Machjo Posted September 13, 2015 Report Posted September 13, 2015 To clarify, I'm not necessarily a sovereignist. However there is one policy area on which the Bloc Québécois is more fiscally conservative than any of the major federalist parties, and that is on the matter of language policy. Scott Reid, the Conservative incumbent for the riding of Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and the author of Lament for a Notion: the Life and Death of Canada's Bilingual Dream, proposes the idea of regional bilingualism in his book whereby Federal offices would follow a policy of official monolingualism in the dominant local language except 'where numbers warrant,' arguing correctly that it could save the taxpayer billions. His strong stance on the matter, though supported by many soft libertarians in the Conservative caucus, is still a minority belief at odds with the official policy of the Conservative Party supported by at least a small plurality if not majority of its members who support official bilingualism, which is one reason among others that Scott Reid is a backbench MP, another major reason being that he is one of the few Conservative MP's to have simetimes broken with the party when voting on laws that could infringe on civil liberties, though I'm unsure of his more recent record on that matter. In many respects, though he's a member of a Federalist party, his ideas are similar to those of the Bloc (which let's not forget originally separated from the Progressive Conservative Party). The Bloc has consistently opposed Federal laws that infringed on Civil liberties and its language policy is ironically similar to that of Canadians for Language Fairness (CLF), an organization that appears to have been inspired by Scott Reid's book and which ironically enough tends to attract francophobes in the same way that the Bloc probably attracts its share of anglophobes. If we can overlook the bigots that these two organizations attract, CLF and the Bloc do have similar beliefs on language policy. One difference is that CLF prefers a Federal policy of official monolingualism in the dominant local language whereas the Bloc prefers official monolingualism in the dominant provincial language. Though I prefer CLF's position of going by the dominant local language, I consider the Bloc's position as the next best which could still save the Government billions yearly. So when we consider the Bloc to be more fiscally conservative than the CPC on at least that point and far more supportive of civil liberties than the CPC is, isn't the Bloc ab option worth considering in Quebec in the absence of a competent Libertarian candidate? Quote With friends like Zionists, what Jew needs enemies? With friends like Islamists, what Muslim needs enemies?
Machjo Posted September 13, 2015 Author Report Posted September 13, 2015 (edited) Another area of similarity between the CPC and the Bloc Québécois is on the matter of decentralization to the provinces. I could even see an Ontario Party being formed that would work with the BQ to promote a policy of Federal official monolingualism in their respective provinces, decentralization of powers to the provinces, and respect for civil liberties. Akternatively, the Libertarian Party could play that role in Ontario. Edited September 13, 2015 by Machjo Quote With friends like Zionists, what Jew needs enemies? With friends like Islamists, what Muslim needs enemies?
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