Antiochus

I would probably call bullshit here since most Quebecois have Irish or Native American ancestry. Finding a true ''pur laine'' Quebecois is actually harder than you might think.

Wrong again. The irony was that they needed Quebec at the time because they had to ensure the province would remain stable, as the rest of the American colonies were quickly moving away from the Empire. Had they been too harsh, they would even have lost Canada. It was not a decision coming from the deeps of their hearts, it was just the only politically sound option they had in order to ensure they would not loose the whole of North America. Look up the English governor Carlton, its all pretty well known history today. By the way, your welcome...

I recently joined this forum and threads like this make me want to leave. I'm not even Ontarian, and I feel offended by this thread.

I'm amazed at some peoples capacity to reduce a complex history of federal/provincial conflict to a cartoon, all the while representing an entire group as being bad. Its textbooks discriminatory and racist speech. In your way, you vindicate the entire dogma of the PQ. Congratulation, you dolt.

And Quebec has a higher rate of bilingualism than most of Canada. I think there is a fine line between assimilation and integration by the way and assimilation was the point since the Act of Union, changing only in the second half of the 20th century.

Not at all. The concept of race today is defined by blood, or by ethnicity. Nationhood as it is understood by cultural standards is based on language, culture and customs. Its something that can be joined, that you do not have to be born into to be a part of; which explains how people like PQ, QS or BLOC MPs and candidates being seen as nationalists Quebecois, while technically being immigrants or of immigrant or anglophone descent, such as Maka Kotto, Amir Khadir, Maria Mourani, Djemila Benhabib, Scott Mckay, Andrés Fontecilla, Will Prosper and the list goes on... As I do. I think a one of our journalist said it best when he said that the shooting left us with one death, but 8 million wounded... Well, off the bat I would have to say that I can't help but think that your vision of the "francophone media" is very skewed, as the reaction to the shooting and the analysis of its causes and ramifications varied drastically from one source to another, not to mention that most of our major media are widely seen as being federalist, or at least as supportive of federalist political parties, such as the medias under Quebecor Media (which includes the most read newspaper, the journal de Montreal, and the most watched News Stations, TVA) and Power Corporation (which includes the second most read newspaper, La Presse). On the other hand, if some medias were to be highly critical of the election coverage of the election by English media, I would not entirely disagree with it. While it would be absurd to lay the blame at the feet of such media organization, one can't help but to point out that many of those medias used fear-mongering as an electoral tactic. Calling the PQ voters Yahoos, insulting the PQ leader outright, claiming that any voters who support the PQ supports xenophobia (even though its reducing the whole campaign to a caricature) among others... Now, does this mean one can blame those medias for the shooting? Not really. But one could say that they fail at objectively informing their readers and create and environment where such horrible acts can more easily take root. To be fair, several francophone media are also outright opposed to the PQ, as said earlier, some of them can be pretty radical in their narrative (such as the famed trash radios of Quebec city), and they could also be considered as being more damaging to the public discourse than truly informative on the topic. As for considering the PQ as racist and xenophobic, I never said that it was faultless. I agree that the party adhered to bad policies that are, in essence, rooted in a form of nationalism that is synonymous with xenophobia. But I also said that such policies do not reach a consensus within the party itself, let alone the broader Quebec society (as this thread imply, in a very offensive way). The PQ always played in a dangerous territory, as the line between nationalism and racism is a fine one. I understand why it can be seen with suspicion, even animosity by anglophones and I even agree with some of the criticism that many aim its way, but I do have an issue with parts of the english media and with a huge part of the anglophone social media which often gains a platform on regular media website, for being very unfair in their analysis of Quebec's policy and, sometimes, just as racist and xenophobic as those they claim to condemn. It was especially scary in the facebook and twitter following of those media, such as when some people actually cheered and called for the murder of Pauline Marois. I know the same thing can be found anywhere, but do understand that just as the PQ's policy can sometime vindicate animosity, such narrative also vindicates the PQ, especially when it is encouraged as I have seen it on medias such as Sun News Network.

Yeah, Im going to say it: its absurd. The Montreal suburbs have their shares of anglophones, heck, they form a majority in many of them. While I do not doubt that racism exist everywhere, the greater Montreal area is actually not that bad a place.

Well, if done at the point of a sword, I believe you just described the Spanish inquisition... So, yes, it can be...

You are playing a dangerous game. Those pieces of papers are not something to be taken lightly. Within our system, the sovereignty lies in the hands of the parliament, which is why the referendum mostly had a consultative role that would simply have given the provincial government the popular mandate to take a decision. As there are no-such entities that have such sovereignty within the provinces (municipalities have no independent powers that provinces can't legally take back), what you describe here is technically untrue.

Well, there are certain persons that work within the media that have made the argument that the coverage of the campaign within parts of the English-canadian media dealt in fear-mongering, and to an extent, this is not entirely wrong. One could make an argument that such a coverage would create a political climate where such acts are more plausible; though this is an argument that has no value if you do not take several other factors into account, considering that this cannot be the single source of tensions that could have lead to such a tragic act. Yet, those who actually blame such media coverage for the murder are even fewer and most of the medias right now seem to adhere to the idea that the shooter was suffering from some sort of mental illness. This is why I claimed that saying that the "French Media" blamed the "English Media" is an exaggeration. The phenomenon certainly exists within the media and there is a valid point to be made that the demonizing of a political party can foster an environment where attacks against that party would be more common. But as I said, to say that the blame should lay at the feet of something as vague and diverse as the "English Media" is quite absurd.

This is an exaggeration... One would say that some people with the french media are laying the blame on the anglophone media. By and large, the medias, both french and english, are trying to calm things down.

That is factually wrong if you take into consideration the Act of Union of 1840... It was clearly attempted to assimilate the francophones, but it was almost impossible due to several factors, including the demographics of the province and the fact that most institutions that would have had to be taken over by the English to ensure assimilation were in the hands of the catholic (read-very french) clergy.

Its a pretty bad book and a poor thesis for a political philosophy. Its heroes are closer to demi-gods than humans, so imbued with a perfect ethical belief system implying that only people who believe in government interventionism will try and take advantage of the situation given to them; as if it took an big government to allow corruption, patronage and unhealthy monopolies...

Right, the conservatives just did a national add mocking Chrétien's facial disability... But that was not immature... noooooooo...