Why Quebec needs independence.

Vive le HK libre !

It is beyond me why any self-respecting Quebecer would vote for a Trudeau...

This was posted in 2015 when a couple of Quebec actors/comedians portrayed some famous black people in brief skits. It was, of course, turned into a " Why are Quebecers so racist?" moment in the Canadian media... Now it seems that Justin has been doing the exact same thing... and what has been the reaction? (No, seriously, what has been the reaction? I haven't been paying much attention to the news for a while now...)

"I’ve sometimes had the impression, reading the Toronto press, that it is very, very, very concerned with the fate of minorities in Quebec. In fact, you could think, reading some pieces, that the anglo minority in Quebec is enslaved. No, I am not conjuring up the slavery metaphor in vain. I actually read it in The Globe and Mail at the height of Pastagate Remember Pastagate?"

"In order to honor Papineau’s memory, shouldn’t Quebec start a conversation with its own citizens about establishing a fundamental law of its own? Shouldn’t we prepare, not in the shadows, but in all transparency, a first Quebec constitution with the authorization of its constituents? Isn’t it time to create a Movement for the Constitution of Quebec?"

Brad Wall is at it again... To isolate equalization from everything else is completely dishonest. There are many federal schemes in which Quebec pays into but does not benefit from. For example: The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, with total expenditures of $138 million, spent less than 10% of its budget in Quebec. The Department of Human Resources and Skills Development spends only 12% in Quebec in goods and services on a total of over $500 million across Canada. Another... example is the portfolio of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, which amounted to $7.4 billion in 2010. Quebecers finance 19.5% of this portfolio but receive less than half of that from Ottawa since Quebec has only 9.2% of Canada’s Aboriginal people. 23.2% of spending is attributed to Quebec when in reality, both in terms of services received as actual expenditures, Quebec does not get its fair share in a lot of cases. And this does not even take into account contracts for the construction of vessels for the Royal Canadian Navy: $33 billion to build boats in Halifax and Vancouver while Quebec receives absolutely nothing. There are many examples of how Quebec gets short-changed on federal schemes that Quebec must pay into but hold little value for us, financially or otherwise. An important point, however, is the fact that Ottawa does not invest in economic development equally. Ontario and Alberta get the lion's share and the reality is that investing in Albertan oil enriches Alberta but also increases the value of the Canadian dollar which, in turn, hurts Quebec's exports. While the value of the Canadian dollar versus the US dollar rose from less than $0.63 in 2002 to parity in 2012, an increase of 37%, the international trade balance of Quebec went from a surplus of more than $6 billion to a deficit of nearly $29 billion. In percentage of GDP, this deteriorating international trade balance corresponds to a shift from a 2.4% surplus to a deficit of 8.1%! Does equalization really cover that? If you look at the total of federal transfers to the provinces per capita, Quebecers are pretty close to the Canadian average. The fact that we benefit from equalization is nothing to apologize for as it is a consolation prize for being overlooked when it comes to economic development.

Anglo propaganda goes international. The New York Times has written an absurd article about the current "Bonjour-Hi" controversy in Quebec. It is dripping with the English-Canadian bias that so easily crosses the border. To illustrate how ridiculous the linguistic wars in Quebec are, the text begins with an old story of a pet shop customer in Napierville who allegedly complained that the parrot he wanted to buy did not speak French. This story goes back to 1995 and was promo...Continue reading

A motion in the National Assembly encouraging business to greet customers with "Bonjour" (implying they drop the "Hi") is portrayed as the oppression of anglophones in Quebec. Let's compare that to the measures taken in English Canada when they felt threatened by French for a bit of perspective...

How bilingualism works in Canada...

This article, translated from Le Monde, while making some good points is presenting a misleading image of Canada that I just keep hearing from so many sources. "Spain should be more like Canada which allowed Quebec to have its referendums... Canada's so cool!" The truth is that Canada is a federation, which is a system of shared sovereignty. The National Assembly in Quebec City has the right to consult the people on any matter through a referendum. Ottawa cannot stop it. Woul...d Ottawa have recognized a positive outcome in these referendums? Evidence seems to point to the negative on that. In 1998, the Prime minister, after having mislead the Quebec people right before the referendum, decided to find a legal solution to the problem and asked the Supreme Court of Canada three questions on Quebec's right to secession. Contrary to all expectations and as constitutional experts have pointed out, the Court refused to answer YES or NO to the questions put to it. And, rather than simply denying Quebec's right to declare independence, it noted that the federal and provincial governments had a constitutional and mandatory duty to negotiate should Quebec vote in favor of sovereignty. In order to circumvent the obligation to negotiate set out in the advisory opinion by the Supreme Court of Canada, the Parliament of Canada tabled on December 10th, 1999 an Act to Give Effect to the Requirement for Clarity as Set Out in the Opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Quebec Secession Reference (Bill C-20). This federal initiative led to the passing of the Clarity Act on June 29, 2000 which purports to impose conditions on Quebec before the federal government fulfills its obligation to negotiate with Quebec. The intent of the Clarity Act is to give the House of Commons the power to decide that a majority of 50% + 1 of valid votes cast is not enough to oblige the federal government to assume its constitutional and mandatory duty to negotiate. It also gives the federal government the possibility to shirk its constitutional obligation to negotiate if it feels that the question asked was not "clear enough" It's a masterpiece of legal sophistry, open to almost any interpretation. There is nothing cool about that and there is nothing that separates Canada from Spain except that one is a federation and the other is a unitary state. Westminster in London is the sovereign Parliament of all of the UK. To its credit, it allowed the Scottish referendum to take place. By all means, compare Madrid to London. But don't lump Ottawa into to "cool" and enlightened camp as it did what it could to undermine Quebec's democratic will...

The hopeless struggle of a French-speaking minority in an English-speaking country... Anyone immigrating to the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) in say 1980, would have most certainly prioritised the Russian language as it was the dominant language of the Soviet Union. Anyone immigrating to the independent country of Latvia today would most certainly prioritised the Latvian language as it is the official language of the country they are immigrating to... It's pretty easy to understand!

I have to admit that I had high hopes for the Scottish referendum. I was really hoping that Scotland would vote yes and provide a positive example that Quebec sovereignists could point to. Unfortunately Scotland ended up reinforcing the idea that you can't persuade a majority in a wealthy country with personal freedom to take a risk for something like national sovereignty. It's too easy to scare people with stories of economic disaster. And once you've got them all anxious ri...ght before the vote, you just need to make some last minute, empty promise about more this or more that if they vote no... Works every time! Catalonia, I'm afraid, may have set another negative example. A positive outcome is still possible but right now, Catalonia seems to be proving the point that there is no independence without international recognition and that it is pointless to even try without first making some powerful friends. In the end, that is what really matters, not the will of the people (Kurdistan may be a better example). Taiwan has de facto independence but because China still claims it as its territory, there is little official recognition since to have diplomatic relations with China you must recognize the government in Beijing as China’s sole legal government and acknowledged the position that Taiwan is a province of the China. There should be a better way of resolving these issues. Many of the world's states are nothing but relics of empires (like Canada) and have no real legitimacy. The world should agree on some clear and consistent principles on nations and self-determination. We should be moving beyond "might makes right."

"By definition, self-determination presents a challenge to the host state. To accept that there is a right of self-determination under international law but then claim that this right is conditional on host state consent as is currently being argued by Spain and its allies with respect to Catalonia is simply illogical. This is akin to saying that all women have the right to divorce their husbands but only if their husbands agree."