whoa i was out of my computer for awhile and not here to defend quebec independance. i will now take every point said here and comment on it.
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My impression is that, for some reason, most left-wingers support the Québec sovreignty movement. Why is this? Also, why is it that the New Democratic Party (NPD in Québec) gets so few votes in Québec? Is it because most social democrats in Québec are pro-independence, and thus support the Bloc Québécois or Québec solidaire?
yes most social-democrats vote for the parti quebecois or quebec solidaire and in the past the ndp said that they would not recognize independance even if a referendum had 50%+ of the vote which many quebeckers took up as an insult. they tried to get seats as a federalist social democrats in federal elections but didn't really do it.
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'd support Quebec independance if it remained very close to Canada. Only issue is, what happens to the rest of the Maratimes? We'd either join the USA or Quebec I'd guess, we'd be too isloated to be part of Canada IMO. I'd much rather be part of Quebec obviously.
? what do you mean the maritimes, alaska is part of the united states even if it's pretty far away, quebec independance wouldn't have borders or so and there would be a common money, though it depends on what term it is achieved.
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The leader of the BQ is awesome, Gilles Duccepes, he is probably the last hope for Quebec Sepratism (at least that is currently in politics). He is like the only politician popular enough in Quebec to get it passed, the only issue is he's in Federal politics he'd need to be in Provincal to do anything.
i respect the BQ much more than i respect the PQ, it's provincial counterpart, the BQ is pretty much only nationalist while the PQ is fake social-democracy. btw gilles duceppe is an ex-maoist.
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however, potential problems are not limited to those of economic order. What of the english-speaking minority? Seeing as how things are right now, I just can't think of what kind of repressive linguistic measures the new governement would think of. Also, the maritimes question is an important one; and, quite frankly, if the independence leads to a rise of the Right, it can wait. there's a leftist identity to Quebec, afterall, which I think must not me lost (but would need to be reformed, as we would not be able to hold such a costly system for long.)
the english speaking minority will have to deal with having their children sent to french speaking schools like every single country in the world which forces parents to send their children to school where the primary language is the lingua franca of the country. i also don't see how it would lead to a rise of the right since both political party in favor of independance are either center-left ,or neo-liberal crap left. if anything it would allow a part of canada which votes much more to the left than the rest of the country to express itself internationally and internally.
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Voted Other. I support the separation of the predominant french and english sectors of Canada
how the hell is that not independance
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Yes, it would be great if a vibrant French-speaking nation was established in North America but can Québec develop a successful economy without Canadian assistance? It would be great but I think it should be independent regardless of the economic situation because it's better to be poorer and independent than vice versa.
what do you mean by assistance? they can both be equal trading partner, the only thing i fear we would lose is alberta's oil
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Why? I don't really give a shit about national sovereignty compared to material spoils.
edit: If it was socialist, though, an independent Quebec would be awesome of course.
the communist party of quebec is part of quebec solidaire which is social democratic but in their last manifesto has openly claimed to be anti-capitalist. at the very least they severely criticize capitalism, there will soon be a new congress about the economical policy and i can then tell you how bad or good it is. i am a bit skeptical since i expect them to simply be green social-democrats but of course the communist party of quebec is a bit like the CPUSA as that it wants to get people in quebec solidaire to be socialist, at least the democrats are not the same as quebec solidaire.
what is positive though is that they expressly in their manifesto that we must question if we are going to completly change our economical system from capitalism to something else as they say it is impossible to continue with such a model due to the poverty and environmental problem it causes, which is positive for us.
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I agree with this. As someone who has lived in Canada - I lived in Montréal, Québec and visited Ontario - I do see quite a bit of cultural disparity between the French- and English-speaking regions, but at the same time it does appear that the two groups at least get along quite well, and I see no harm in the state of Canada remaining as it is, while I do see plenty of harm - mostly economical, but perhaps political as well - that could come to both Canada and whatever provinces that choose to secede. Not only would it damage the economy, but it would likely also instigate aggressive nationalistic tendencies and increase conservatism. If history has taught us anything, it's that a great number of nationalistic independence movements end up generating conservatism and right-wing nationalism in both the state that had seceded and the state that had seen parts of its territory become an independent country. Exceptions do exist, but those tend to be more in the anti-colonialist movements that have socialistic roots.
i don't know what you would consider to be enough problems between canada and quebec to think that they 'hate' each other enough, quebec bashing and vice versa is prevalent in newspapers, look at this wikipedia article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Quebec_sentiment i don't want to say that we do not do the same in our journals, but i would argue that it is much rarer, there is no wikipedia article in french or english about anti-english sentiment in quebec. my mother had a brother who used to drive around a van, get 5-6 people in it and go over the ontario border to start some fight in canadian bars. she also had one of her friend talk and distract 4-5 englishmen while their quebecker friend entered the car so they wouldn't kick their ass, and that only on the basis of being french.
if anything quebec independance is anti-colonialist, for a very long time most restaurants in montreal were in english even if the majority of people were quebeckers, at one time a study was made that out of 14 ethnic groups in quebec we were ranked 12 according to wealth. we were disproportionally peasants with very few capital owners and not so long ago everyone who had to serve in the public sector had to swear loyalty to the queen of england. if anything, independance would calm down nationalistic and conservative tendency, in the recent reasonable accomodation debate one of the two person in charge of the commission said this, it's also very interesting to see the difference between french and english wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouchard-T ... ommodationQuote:
he announced in an interview that sovereignty was the solution to calm Franco-Quebeckers' cultural insecurity. Co-chair Taylor stated, however, that Quebecers need to demonstrate the "openness and generosity of spirit" that majorities should have towards minorities
i will try to translate it with babelfish
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The commission raised the controversy before even beginning its work. In an interview he granted to the cultural weekly magazine montréalais Voir, Gerard Bouchard declared that the minority statute of the Inhabitants of Quebec d' ascent in Canada creates a feeling based on their premises; insecurity. “The French-speaking people of french descent of quebec constitute a majority which reacts like a minority, which shows the same feelings of concern, of threat, brittleness, the same reflex of fold, hardening… ”, adding that the independence of Quebec would make it possible to reabsorb the crisis of identity québécoise. Remarks of Mr. Bouchard, an intellectual known souverainist and the brother of former Prime Minister for Quebec Lucien Bouchard, were denounced by the political chronicler Don MacPherson of the daily newspaper The Gazette as being partial and compromising for the government and the commission. Representatives of the three political parties represented with l' National Assembly of Quebec reiterated their confidence with place of the police chief, affirming that Mr. Bouchard in its duty of reserve had not exceeded. On August 22, 2007, it raises a new polemic by marking an opposition between the level of tolerance of the “intellectuals” and that of the other citizens
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To put it simply, my hearts says YESANYTIME. My brain, however, puts the brake -- without the perequation (not sure if that's how it's called in english, my bad), Quebec will be having a haaaaarrrdddd time.
I'm hoping for a renewal of the Parti Quebecois under a new and more charismatic leader, because as of now the independence movement is kinda on standby, which i find deplorable. I really think that being canadian has its perks, don't get me wrong, but like we say in here, I got the fleur-de-lys tatooed on my heart. if the Eternal Question of Separatism arose now, I'd vote yes.
for those who don't know what we mean by perequation, it is the money that quebec sends as tax to the central canadian government and there is the question that we sent more tax than are spent in our territory. i don't know what's scary about it, it will be negociation, it's not like they can keep our money and get away with it. there will be pressure,embargo etc. i like your enthousiasm but i don't think the pq has anything good to offer, it is a political party full of opportunist, while of course i am not a big fan of quebec solidaire they sound much more promising for the left and even quebec sovereignty. i will still work for quebec solidaire in the next elections and i defend them wherever i can, i just hope they can give me some meat to keep my satisfied.
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however, potential problems are not limited to those of economic order. What of the english-speaking minority? Seeing as how things are right now, I just can't think of what kind of repressive linguistic measures the new governement would think of. Also, the maritimes question is an important one; and, quite frankly, if the independence leads to a rise of the Right, it can wait. there's a leftist identity to Quebec, afterall, which I think must not me lost (but would need to be reformed, as we would not be able to hold such a costly system for long.)
like i said above, the english minority will have to go to school with other french children and integrate instead of living in separate schools, some would be against private schools existing at all but i guess they will still exist. if anything this is called integration, perhaps forced assimilation but in any case being able to communicate with the host population is a great way to integrate in society. and i don't think this precludes people from keeping their second language or even having it as a mother tongue at home though it would be hard of course.
and i didn't know there were gold mines all over canada, i think we have a pretty good economy and there are other countries who declared independance who have less territory, less population, less ressources and they are not north korea.
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I went to a few public schools (my family moved around a lot within Montréal) with lots of immigrants from various countries who had no common language except for English, and obviously, it's damn near impossible to force students to suddenly become fluent in French. But of course, there were some very teachers who adopted very draconian measures to keep students from communicating/helping each other out and were very strict on you not using a single English word at all. It was terrifying, since I knew a bit of English from my parents (who incidentally also had to take French courses due to some requirements or the other - though I don't have as much of a problem with that, I guess. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" and all that), and I knew the teachers could understand, but they would frag me over if I did tried to ask for help. I even knew an America kid who was punished by having to write "Je ne parle pas Anglais dans la classe," which means "I do not speak English in the class" - I think at this point, we hadn't learned the future tense, so that was the simplest form they could give him. (I never heard from him again, though he most likely ended up transferring to an English-speaking private school).
well i am sorry for those experience you had, i guess you were not rich enough to be in a private school either. but know that the same thing would happen if french people moved to louisiana for example, french would be a second language at best. i know some quebeckers that can be dicks to those who speak english by pretending to only speak french or being loud about wanting service in french in the public sector but i assure you they are a fringe minority. how old are you by the way? was there any violence toward children because of this, i am just wondering at what time this happened since schools were much more harsh on kids than they are right now, i'm not sure i would personally put it as a rule not to speak english anywhere at school,that would be insane, but we personally didn't have the right to speak french in our english class to help us learn it, i guess it can suck, but if you stayed long enough in quebec you would have to go through a second language english course. i guess the main problem was the shock in itself, immigrant kids using english as a lingua franca, shouldn't you blame past colonialism for creating such a situation? if we were independant during the 1838 rebellion you wouldn't have had to go through such bullshit.
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I don't think that French Canada should become a separate country, but I think that a relative separation and autonomy should be practiced among the french populations from the english. As for bilingual areas, it should be left to them. Quebec is relatively bilingual, even though it is still predominantly french
there is a degree of separation and autonomy, but it simply isn't enough, time and time again there are panics about the state of the french language in montreal. our voice is not heard on the international level, we do control immigration and favor french speakers ( something i sadly find to be a comparison of israel)
we are 7-8 million frenchmen surrounded by 340 englishmen(damn another comparison with israel,except we don't have much guns, cultural imperialism,apartheid and never practiced ethnic cleansing... except on native americans), and since all of canada including quebec and europe suffer cultural and economical imperialism from the united states , it is hard to keep our culture intact, that is why we have laws that forces radio station to play a certain number of french songs and other such measures. i think this is why there was the graphiti story of komissar_kw.
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I guess I will take the compromise route as well and vote for "No independence as of now, but greater autonomy immediately", which I realize is the opposite of my position regarding the former Yugo states. There, however, the damage is already done, and I don't see what essential difference it makes if 2 or 3 more states break off. In Canada, however, such a massive event like Quebec breaking off could probably have unforeseen (by the bourgeois-liberal government it would most likely elect to herald the transition) consequences, such as the immediate vengeful discrimination against the English-speaking minority, which could quickly spiral into ugly segregation and deportation with seizure of assets, etc.
any more autonomy that we ask for is a lie and the central government has to agree in order to transfer any power, it simply isn't enough, federal politicians are having a double discourse when they reassure the english canadians that quebec won't have some special status or more power, then when in quebec they argue that it is possible that such status will be given to us and that preserving quebec identity in canada is possible. a new and strong leftist voice in the first world would emerge from quebec independance, i don't know any electorate in the first world that has such a left voting population except ireland,simply because our struggle are similar even if we have a hard time comparing ourselves to them, we were north american cheap labour for a long frigging time. why else would pierre vallieres ex-member of the FLQ wrote a book named White nigger about the quebec people talking about the disparity of income between french speaking and english speaking people in quebec and canada. how the hell would there be segregation,deportation and seizure of assets. if there is seizure of assets it would be in a socialist quebec and yes most of the capital would be seized from the english speaking minority, but nobody here cares about the origins of capitalist. i seriously don't understand why the segregation or deportation idea, there wont be any more violence toward them than there is currently because the 1995 referendum was stolen by money( they outspent and even did it illegally) and both italian and jewish community voted strongly against independance, how does that not fuel racism and antisemitism? they usually identify themselves as canadian, and to be honest, this is changing, many in the ethnic minority communities for example were opposed to it due to hysterical fear of war when they came from wartorn countries, but nowdays many immigrants are well integrated into society, were not mistreated due to not having a rightwing government for about 50 years which all of quebec remembers as dark times where the church was powerful,their children and their 30-40 year old parent support independance much more than the generation behind them.
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