Quebec: A Nation

[August1991]

English Canada (ROC) roundly rejects this motion while French Quebec (les Québécois) firmly accepts it.

À l'extérieur du Québec — même parmi les francophones — la proportion des répondants en désaccord avec cette idée atteint 77 pour cent.

....

À travers tout le pays, les seuls qui y sont favorables, ce sont les francophones du Québec, à 71 pour cent.

D'après le sondage mené entre le 16 et le 26 novembre auprès de 1527 adultes canadiens, le débat sur la nation n'a cependant pas eu de conséquences sur les intentions de vote, jusqu'à maintenant.

La Presse

The BQ/PQ knew about this and that's why they tendered their motion. I think there is some anti-French, Quebec-bashing behind these numbers but there is also the belief that Quebec is somehow getting a special deal.

If Canada is to be a federal state, then Harper is on the right side of the issue. But I don't know if Canada is really salvageable.

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Incidentally, La Presse today published prominently the names of all the MPs (with their province) who opposed this motion.

[jdobbin]

The Tories love to say he’s great at his job because he is, above all, a chess player.

I think he's alienated his base. He also showed that he is his own unity minister and didn't really consult the cabinet because none of them were able to really say what this all meant in a new conference.

The man who should have spoken at the news conference is Stephen Harper. It is obvious Cannon didn't know what was going on in that incoherent news conference.

[Higgly]

Having spent time in the Middle East, I can only conlude that this is all a plot.

Ignatieff was put in place to set a honey trap that Harper would fall in to.

Harper has gained a few votes in Quebec, and alienated damned near everyone else. Ignatieff is on his way back to Boston.

Bob Rae is the only winner here. Political experience. Management experience.

Heh, heh. You go, baie...

[jdobbin]

The BQ/PQ knew about this and that's why they tendered their motion. I think there is some anti-French, Quebec-bashing behind these numbers but there is also the belief that Quebec is somehow getting a special deal.

If Canada is to be a federal state, then Harper is on the right side of the issue. But I don't know if Canada is really salvageable.

---

Incidentally, La Presse today published prominently the names of all the MPs (with their province) who opposed this motion.

If this thing degrades into the PQ making this an election issue in the next election, I think we'll be re-evaluating how successful this all is.

One thing is certain. Harper would never have accepted this if the Liberals had come up with it. Why is he surprised that many of his own supporters are reticent about it? Instinctively, they think this is just one of many shoes to drop.

However, you call it anti-Quebec or anti-French. And Quebec media draws up a list to use as a prop for the next battle for sovereignty.

[August1991]

Once defeated by the British the French were made promises of being able to keep their language, their religion and their culture. Sounds pretty distinct to me. Sounds like a unique society within a greater nation. This is what was offered and that is what was accepted. No assimilation, no integration, merely a method of peaceful resolve without either the British or the French having to give up their homes and their lives in Canada. That once original and elegant solution is now haunting the new combined nation. Oh well, so much for peaceful solutions.

Canada is the heart and soul of a multicultural concept because of the efforts of those two groups of people. The legacy we have been living with should have been respected and embraced , unfortunately there have been problems from day one.

Jerry, that's a good post. That's how many people in Quebec perceive this. If you are a federalist, it need not be a critical problem.

Brought into the present, the talk of "two nations" refers to the consequences of decisions over two centuries ago. Of course many immigrants have arrived in Canada in the meantime and English Canada is much larger, diverse than what it was in 1790. The West is populated with non-English. Yet, these immigrants assimilated into something called, for lack of a better phrase, "English Canada".

At the same time, something called "French Canada" existed too and other immigrants assimilated into it (fewer in general, for political reasons. Lawrence Cannon, Claude Ryan and Maka Kotto are some examples.)

To give a federalist spin to this question, modern Canada has these two "distinct" nations, one of which happens to be centred in Quebec. To give a separatist spin, only the government in Quebec City can properly represent one of the nations.

I don't know how this will turn out. Stephen Harper is the first elected, protestant English-Canadian PM we have had in almost 40 years. So, we're into new territory. No one is going to question Stephen Harper's loyalty to English-Canada. He's as WASP as they come. He even seems smart.

When he tabled his motion, Harper made this awkward comment about Quebec's federal politicians:

With their English- and French-speaking fellow citizens, and people drawn from all nationalities of this earth, they have been part of making this country what it is, the greatest country in the world.

To millions more who live in a dangerous and dividing world, this country is a shining example of the harmony and unity to which all peoples are capable and to which all humanity should aspire.

I say to my federalist colleagues and I also say to the separatist side that we here will do what we must, what our forefathers have always done to preserve this country, Canada, strong, united, independent and free.

Harper's on the right side. And there might be enough goodwill on both sides to make this work.

[Bakunin]

After 40 years of denial, finally canada open there eyes...

It has been 40years since we are no more french-canadian and 40year since we stopped acting like french canadian.

I hope it will help people understand why quebeckers want a voice on the international scene...