring basis, to rebuilding Haiti.