tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-453292370969414602024-03-13T22:41:51.712-07:00Why Quebec needs independenceveritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-57130863556963658642018-11-21T18:45:00.000-08:002018-11-21T19:14:44.700-08:00Guys, remember Pastagate?!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Did you hear that double thud? It’s the one-two punch that just landed on the face of the Franco-Ontarian community. The fist belongs to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has just cancelled plans to build the province’s first francophone university and eviscerated the Office of the French Language Services Commissioner.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yes, I am outraged, as a lot of francophones from coast to coast are. Of course, to know about that outrage, you would have to check the French media. The anglo media outside Quebec are doing the bare minimum in terms of coverage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Hence, this column in English. I’m thinking that maybe, just maybe, if you read about the outrage going on in your province from a guy in Montreal – but in English – maybe you’ll pay attention and start giving a damn. I’m not holding my breath, mind you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The near-silence from the Toronto press on these bigoted cutbacks targeting the Franco-Ontarian community is quite ironic. Usually, outlets like the National Post, the Toronto Star or The Globe and Mail, to name a few, offer a pugnacious coverage of language issues and spats… when they happen in Quebec and when the (real or perceived) villain is the Quebec government.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But when francophobe cutbacks – yes, dear comrades in the Toronto commentariat, francophobe, say it, it won’t hurt your tongue – target the francophone minority in Ontario, the forceful columns and editorials are nowhere to be found.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It’s ironic, as I said, because through the years, 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.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">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? To recap: an inspector from the Office québécois de la langue française, in a ridiculous bout of zeal, was going to fine a restaurant for having Italian words on its menu. Granted, it was dumb. I said so at the time. So did many others in Quebec, in the winter of 2013.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Pastagate was heavily covered in the Toronto press. Columns, editorials: the hot takes were piling up. So, a piece published in the Globe on February 26th 2013 started with a lengthy quote from Frederick Douglass, the famous African-American former slave who fought against the infamy of slavery…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The second paragraph of the piece authored by Sandy White stated this: “That was Frederick Douglass writing about the fight against slavery in the United States prior to the American Civil War.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">HOWEVER, ONE COULD EASILY MISTAKE THIS AS SOMEONE WRITING TODAY ABOUT QUEBEC…”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Caps are mine and serve to emphasize the sheer stupidity of linking the crimes against humanity that was slavery and the fate of the anglophone minority in Quebec. But it was written. And it was published. Not in a xenophobic rag like the Toronto SUN, mind you: in Canada’s National Newspaper.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Let’s stay on Pastagate, if you will. It is a great prism through which one can analyze the double standard at work when the media from English Canada step to the plate for the rights of linguistic minorities…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On March 1st 2013, at the height of Pastagate coverage, a National Post editorial stated this: “In short, Quebec’s language laws are an international embarrassment because they deserve to be – only they are really no laughing matter. CANADIANS WOULD BE APPALLED IF A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT IN A DEVELOPED COUNTRY TREATED A MINORITY THE WAY QUEBEC’S GOVERNMENT TREATS ITS ANGLOPHONES AND ALLOPHONES.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Caps are mine, again…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I’ll be clear: there is always room for improvement in the treatment of Quebec minorities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But inferring that anglophones and allophones in Quebec are so ill-treated that it should warrant international outrage is both incredibly dishonest and a gross exaggeration. Still, it was published.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As a Quebecker I am proud of the fact that the anglophone community has institutions that are publicly funded by the Quebec government. It has three universities, McGill, Concordia and Bishop’s. When Quebec built the francophone Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM), it also built the anglophone McGill University Health Center (MUHC), in the same spirit: that these hospitals be world-class hospitals. Nothing is perfect, of course, but this is one way to respect minorities: by funding their institutions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So, tell me, fellow columnists in the Toronto papers, where is the world-class, francophone hospital in Ontario?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is Montfort, yes. Great hospital. Not “world-class” like the MUHC, I’d say, though. And the francophone community had to go to court a generation ago to ensure that the Conservative (again) government of Mike Harris could not kill Montfort Hospital, like it tried to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And where is the francophone university in Ontario? If you answered Ottawa U, wrong you are: it’s a bilingual university, like Laurentian in Sudbury. There was at long last going to be a francophone university in Toronto, after decades of dreaming about it and planning for it, and…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And, well, Doug Ford just killed it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So I am asking you, my fellow comrades-in-arms in the commentariat, yes, you, the editorial and opinion writers based in Toronto…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Where is the outrage?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Nowhere, I gather: Étienne Fortin-Gauthier, a reporter for the public broadcaster TFO, tweeted yesterday that his daily press brief from Queen’s Park included NOT A SINGLE WORD ABOUT THE FRANCOPHONES’ MOBILISATION (caps mine, again) in the Toronto press. Repeat: NOT A SINGLE WORD.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Francophones across Canada are aghast at this frontal attack on francophones’ institutions and rights led by Doug Ford and (sigh) Caroline Mulroney, who is exceptionally gifted in the role of the token francophone in Mr. Ford’s Cabinet. This outrage is echoed in Ottawa by Prime Minister Trudeau and Mélanie Joly, the Cabinet minister responsible for Official Languages. It is echoed by francophone media and the Montreal Gazette, which lambasted Ford in an editorial.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But what about the Toronto press, which is so influential in setting the agenda in this country? All I’ve seen is a bare minimum coverage, a 5W-type coverage since the announcement last Thursday.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As far as I can tell, Chantal Hébert, in the Star, is the only opinion writer in the Toronto press who has given a voice to the grievances of French-speaking Ontarians.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Where are the pugnacious columns denouncing this mistreatment of a linguistic minority in Ontario? Where are the sanctimonious editorials? I am not even asking for a slavery metaphor ! You know, just the same concerns that propelled your Pastagate coverage from 2013…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I know that I’m gonna die waiting for you guys to care about francophones in Ontario. I have to come to terms with the fact that when it comes to linguistic minority rights, the Toronto press cares only about anglos in Quebec.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As for the Frogs in Ontario, well, as this delicious English expression goes: you don’t give a shit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By Patrick Lagacé, <a href="http://mi.lapresse.ca/screens/58c7800e-dafc-46a7-8575-08bcf0feb591__7C___0.html" target="_blank">La Presse</a>, November 20, 2018</span><br />
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<br />veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-81664622233619596362018-01-01T10:13:00.000-08:002018-01-01T19:50:36.590-08:00Papineau and his Political Testament<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt5zf5PMIl6IVUbzY5_MJCpcnf2oSD7aWs3d7JyqbIUI36poFgl6mKgik8TNwAuVslGPHhhLNGp2lE3iy-DeWImR4cuitAl1614feox7m5s8pw5gS9C_L26Auu-J5XLxqOUiuYJNS8vPA/s1600/Papineau6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="654" data-original-width="1194" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt5zf5PMIl6IVUbzY5_MJCpcnf2oSD7aWs3d7JyqbIUI36poFgl6mKgik8TNwAuVslGPHhhLNGp2lE3iy-DeWImR4cuitAl1614feox7m5s8pw5gS9C_L26Auu-J5XLxqOUiuYJNS8vPA/s640/Papineau6.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <i>Louis-Joseph Papineau</i></td></tr>
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As some have sought to commemorate many anniversaries in 2017, the most notable of which is the 150th anniversary of the passing into law of the British North America Act (today known as the constitutional law of 1867, of which only the title is official in French!) and the creation of the Dominion of Canada, it is of interest to recall another great event of 1867: the speech given by Louis-Joseph Papineau before the Institut Canadien on December 17 1867.</div>
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Often described as his “<i><a href="https://english.republiquelibre.org/Political_Testament_of_Louis-Joseph_Papineau" target="_blank">political testament</a></i>” and revealing “<i>the measure of the man and the breadth of his thinking</i>”, as Prof. Marc Chevrier so aptly put it, the allocution of the former head of the <i>Parti canadien</i> and the <i>Parti patriote</i> looked upon the creation the new Canadian federation with a critical eye.</div>
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The following passage is very revealing of Papineau’s views on the men at the origin of the British North America Act and on the process leading to its adoption: “<i>It is not the rushed acceptance of the bungled confederation act in Quebec City that proves the wisdom of British statesmen. It was not their doing; It was prepared in the shadows, without the authorization of their constituents, by a few colonists eager to hold on to a power that was slipping away. This sinister project belongs to a few disreputable men with a vested interest, and to a duped British parliament, inattentive to what it was doing. At first sight, the confederation act is not worthy of the approbation of those who believe in the wisdom and the fairness of Parliament, in the excellence of the English constitution, since it violates its fundamental principles by appropriating money belonging to the colonists alone and not to the metropolis. It is more culpable than any other previous act. It has the same old faults, along with some new ones that are peculiar to it, and more exorbitant against the colonists than were those of parliamentary charters either granted or imposed.</i>”</div>
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In this speech Papineau added: “<i>The true sociological doctrines of modern times can be summarized in a few words: recognize that in the temporal and political order of things, there is no legitimate authority other than that which has the consent of the majority of the nation; that the only wise and benevolent constitutions are those for which the people were consulted and the majority of whom gave their free consent.</i>”</div>
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The population will not be consulted</h3>
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As for the “<i>free consent</i>”, it is pertinent to recall that the resolutions of the Quebec Conference, which were essentially the same as those in the British North America Act, were put to a vote in the Parliament of the United Canada on the 10th of March 1865, and that 62 of the 65 MPs from Canada-East, which was to become the Province of Quebec, participated in the vote. Of the 62 votes cast, 37 were favorable and 25 unfavorable. Among the Francophone MPs who made up 49 of the 62 votes, 27 voted for and 22 voted against. The final version of the British north America Act was never approved by the legislative assembly of the United-Canada, after its adoption by the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the royal assent by the Queen on the 29th of March 1867. And the population of Lower-Canada was never consulted on the contents of this new fundamental law.</div>
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The constitutional law of 1867 is one of the pillars on which Canada is built and continues to develop itself. By applying this law, the Parliament of Canada has considerably expanded its powers thanks to the courts, whether that be the Judicial committee of the Privy Council in London, who granted it powers in the field of radio-communications, telecommunications and cable services, and that are now used to regulate the Internet.</div>
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It is also this law that the
federal authorities use to exercise a presumed spending
power and to interfere in many powers under Quebec’s jurisdiction with respect
to health care, post-secondary education, welfare and social services, child
development and daycare. This presumed power is also behind the willingness
of the Federal State to interfere in municipal and urban affairs and to
formulate, as it recently did, a National Strategy on housing in Canada.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Without consent</h3>
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This was the first pillar in the edifice of the Canadian constitutional order which was completed by multiple other laws, among which we find the constitutional law of 1982. The adoption of this law, which resulted from a repatriation procedure brought to term without the consent of the government, the parliament or the people of Quebec, did not obtain, in the words of Papineau, the consent of the majority of the nation. Nor can it be described as one of the “<i>wise and benevolent constitutions for which the people were consulted and the majority of whom gave their free consent,</i>” in particular with respect to the principles of bilingualism and <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2016/09/the-problem-with-multiculturalism.html" target="_blank">multiculturalism</a> that it embodies. And yet, it is this law that the courts used to prevent Quebec from enacting, with the Charter of the French language, a policy aiming to make French the common language of Quebec. And it is evidently by virtue of this same constitutional law that the desire to affirm the religious neutrality of the Quebec state, not to mention its secularism, will also be blocked.</div>
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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 “<i>in the shadows,</i>” but in all transparency, a first Quebec constitution with “<i>the authorization of its constituents</i>”? Isn’t it time to create a Movement for the Constitution of Quebec? </div>
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By <a href="http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/515606/papineau-et-le-testament-politique-de-1867" target="_blank">Daniel Turp</a>, Professor at the Faculty of Law of the Université de Montréal, December 16 2017.</div>
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Related posts:</div>
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2014/03/quebec-nationalism-and-canadian.html" target="_blank">Quebec Nationalism and Canadian Federalism</a></li>
<li><a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2014/07/july-1st-why-is-occasion-so-sad.html" target="_blank">July 1st: Why is the occasion so sad?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/05/the-blind-spot-in-our-history.html" target="_blank">The blind spot in our history</a></li>
<li><a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.dk/2015/09/the-problem-with-canadian-federalism.html" target="_blank">The problem with Canadian federalism</a></li>
<li><a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2017/03/corruption-racism-and-railway-making-of.html" target="_blank">Corruption, racism and a railway: The making of Canada</a></li>
</ul>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-77069159081550119762017-08-16T16:46:00.001-07:002017-08-16T19:10:39.854-07:00The Canada of 2017 is as Francophobic as ever<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last July 1st, in Ottawa, the celebrations turned into a spirit of mea culpa. In a gesture of suspicious benevolence, the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: “<i>We must recognize the errors of the past, accept our responsibilities, and strive so that every Canadian has a bright future.</i>” He was, rightfully, referring to the Native peoples.</div>
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The day has not yet come when Ottawa will say similar things about francophones. Perhaps at the Dominion’s 200th anniversary, when Durham’s project will be sufficiently accomplished.</div>
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In linguistic matters the British North America Act, of which we are remembering the 150th anniversary of its enactment into law, served mainly to protect English schools in Quebec. On the other hand, the other provinces, all of them without exception, adopted between 1870 to 1912 laws banning French instruction over a period of decades. But why be spoil sports when francophones can celebrate the Canada that exists today? All right then, what about present day Canada?</div>
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The Rose-des-Vents school</h3>
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Many moons ago, parents of the Rose-des-Vents primary French school in Vancouver got tired of sending their kids to a school made of rickety mobile homes with noisy classrooms, often without windows, and much smaller than those of an English school.</div>
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The school has no gymnasium or green spaces, not enough lockers, a miniscule library and only nine toilets for 350 kids and their teachers, and the school was meant for 200 students. The province seemed to think that if francophones didn’t like their decrepit, cramped and out of the way schools, they could go to an English school and face assimilation…</div>
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In May of 2010, the parents filled a lawsuit based on Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At the same time, the French School Board launched its own class action concerning the larger question of public funding of French education. And so began the provincial government’s monumental obstinacy to deny the 70 000 francophones of a “<i>just and equitable</i>” financing for their schools.</div>
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In October of 2015, the supreme court of British Colombia ruled in favor of Rose-des-Vents. Determined, the province immediately appealed the decision. Multiplying obstructionist motions in the other lawsuit against the Conseil Scolaire Francophone (CSF), British Colombia invoked – successfully – an English colonial law dating back to 1731 to declare inadmissible the thousands of pages submitted as evidence by the CSF because they were written… in French.</div>
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Meanwhile, in April of 2015, after ten years of demands, the separate cause of the miserable Rose-des-Vents school won another victory, this time in front of the Supreme Court of Canada.</div>
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As for the case involving the CSF, in 2016, after a six year long mega-trial among the longest in the history of the Supreme Court of British Colombia, the francophones won a very partial victory.</div>
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While they were demanding reparations for 17 communities with little or no access to French educational services, the Court effectively only conceded to them 4 communities. In short, the Court concluded that the province violated the Charter with regard to only three existing schools, one of them being Rose-des-Vents. And of the 22 new schools demanded (415 million dollars), the ruling guarantees only one of them. As for the four other communities where it seemed obvious that the requirements of article 23 of the Charter were not respected, the Court ruled that such violations of the rights of francophones were nonetheless “<i>reasonable and justifiable in a free and democratic society.</i>”</div>
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<br />Assimilation</h3>
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In addition, the government was made to pay 6 million dollars as compensation for past under-funding of school transportation. “<i>In the end</i>, concluded Rémy Léger, a political scientist at Simon-Fraser University, <i>we demanded 400 million for everything and we got 6 million for transportation.</i>” And that doesn’t take into account the fact that on the day of the ruling the CSF had spent more than 17 million since the start of the proceedings.</div>
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No sooner that the ruling was given did hostilities flare up again, this time before the Supreme Court of Canada. The province wasted no time in launching an appeal aimed at overturning the ruling regarding transportation. Clearly, this minuscule gain on the part of francophones was too much for the provincial government, for whom it is better to spend lavish sums in lawyer’s fees rather than offering decent French schools to its linguistic minority.</div>
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Ironically, justice Loryl Russell even offered us this pearl of wisdom: “<i>Schools for the minority may slow down the process of assimilation, but that would only prolong the inevitable.</i>” In other words, “<i>you are all doomed, so hurry up and go straight to hell!</i>” Canadian Charter of Rights or not, the per generation assimilation rate of 75% among francophones in British Colombia is here to stay (and increase).</div>
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Howls of protest</h3>
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The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fransaskois" target="_blank">Fransaskois</a> are also before the courts to force their government to respect article 23. The Franco-Newfoundlander were also fighting before the courts, before accepting last May to move some students to an English school.</div>
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And while some 800 000 Anglo-Quebecers have three universities financed at a level well beyond the proportion of anglophones, we are still waiting for the construction of the first francophone university in Ontario. Already, the Ontario government is backing down by suggesting that its 650 000 francophones can make do with a virtual university…</div>
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It is easy to imaging the howls of protest that would come from the “<i>Rest of Canada</i>” if Anglo-Quebecers had to overcome a small fraction of the obstacles that are constantly being put up before those who speak the language of Molière. Thus, being a minority in this country, it is the lot of francophones to always be in the wrong, regardless of what the Couillards and Fourniers of this world say or do…</div>
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By <a href="http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/canada/504925/le-canada-de-2017-toujours-anti-francophones" target="_blank">Maxime Laporte & Christian Gagnon</a>, respectively president and counselor general of the <a href="http://www.ameriquefrancaise.org/en/article-388/Saint-Jean-Baptiste_Society_Network:__from_French-Canadian_Unity_to_Quebec_Nationalism.html" target="_blank">Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste</a> de Montréal</div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-77026825538123190652017-07-02T07:10:00.002-07:002017-07-02T11:51:41.691-07:00Residential Schools: So, we’re good now?<div style="text-align: justify;">
Have you heard the great <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/politics/trudeau-renames-langevin-block/" target="_blank">news</a>? Canada and the Fist Nations are now reconciled! The Trudeau government is renaming the Langevin block building, named after <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector-Louis_Langevin" target="_blank">Hector-Louis Langevin</a>, out of respect for Indigenous Peoples. Not only that, but there is also a push to rename Calgary’s Langevin bridge so as to erase the memory of the "<i>social architect"</i> of the hated residential school system.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXYmjxGO1bZ17ChOBJYPPlmUb3JwUgyT29woV38yVsOg0neJofPQ4wKLPrzk-LFavUClzH_FqzVFOiehXPKk8v7ILA7tgsWm0CN4pTxLGEtrqiOq_G0ckojgUkbjRbCjyl3Rer5ilPzhE/s1600/langevin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="469" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXYmjxGO1bZ17ChOBJYPPlmUb3JwUgyT29woV38yVsOg0neJofPQ4wKLPrzk-LFavUClzH_FqzVFOiehXPKk8v7ILA7tgsWm0CN4pTxLGEtrqiOq_G0ckojgUkbjRbCjyl3Rer5ilPzhE/s400/langevin.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sir Hector-Louis Langevin (1826-1906), Father of Confederation <br />and Conservative party apparatchik.</i></td></tr>
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Yes! As you can see in the picture, Langevin had a piercing charismatic gaze that kept Canada entranced long after his death. The poor Prime Ministers and Indian affairs ministers that came after him were thus powerless to alter, reform or abolish the Indian Act. What could those poor bastards do? Langevin was truly the personification of evil!</div>
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A bit of history</h3>
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But enough of the “<i>alternative historical facts</i>” on which Canadians construct the self-validating parallel world in which they live. In the June 24th 2017 edition of <a href="http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/canada/502021/effacer-cartier-ou-macdonald-de-notre-memoire-collective" target="_blank">Le Devoir</a>, Emeritus Professor at UQAM Luc-Norman Tellier recounts a few historical facts that are worth summarizing here.</div>
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Namely, that Hector-Louis Langevin (1826-1906) was not the creator of the residential school system. The first residential schools were instituted long before Langevin became an MP. In fact, they were instituted as of 1820, six years before Langevin’s birth.</div>
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Furthermore, Langevin wasn’t even minister for Indian affairs when the schools were transformed into a system. Langevin was in charge of Indian affairs for only a year and a half, from May 1868 to December 1869, whereas the decision to turn the residential schools for First Nations peoples out West into a system dates from 1883 (thus 14 years after the end of Langevin’s mandate at Indian affairs).</div>
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Besides, Hector-Louis Langevin wasn’t even minister at Indian affairs when the Indian Act was adopted in 1876, nor when attendance at the residential schools was made mandatory in 1920. Finally, he is in no way responsible for the fact that the residential school system for First Nations lasted for more than a century, from 1883 to 1996 (Langevin died in 1906).</div>
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The responsibility of John A. MacDonald</h3>
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Tellier then goes on to expose the responsibility of Sir John “<i><a href="http://activehistory.ca/2015/01/john-a-macdonalds-aryan-canada-aboriginal-genocide-and-chinese-exclusion/" target="_blank">Aryan race</a></i>” MacDonald (what did you think the “<i>A</i>” stood for?) in this sordid affair. He does this by pointing out that in 2013, the governments of the North-West Territories and Nunavut and the foundation Legacy of Hope published a <a href="https://www.ece.gov.nt.ca/sites/www.ece.gov.nt.ca/files/resources/northern_studies_10_teaching_guide.pdf" target="_blank">document</a> titled “<i>The Residential School System in Canada</i>” where one learns (page 15):</div>
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<li>That it was Sir John A. MacDonald who, as both Prime Minister and Indian affairs minister, began the residential school system in 1883 by authorizing the construction of three such schools in the Canadian West;</li>
<li>That it was on this occasion that Hector-Louis Langevin, in his capacity as a member of the cabinet and minister for public works, spoke out publicly to announce and support that decision, along with some of his fellow ministers;</li>
<li>That, from 1883 to 1931, the number of federal residential schools went from 3 to 80, and that the number of residents went as high as 17000;</li>
<li>That in 1920, Duncan Campbell Scott, the high-ranking civil servant charged with the implementation of the Indian Act, made attendance mandatory at the residential schools.</li>
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There is in fact abundant <a href="http://nationalpost.com/g00/full-comment/macdonald-dan-farber-john-a-macdonald-was-a-near-genocidal-extremist-even-for-his-time/wcm/8755632f-630f-41cd-88b6-e7ee9059cbc0?i10c.referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.za%2F" target="_blank">evidence</a> of MacDonald's genocidal intent towards the First Nations, whether through the residential school system or by his manufacturing of <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/when-canada-used-hunger-to-clear-the-west/article13316877/" target="_blank">famine</a>.<br />
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Summing up</h3>
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Looking at these facts, it is clear that Langevin had a marginal role in the creation of the residential school system and cannot be held responsible for it. In fact, his posthumous moral execution seems to be based entirely on a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector-Louis_Langevin#Indian_Residential_Schools" target="_blank">statement</a> he made in Parliament in 1883, which received support from his anglophone colleagues. Anyone familiar with the Canadian system of government knows that ministers are essentially the Prime Minister’s lapdogs. Whatever policies Langevin may have drawn up during his brief tenure as Indian affairs minister was done at the behest of his Lord and Master, MacDonald.</div>
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In any case, MacDonald had made equally damming statements regarding residential schools, for example this <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/06/02/11-key-quotes-and-facts-in-the-trc-final-report.html" target="_blank">quote</a> from 1883:</div>
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“<i>When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages. Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence.</i>” </blockquote>
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If any one man is to be held responsible for the residential school system, it can only be John A. MacDonald. And it’s not like MacDonald has nothing bearing his name. According to his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Macdonald#Memorials" target="_blank">Wikipedia page</a>, a peak in the Rockies is named after him, a parkway and an airport in Ottawa carry his name, January 11th is Sir John A. MacDonald day, and of course the ten-dollar bill carries his grotesque likeness. And this is not even an exhaustive list! There are plenty of things Justin can rename or alter if he really wants to honor National Indigenous Peoples Day.</div>
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Don’t get me wrong. I don’t care about Hector-Louis Langevin. As far as I am concerned, he was a Conservative party apparatchik who sided with the strong against the weak, and who sold out his people for personal gain. I couldn’t care less if a building or a bridge is no longer named after him. It’s just that there is something typically Canadian in making amends towards the First Nations by sacrificing the first francophone they see (one of the few francophone "<i>Fathers of Confederation</i>") while whitewashing the real history behind the residential school system. It’s typically Canadian because it’s typically cynical in a francophobic sort of way.</div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-68538455596981238172017-06-23T18:15:00.000-07:002017-08-16T20:23:30.292-07:00Canada’s 150th: A Québécois View<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Each sovereign state can choose the date of its national holiday. Generally, this date recalls the accession to independence. The United States, for example, chose to emphasize each year their unilateral declaration of independence of July 4, 1776. They preferred this date to the date of the Treaty of Paris, 1783, which ended the revolutionary war they had won thanks to France’s decisive support. Their national holiday commemorates a founding act.</div>
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In France, where the origin of independence is lost in the mists of time, they remember the 14th of July, the fall of the Bastille, as the passage from monarchy to the Republic, the founding act of modern France. Unlike some other countries, the United Kingdom celebrates the birth of its sovereign as its national holiday; it is celebrated on the second Saturday in June. In Canada, they celebrate “<i>the Queen’s birthday</i>” in late May. In Quebec, the Parti Québécois government of Bernard Landry transformed the Queen’s birthday into its opposite, the Patriots’ Day, after the Patriotes who sought to establish the independence of Lower Canada, Quebec’s ancestor.</div>
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So Canada celebrates two national holidays: the United Kingdom’s and the one called Canada Day, referring to “<i>Confederation,</i>” (which was a confederation in name only), on July 1. Neither has any relation to its independence. Canada does not celebrate the date of its accession to independence, which legally occurred on December 11, 1931 through the adoption of a British law called the Statute of Westminster. Why?</div>
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Birth of Canada?</h3>
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There is more than one reason for this. First, the date when Canada achieved independence is in reality uncertain. In its Patriation Reference in 1981, the Supreme Court was unable to situate it precisely, which in itself is an anomaly. At most it indicated that it had occurred in events between 1919 and 1931. This effective sovereignty was allegedly won on the battlefields of the First World War, in particular at the battle of Vimy Ridge – one of uncertain military importance but of great importance in the construction of Canadian identity, and for which its 100th anniversary has just been celebrated. This victory led to the separate signature to the Treaty of Versailles of His Majesty King George V on behalf of Canada, which conferred on Canada an international juridical personality, one of the fundamental attributes of sovereignty.</div>
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It should be noted that during the centennial ceremonies at Vimy on April 9 the Canadian prime minister stated: “<i>It is here where Canada was born.</i>” This statement teaches us two things. First, and this is an irony of history, Canada was born in France. Second, Canada did not exist in 1867. It was born, according to Mr. Trudeau, exactly a half-century later.</div>
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Indeed, it should be recalled that British troops were still occupying the Quebec Citadel in 1867. The Canadian armed forces did not yet exist. Canada had no international relations other than relations within the British Empire. There was no Canadian ambassador abroad, and Canada could sign no treaty because its international relations, including with the United States, were conducted in London. Canadian citizenship did not appear until 1947.</div>
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The only provision in the British North America Act, 1867 that had anything to do with international affairs was section 132, which granted the Parliament and Government of Canada “<i>all Powers necessary or proper for performing the Obligations of Canada or of any Province thereof, as Part of the British Empire, towards Foreign Countries, arising under Treaties between the Empire and such Foreign Countries.</i>” Moreover, the same Act provided that all federal laws could be disallowed [overruled] by London. The 1867 Act failed to respect the principle of effectiveness of core state functions, a necessary condition of independence.</div>
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<br />Why 150 Years?</h3>
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Why, then, do they want to celebrate 150 years of colonial autonomy? It can only be because in 1867 they thought they had found the final solution to an event that had occurred thirty years earlier and had been a political earthquake. This was, of course, the rebellion of the Patriotes of Lower Canada. A parallel revolt occurred in Upper Canada, but it concerned only the distribution of powers among Anglophones, namely the British governor and the local élite. That was remedied by the advent of responsible government which turned power over to the elected representatives of the population. In Lower Canada, in contrast, responsible government aggravated the fundamental problem which was the co-existence of two nations – the more vigorous one, demographically, being the French-Canadian nation.</div>
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The Act of Union in 1840, which merged Upper and Lower Canada, had been designed to dilute the power of the Francophone majority of Lower Canada at a time when responsible government was becoming inevitable. However, the Act of Union was a failure since the political and national realities were obvious: in effect, there were two co-premiers and two attorneys general in United Canada; two parliamentary majorities were required if laws were to be adopted. The fait francophone continued to weigh heavily in the functioning of the Union, too heavily in the eyes of certain Anglophone politicians.</div>
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The solution was colonial federalism, that is, Quebec’s imprisonment in a federal framework in which it was to become increasingly a minority. This imprisonment, which was an attempt at more definitive appropriation and neutralization of Québécois identity, is the precondition to the existence of Canada. This existential condition found its logical follow-up in the negation of the Quebec nation in the constitutional renewal of 1982. Canada was built on the weakening of Quebec. On July 1st each year the Canadian nation celebrates its domination over the Quebec nation. The choice of a founding act that is to be collectively celebrated is never innocent and is always revealing.</div>
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By André Binette, a prominent constitutional lawyer in Quebec.<br />
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This article originally appeared in<a href="http://lautjournal.info/20170502/150e-anniversaire-du-canada-pourquoi-feter-lautonomie-coloniale" target="_blank"> L’Aut’journal</a>, translated in English by <a href="https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/canadas-150th-a-quebecois-view" target="_blank">Canadian Dimension</a>.<br />
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<br />veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-32690554602884851042017-03-23T08:52:00.001-07:002017-12-04T18:08:21.788-08:00Bill 99: To be or not to be a nation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In 1998, the Government of Canada put three questions on Quebec's right to unilateral secession to the Supreme Court of Canada, one of which referred to the right of peoples to self-determination. The questions read as follows:</div>
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<b>Question 1</b>: <i>Under the Constitution of Canada, can the National Assembly, legislature or government of Quebec effect the secession of Quebec from Canada unilaterally?</i></div>
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<b>Question 2</b>: <i>Does international law give the National Assembly, legislature or government of Quebec the right to effect the secession of Quebec from Canada unilaterally? In this regard, is there a right to self-determination under international law that would give the National Assembly, legislature or government of Quebec the right to effect the secession of Quebec from Canada unilaterally?</i></div>
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<b>Question 3</b>: <i>In the event of a conflict between domestic and international law on the right of the National Assembly, legislature or government of Quebec to effect the secession of Quebec from Canada unilaterally, which would take precedence in Canada?</i></div>
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These questions were severely criticized by the former head of the International Law Commission of the United Nations in a legal opinion. The renowned international French scholar Alain Pellet stated:<br />
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“<i>I am profoundly distressed and upset by the partisan manner in which the questions are put and I take the liberty of suggesting that a court of justice has the duty to react to what appears to be a blatant attempt at political manipulation.</i>”</blockquote>
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Yet, contrary to all expectations and as constitutional experts have pointed out, the Court refused, in its August 28th 1998 Reference re Secession of Quebec to answer YES or NO to the questions put to it. And, rather than simply denying Quebec's right to declare independence unilaterally and state that international law on the self-determination of peoples did not recognize the right to unilateral secession, it noted that the federal and provincial governments had a constitutional and mandatory duty to negotiate should Quebec vote in favor of sovereignty. It also considered the question of the international community's recognition of Quebec's sovereignty, linking the two questions. It said:<br />
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“<i>The corollary of a legitimate attempt by one participant in Confederation to seek an amendment to the Constitution is an obligation on all parties to come to the negotiating table. The clear repudiation by the people of Quebec of the existing constitutional order would confer legitimacy on demands for secession, and place an obligation on the other provinces and the federal government to acknowledge and respect that expression of democratic will by entering into negotiations and conducting them in accordance with the underlying constitutional principles already discussed.</i>”</blockquote>
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The advisory opinion of the Supreme Court hurt the federalists especially because it recognized that Quebec could turn to the international community if Canadian governments failed in their obligation to negotiate in good faith.</div>
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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.</div>
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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 "<i>clear enough</i>" It's a masterpiece of legal sophistry, open to almost any interpretation.</div>
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Fundamental Rights</h3>
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In reaction to such a serious threat to the freedom of the people of Quebec to determine their future, the Government of Quebec tabled, on December 15, 1999, a bill entitled An Act respecting the fundamental rights and prerogatives of the Quebec people and of the Quebec State (<a href="http://www2.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/dynamicSearch/telecharge.php?type=5&file=2000C46A.PDF" target="_blank">Bill 99</a>). With this bill, the government called on the National Assembly of Quebec to reaffirm Quebec's freedom to determine its own future.</div>
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The first chapter of the Fundamental Rights Act affirms, as no other Quebec legislation had ever done before, the concept of a Quebec people. It stats certain rights that belong to the Quebec people: the right of self-determination, the right to freely decide the political regime and legal status of Quebec, the right to determine alone the mode of exercise of its right to choose the political regime and legal status of Quebec.</div>
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In 2001, Keith Henderson of the Equality Party filed a motion in the Superior Court to strike down six sections of Bill 99. He alleges that Quebec, by passing these provisions, exceeded its powers and that Bill 99 caused Mr Henderson personal injury as a Canadian citizen. He argues that Bill 99 sets the stage for a possible unilateral declaration of independence, in violation of the Canadian Constitution.</div>
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For more than ten years the progress of this motion was hampered by judgments on inadmissibility in the Superior Court and the Court of Appeal. But these judgments were finally settled, so in May 2013 the Government of Quebec presented its defense.</div>
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In the fall of 2013, it was the turn of the Government of Canada to intervene in this dispute by presenting a position similar to Henderson's and arguing that Bill 99 must be invalidated. On October 23, 2013, the National Assembly adopted a unanimous motion denouncing the federal government's intervention in this matter, and reiterated its support for Bill 99. After some more delays, a <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-99-quebec-court-1.4032192" target="_blank">Quebec court</a> has finally begun hearings in this case.</div>
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What is being put on trial is the very notion of a distinct Quebec nation. Canada's position is clear. It wants to reduce the French-speaking nation to a simple ethnic minority, one among many in a multicultural Canada. There is no such thing as a Quebec people according to the <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2014/03/quebec-nationalism-and-canadian.html" target="_blank">Canadian Constitution</a>. Keith Henderson wants assurances that our self-proclaimed right to self-determination will be crushed and that his "<i>right</i>" to be Canadian in Quebec will always prevail.<br />
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However, if Mr Henderson can't have our right to self-determination suppressed, and Quebecers choose independence, then he is in favor of granting this right to every neighborhood and street corner as he is a strong proponent of the <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2013/04/quebec-and-its-territory.html" target="_blank">partitioning</a> of an independent Quebec. This partitioning, of course, would be done unilaterally. I'm sure Mr Henderson dreams of his own version of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Serbian_Krajina" target="_blank">Republic of Serbian Krajina</a> somewhere out in the West Island.<br />
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<h3>
Conclusion</h3>
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We are often told that support for Quebec independence is low these days, and it is then inferred that this means a majority of Quebecers are content with being a part of Canada. However, a majority of Quebecers also believe that Quebec is a distinct nation with a right to self-determination. Canada has made it quite clear that it rejects this idea and it has gone to great length to undermine it.<br />
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One day, I believe the cognitive dissonance that many Quebecers live with will prove too great and something will snap. In the end, we will either have to affirm ourselves and declare that we are a sovereign nation, equal to all the other nations of the world, or we will have accept being nothing more than an ethnic group in Canada, and accept the slow assimilation that comes with this reality. The in-between position that many Quebec federalists try to hold is simply untenable.</div>
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Based on a <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2013/11/quebecs-right-to-secessionist-self.html" target="_blank">speech</a> by <a href="http://www.danielturpqc.org/" target="_blank">Daniel Turp</a> from February 2, 2001 </div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-88120650609764120492017-03-11T19:34:00.001-08:002018-01-03T15:09:50.437-08:00Corruption, racism and a railway: The making of Canada<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumLPtwinIyLDkEcIophsCF7t7Fh7MTx8g_Rc4FxNxiHAynBCySbVWg2007GtGq1eFBSiFfQXeGagkWCte6F5uZAmhMGHl8OhSW47x05diUQ6IznrGje2QUv-zID6CnHw12TsGjWuhPjI/s1600/macdonald_nazi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumLPtwinIyLDkEcIophsCF7t7Fh7MTx8g_Rc4FxNxiHAynBCySbVWg2007GtGq1eFBSiFfQXeGagkWCte6F5uZAmhMGHl8OhSW47x05diUQ6IznrGje2QUv-zID6CnHw12TsGjWuhPjI/s640/macdonald_nazi.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>John A. Macdonald dreamed of an <a href="http://activehistory.ca/2015/01/john-a-macdonalds-aryan-canada-aboriginal-genocide-and-chinese-exclusion/" target="_blank">Aryan Canada</a></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
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Confederation: A political coup by crony-capitalists and power-hungry politicians</h3>
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Not many merchants, lumbermen, manufacturers or bankers were particularly enthusiastic about the creation of the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. The plan to make a new nation out of squabbling, debt-ridden colonies injected new instability into British North America’s economic climate. Confederation would probably bring more government, more debt, more taxes, more friction with the United States and more wildly visionary schemes by impractical politicians. Why upset the business status quo?</div>
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But suppose you were a failing businessman, longing to be bailed out. Suppose the only choice for your enterprise was to go big or go broke. Suppose your best hopes lay in wild visionary schemes for expansion.</div>
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The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada was by far the biggest enterprise in all of British North America. By 1861, its main lines ran about 1,800 kilometres from Sarnia in Canada West to Quebec City and Portland, Maine, in the east. It claimed to be the greatest railway in the world, and the greatest foreign project ever financed from Britain. The investors who had poured almost $5 billion in today’s purchasing power into building the Grand Trunk had vitalized the colonial economy as they anticipated fabulous returns. In their first golden age, railways were expected to be everybody’s gravy train.</div>
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The reality was very different. The Grand Trunk’s promoters, like most early railway entrepreneurs, had grossly underestimated their costs of construction and overestimated the traffic their line would generate. They had trouble competing with waterways and trouble with the harsh Canadian climate, and had foolishly built their line to a gauge that would not allow for connections with U.S. railways. In an ethically challenged business climate, insider trading, bribery and political chicanery drained off money and credibility.</div>
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A committee of the Grand Trunk’s debt holders described it in 1861 as “<i>an undertaking which is overwhelmed with debt, wholly destitute of credit and in imminent danger of lapsing into utter insolvency and confusion.</i>”</div>
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There seemed to be two routes to salvation: Build more track and get more government help. Early in the 1860s, the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada began lobbying for railway expansion eastward to the Maritime colonies, railway expansion westward through “<i>Indian</i>” and fur-trader country to the Pacific, and all the help of any kind it could get from the government of the Province of Canada.</div>
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These hopes coincided almost exactly with the grandiose vision of the coalition of Canadian politicians led by John A. Macdonald, George-Étienne Cartier (a solicitor for the Grand Trunk) and George Brown, who wanted to create a new country by uniting with the Maritime provinces, annexing the Hudson’s Bay Company lands in the west and tying it all together with an intercolonial railway running to Halifax and a transcontinental line to British Columbia.</div>
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The Grand Trunk did everything it could to promote Confederation. We don’t know what “<i>everything</i>” involved because so much power and cash circulated in backrooms and under tables in those days. It is known that in 1866 the general manager of the Grand Trunk, C.J. Brydges, was the conduit for supplying what John A. Macdonald called “<i>the needful</i>” (cash worth more than $2 million today) to help overthrow an anti-Confederate government in New Brunswick in 1866. We can assume that pro-Confederate politicians got free rides on the Grand Trunk, while their opponents had to pay their way. And the possibility of serious opposition to Canadian expansion by the Hudson’s Bay Company was neutralized when key Grand Trunk shareholders purchased control of the historic enterprise in 1863.</div>
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Except in New Brunswick, the Confederation plan was never put to a popular vote. It might have had trouble passing. Its opponents loudly proclaimed the whole idea to be nothing more than a great Grand Trunk railway “<i>job</i>” – a swindle mainly for the benefit of its shareholders and their political henchmen. The muddy waters of Confederation’s paternity were not clarified by the claim of Edward Watkin, Britain’s leading spokesman for the Grand Trunk, that he was the true Father of Confederation.</div>
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Regardless of who Canada's real daddy is, one thing is certain, Confederation had nothing to do with "<i>independence"</i> as the British colonies of North America didn't acquire any new powers at the expense of the British Empire. In fact, they actually found themselves with less freedom following 1867 as many powers designated under provincial jurisdiction were reassigned to the newly created federal government. This new government had unlimited authority over provincial jurisdiction, all matters not explicitly outlined in the Constitution and all forms of taxation and regulation. No, Confederation was not about any kind of <i>"national"</i> independence, it was essentially a coup performed by British crony-capitalists and power-hungry politicians.</div>
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Ethnic cleansing</h3>
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Sir John A. Macdonald deliberately <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/when-canada-used-hunger-to-clear-the-west/article13316877/" target="_blank">starved thousands</a> of aboriginal people to clear a path for the Canadian Pacific Railroad and open the prairies to white settlement. His “<i>National Dream</i>” cost them their health, their independence and – in many cases – their lives.<br />
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In March of 1882, John A. Macdonald said in the House of Commons that the Indigenous people south of the proposed railway tracks in the territory of Assiniboine or south-western Saskatchewan would be removed by force if necessary. What he wanted to do was eliminate any threat to the construction of the railway. So when the Europeans showed up over the next couple of decades, the land was literally cleared of people. </div>
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Despite guarantees of food aid in times of famine in <a href="http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100028710/1100100028783" target="_blank">Treaty No. 6</a>, Canadian officials used food, or rather denied food, as a means to ethnically cleanse a vast region from Regina to the Alberta border as the Canadian Pacific Railway took shape. Acting as both prime minister and minister of Indian affairs during the darkest days of the famine, Macdonald even boasted that the indigenous population was kept on the “<i>verge of actual starvation.</i>” </div>
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For years, government officials withheld food from aboriginal people until they moved to their appointed reserves, forcing them to trade freedom for rations. Once on reserves, food placed in ration houses was withheld for so long that much of it rotted while the people it was intended to feed fell into a decades-long cycle of malnutrition, suppressed immunity and sickness from tuberculosis and other diseases. Thousands died.</div>
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<br />Asian exclusion</h3>
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From 1880, thousands of Chinese workers were imported to build Canada's national railway and were paid starvation wages for performing the most dangerous tasks. Right after the last spike was driven, the Canadian government thanked them by imposing a <a href="https://www.uoguelph.ca/diversity-human-rights/book-page/racism-against-asian-canadians" target="_blank">unique and racist law</a>, the head tax of 1885, which forced all Chinese immigrants to pay a $50 tax. This was increased to $100 in 1900 and $500 in 1903. Between 1885 and 1923, the Canadian government collected an estimated $23 million from 81,000 Chinese immigrants. (This would be worth $1 billion today.)</div>
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The head tax imposed a crushing burden on the impoverished new immigrants. At the time, $500 was the equivalent of two years' wages. Many paid off the unwieldy debts incurred by the tax through long, painful years of hard labour. At the same time, the Canadian government was paying many European immigrants to settle on land that had been seized from Aboriginal peoples. The Chinese were the only immigrants ever forced to pay a head tax.</div>
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In 1885, the Electoral Franchise Act explicitly denied Chinese Canadians the right to vote; but, in 1898, new legislation extended the franchise to Asian voters. This lasted until 1920 when the Dominion Elections Act said that if a province discriminated against a group by reason of race, that group would also be excluded from the federal franchise, meaning that British Columbia residents of Chinese, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9e6okgW_sY" target="_blank">Japanese</a> and South Asian background lost their right to vote in national elections. Saskatchewan also disenfranchised the Chinese. </div>
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The suppression of French</h3>
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In the aftermath of Confederation, francophones from several English-speaking provinces watched helplessly as their <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/12/how-west-was-won.html" target="_blank">rights were systematically eroded</a>. Throughout Canada, French-Catholic minorities were attacked one after the other in an attempt to make them conform to the White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant mold. </div>
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In Manitoba and the North West francophone rights were curtailed. The anglophones of these provinces took advantage of their majority in the legislature to declare war on what they called the French-Canadian “<i>threat</i>” in an attempt to “<i><a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2016/06/the-spirit-of-regulation-17.html" target="_blank">Keep Canada British!</a></i>”<br />
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In 1890 Manitoba's Official Language Act banned French, formerly an official language in the province. It diminished the rights of French school and abolished the use of French in the Parliament and in the Courts of the province. In 1916, the Thornton Act abolished bilingual schools and completely ended the teaching of French in the province in spite of these rights being explicitly guaranteed in the federal Manitoba Act.<br />
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In 1905, the Alberta School Act imposed English as the only language of instruction and in 1909, Saskatchewan follows suit with its own School Act which made English the only language of instruction but allowed limited use of French in primary classes. In 1929, a different Saskatchewan law completely abolished French in public education. </div>
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It's no coincidence that in the early 20th century, the Ku Klux Klan was one of the <a href="http://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2013/11/the-kanadian-klan/" target="_blank">largest organizations</a> in Saskatchewan, with only the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool accounting for more members. Although the Klan itself was an American import, the Saskatchewan branch must to be situated in this decades long battle against Catholic and francophone rights. The Saskatchewan KKK's driving motivation was not specifically against Blacks, as in the US, but it was rather about preserving a narrow, religious and ethnic based notion of Britishness in Canada. And this goal fit very well with official government policy at the time.</div>
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<br />Conclusion</h3>
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Canadians like to portray the Fathers of Confederation as god-like men and exalt Confederation to biblical proportions. According to the usual narrative, Confederation was all about putting aside differences and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBGNEJpznNE" target="_blank">working together</a> to build something great. This story is almost always a complete whitewash of history. The ugly side of that story is rarely told. </div>
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The reason is that Canadians have a pathological need to see themselves as the <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2013/03/detective-murdoch-and-case-of-missing.html" target="_blank">good guys</a> of the universe, a need that stems from a deep seated insecurity. Canada is basically a relic of empire, which means it has no inherent legitimacy. The good guy fantasy provides a means of dealing with that unpleasant reality. It also provides a means of feeling superior to both Quebecers and Americans.</div>
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People can live in whatever fantasyland they like. I don't know what Mexicans tell themselves about their origins. It may be factual or it may not. It's not really something that concerns me. However, what Canadians tell themselves does concern me as it often leads to hypocritical fingers being pointed at me, like when some <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2017/02/two-minutes-hate.html" target="_blank">jackass</a> from British Columbia, the Canadian jurisdiction that has passed the <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/a-look-into-bcs-history-of-racism-and-its-pursuit-of-a-white-mans-province/article16289104/" target="_blank">most racist laws</a> by far, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/02/01/why-does-progressive-quebec-have-so-many-massacres/?postshare=1561485981572952&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.b0f72465ad8e" target="_blank">accuses</a> me and all Quebecers of being horrible racists. That type of ignorance and hypocrisy is a byproduct of Canadian myth-making.<br />
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This is what compels me to tear down the fantasy. People should see Canada for what it really is. English-Canadians just <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2016/07/competing-nationalisms.html" target="_blank">reinvented themselves</a> in the 1960s as this kind, forward-looking, progressive country without ever really coming to terms with their dark past. They seemed more fixated on America's past and flattered themselves that they were somehow better. It's the fantasy of a caring, sharing Canada whose beloved Mounties settled the west without America's violence and lawlessness. It's a Canada sanitized of its real history.<br />
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So, the same patterns of dominance remain but with new and more acceptable window dressing. The same assimilationist attitudes persist but they're now coated with a veneer of "<i><a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2016/09/the-problem-with-multiculturalism.html" target="_blank">multiculturalism</a>.</i>" The same <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/07/the-demonization-of-quebec.html" target="_blank">feelings of superiority</a> persists but they are no long presented as racial or cultural superiority, they're now about Canadian moral superiority over "<i>racist</i>" Quebec. Independence for Quebec will not only liberate Quebec, but it will also free Canadians from the mental straitjacket needed to keep their empire together. It will not only lead to a better, freer, and more just Quebec, but it will probably lead to a better English Canada as well.</div>
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Based on an <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/canada-was-built-to-last-unlike-the-railway-that-greased-its-wheels/article30713844/" target="_blank">article</a> by Michael Bliss in the Globe and Mail, July 1st, 2016</div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-65997240617933217152017-02-04T22:36:00.000-08:002017-08-16T18:25:57.807-07:00Two Minutes Hate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge3gz0OBu3EXBifdkOiKIFaslxrc2XBuwtrIRF7jttvmQtwgQr5IwjgJLlrRp1K0IXRCUV1L72zS758lw5jOn_uhWaZTSrB027fCnbR22vQc9oXgrxjRW1N0sZrnNH0T77D8eBZuWFHcE/s1600/twominutes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge3gz0OBu3EXBifdkOiKIFaslxrc2XBuwtrIRF7jttvmQtwgQr5IwjgJLlrRp1K0IXRCUV1L72zS758lw5jOn_uhWaZTSrB027fCnbR22vQc9oXgrxjRW1N0sZrnNH0T77D8eBZuWFHcE/s640/twominutes.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I'm not entirely sure how long it took Alexandre Bissonnette to commit his horrible act but I think it's safe to assume that it was an act of hate. And regardless of whatever motives he may come up with, I think it's safe to assume that this guy is not right in the head. No sane reasoning can lead one to the cold-blooded murder of a bunch of innocent civilians. </div>
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In the wake of this tragic event, there were many recriminations in Quebec despite the fact that we know virtually nothing about the killer's motives. Anyone who believes in a stricter understanding of secularism, thinks we may be accepting too many immigrants, or questions Canadian multiculturalism was made somehow guilty.</div>
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I won't be addressing any of that. This piece is in response to certain articles that I came across which try put the blame for this atrocity on all Quebecers. These biased articles reminded me of the Two Minutes Hate from George Orwell's book 1984. They aren't any kind of rational exercise which aims to get at truth. They are just an excuse to vent hate.</div>
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There was a nasty opinion piece on the <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/ethnic-nationalism-quebec-1.3960340" target="_blank">CBC's web site</a> doing just that. But what bothered me even more than having Canada's national broadcaster spewing hate against Quebecers was the fact that the Washington Post got a bigot from Vancouver to write <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/02/01/why-does-progressive-quebec-have-so-many-massacres/?postshare=1561485981572952&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.0a19e76d9b7c" target="_blank">an article</a> placing the blame for this massacre on all Quebecers. </div>
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I have a hard time understanding why the Washington Post would ask an anglophone from British Columbia to provide them with insight into Quebec. If they wanted insight into Croatian society would they ask a Serb living in Belgrade? A guy like that might have a biased opinion, don't you think? Well, I have news for you, Washington Post, J.J. McCullough is extremely biased.</div>
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Here are some of his claims from this article:</div>
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"<i><b>A disproportionate share of the country’s massacres occur in the province of Quebec.</b></i>"</div>
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What is this claim based on? Cherry-picking would be my guess. The <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/01/30/canada-mass-shootings_n_14498292.html" target="_blank">Huffington Post</a> recently compiled a list of the thirteen worst mass shootings in Canada's recent history. Only three of them occurred in Quebec. That's pretty proportionate to our share of the population. J.J. only seems to remember the ones that happened in Quebec.</div>
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"<i><b>Criticism of Quebec, meanwhile, is deeply taboo.</b></i>"<br />
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This claim is simply mind-boggling. You really need industrial-strength ideological blinders to make such a claim. The <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2013/06/quebec-bashing-101.html" target="_blank">Quebec bashing</a> article has become a kind of literary genre in English Canada. Some well-known, professional Quebec-bashers include the late author Mordecai Richler, former radio personality Howard Galganov, and alledged journalists such as <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/07/the-demonization-of-quebec.html" target="_blank">Diane Francis</a> and Barbara Kay. These are the more famous, over-the-top Quebec-bashers but there are <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2014/05/canadas-feel-good-racism.html" target="_blank">countless others</a>. </div>
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J.J. then goes on to depict Jan Wong as some kind of martyr of this imagined "<i>taboo.</i>" Let's recall her 15 minutes of fame. In 2006, there was a school shooting at Dawson College in Montreal. The perpetrator, Kimveer Gill, was the son of Indian immigrants. Without any evidence at all Jan Wong wrote an <a href="http://vigile.quebec/Get-under-the-desk" target="_blank">article</a>, published in the Globe and Mail, claiming that the real cause of this and other mass shootings in Quebec was the racism of Quebecers. First of all, if that were true, then why shoot up an anglophone college? </div>
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But Jan went even further. She claimed that Quebecers were obsessed with racial purity based on her interpretation of an antiquated expression, "<i>pure lain</i>" (pure wool), which is used to refer to old stock Quebecers. She claimed that "<i>Elsewhere, to talk of racial purity is repugnant. Not in Quebec.</i>"</div>
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The claim was just so absurd, and such obvious hate propaganda against Quebecers, that it was called out and condemned by most rational people. J.J. McCullough was clearly not part of that group. J.J. obviously believes that Jan was attacked for speaking some kind of "<i>taboo</i>" truth about Quebec. </div>
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"<i><b>The English are waking up!</b></i>" *</div>
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J.J. continues by telling us that despite the oppressive censorship on discussing the evils of Quebec, English Canadians are beginning to speak out. They're starting to grumble about "<i>Quebec’s dark history of anti-Semitism, religious bigotry and pro-fascist sentiment</i>", Quebec's "<i>French-supremacist language and assimilation laws,</i>" and how Quebecers are "<i>noticeably more racist than the Canadian norm.</i>"</div>
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I don't want to exaggerate this point, but really, this last bit from J.J. is the equivalent of someone in the U.S. claiming that white people are being oppressed by Blacks and other minorities. The anti-Semitism in Quebec's past has been exposed and it was not very different from the anti-Semitism in English Canada. Canada's Prime-Minister at the time, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-premier-who-thought-hitler-was-a-joan-of-arc-1998351.html" target="_blank">William Lyon Mackenzie King</a>, was a raging anti-Semite who sent thousands of Jews back to Germany to end up in concentration camps. There are plenty of other examples of the anti-Semitism in English Canada at the time like Toronto's <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/remembering-the-christie-pits-riot/article13695461/" target="_blank">Christie Pits riots</a>. But people like J.J. only seem to remember the anti-Semitism in Quebec for some reason.</div>
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Quebec, <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2013/04/weak-cultures-should-die.html" target="_blank">like Canada</a>, engages in cultural protectionism. Given that we are such a small French-speaking minority living on an overwhelmingly English-speaking continent, calling a law that says that French has to be <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2016/11/a-more-inclusive-bill-101.html" target="_blank">more prominent</a> on commercial signs "<i>French-supremacist</i>" is a clear sign of bigotry. As for the "<i>charter of values</i>", that also needs to be put in its <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2016/09/the-problem-with-multiculturalism.html" target="_blank">proper context</a>. But regardless of the context, the basic idea that representatives of the State should not display any overt religious affiliation while performing their duties does not seem like a bad idea to me. My criticism would be in the way this idea was applied.<br />
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Also, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that Quebecers are more racist than your average Canadian. We do have a very <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2013/10/xenophobes.html" target="_blank">different history</a> from the rest of Canada and so we have a different perspective in regards to immigration, but Canadians have there <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/out-of-sight-out-of-mind-2/" target="_blank">own race issues</a> to deal with. It is true that there has been a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in Quebec over the past few years, largely due to the terrorist attacks that occurred in Paris, Brussels, Nice and Berlin. But this is equally true for other <a href="http://globalnews.ca/news/2634032/hate-crimes-against-muslim-canadians-more-than-doubled-in-3-years/" target="_blank">parts of Canada</a>, like <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/hate-crimes-ontario-paris-attacks-1.3328660" target="_blank">Ontario</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgccDVT28iSi2L3ihIhp0btUR5lk6GVzHTeziPPlypNlk0FYuW3eHfSCoDpxxnfs1zhb6GPNVcdgW4WdpYfoxWfFwj62l2wWGQorEQAzw7GJCZSssqD169yCeytIouRFKnYZmIkXuDGgkw/s1600/hate_crime_2013.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgccDVT28iSi2L3ihIhp0btUR5lk6GVzHTeziPPlypNlk0FYuW3eHfSCoDpxxnfs1zhb6GPNVcdgW4WdpYfoxWfFwj62l2wWGQorEQAzw7GJCZSssqD169yCeytIouRFKnYZmIkXuDGgkw/s640/hate_crime_2013.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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The recent events in Quebec City are horrible and disturbing. All Quebecers need to do some soul searching in the face of such an incident. But those who exploit a tragedy like this to vent their hatred of Quebecers should perhaps also be doing some soul searching instead. And to the Washington Post, if you want to give your readers some insight into Quebec society, why not ask someone who actually lives here next time? </div>
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*<i> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Montreal_shooting" target="_blank">Richard Bain</a>, September 4, 2012</i></div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-79161609718754305652016-12-26T06:13:00.000-08:002016-12-27T05:05:40.956-08:00Quebec's dependence on Canada<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7g50LukBRYtd_I3sz3rEZVC63FBV7LhCKhUjTuddIF9xOMkwZyyaxuVAIZD88BWG4bTzwE9hAqSQtgjUQseuFhhCXgkw7i_iJqxBhHUBMrLYDhRc4wj4gvq1NpeECrFyHhi3c0Qhy_y4/s1600/20161206_gab_analyse.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7g50LukBRYtd_I3sz3rEZVC63FBV7LhCKhUjTuddIF9xOMkwZyyaxuVAIZD88BWG4bTzwE9hAqSQtgjUQseuFhhCXgkw7i_iJqxBhHUBMrLYDhRc4wj4gvq1NpeECrFyHhi3c0Qhy_y4/s640/20161206_gab_analyse.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>The author is an MP for the Bloc Québécois.</i><br />
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In the absence of our political independence, it seems that many have come to act as if Quebec were already a country and to ignore Ottawa. Yet every day Ottawa decides and acts on our behalf with consequences that, in most cases, serve us very badly. Here are some examples.</div>
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Softwood lumber</h3>
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A new trade dispute over lumber between the United States and Canada has begun and its outcome could be very damaging to the Quebec economy.</div>
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The 2006 agreement expired and the American lumber industry filed a complaint on November 25th. The 2006 agreement was a bad deal for Quebec, which led to the loss of 23,000 jobs in the lumber industry.</div>
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The new deal could be worse. In the joint statement signed with Barack Obama last June, Prime Minister Trudeau makes no reference to the Quebec system and even opens the door to a future agreement which would include the secondary processing sector.</div>
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In order to comply with the NAFTA rules, Quebec has revised its forestry management in depth. An auction system has been put in place to determine the price of wood so that it is no longer subject to compensatory duties, US taxes or quotas.</div>
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All this seems to have been done in vain. In order to avoid overshadowing the British Columbia model, Ottawa prefers not to defend the Quebec's forestry system in Washington.</div>
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While the Quebec lumber industry wants to wage a legal battle to have its system recognized, the West Coast industry is demanding that an agreement similar to that of 2006 be reached as soon as possible. And everything indicates, for the moment, that Ottawa is leaning in that direction.</div>
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The humid and mild climate of BC favors the rapid growth of trees. The forest industry is dominated by large firms and its operating costs are low. It adapts well to compensation rights or quotas, especially since it exports a lot of uncut logs, which are poorly taxed, and that a large part of its production goes to Asia.</div>
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If the Quebec lumber industry is allowed to defending itself, there is a good chance that it would win its case. But to do so, it needs loan guarantees to compensate for the punitive customs duties, which will be put in place during the conflict. That's what it wants from Ottawa.</div>
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In 2006, without this support and forced into bankruptcy, the lumber industry had to resign itself to accepting a bad deal. This cost us 23,000 jobs and Quebec's share of lumber exports to the United States fell to 18.5%, whereas it was traditionally at 24%.</div>
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With a weak-kneed federal government confronting Washington, which once again seems to show a preference for the lumber industry out West, Quebec's forestry industry is once again in jeopardy.</div>
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There are 60,000 jobs in 250 towns and villages that are at stake, including 120 rural communities that depend exclusively on forestry.</div>
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Without wishing to speculate on the outcome of the new softwood lumber dispute, we at the Bloc Québécois will do everything we can to ensure that Ottawa defends the lumber industry in Quebec, but Ottawa's style of conflict management illustrates how it does not defend Quebec or its economic model.</div>
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The textile industry</h3>
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Unfortunately, the case of lumber is no exception. The issues on which Ottawa lets Quebec down are numerous and constitute the general rule.</div>
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In 2002, China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) led to the collapse of our textile industry. Ottawa promised support and assistance for the transition, but in the end, did nothing.</div>
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Three years later, 40,000 jobs were lost at the same time as Ottawa was cutting employment insurance, thereby abandoning these people to their fate. It is therefore not surprising that the unemployment rate on the Island of Montreal still exceeds 10%.</div>
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The pharmaceutical industry</h3>
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Nor was anything done to stop the collapse of the pharmaceutical industry in Quebec and its shift to Ontario. A boost from Ottawa would have allowed it to stand out in North American.</div>
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With the signing of the Canada-Europe Free Trade Agreement and the announced death of the agreement between the United States and Europe, Quebec would have everything it needs to be an intermediary between Swiss pharmaceuticals and the US market. In addition, Donald Trump announced plans to import more drugs from Canada to lower the price of pharmaceuticals in the United States.</div>
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However, there is no indication that Ottawa has any interest in supporting Quebec in this regard.</div>
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Supply management in agriculture</h3>
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The federal government is abandoning our farmers by allowing more and more loopholes in our supply management. Milk and chicken from the United States cross the border without Ottawa intervening to resolve the situation.</div>
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The compensations announced for cheese and dairy producers following the adoption of the Canada-Europe Free Trade Agreement are insufficient and place Quebec at a disadvantage.</div>
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Whether we like it or not, the price of Quebec's dependence is to see a host of powers and decisions differed to a government controlled by a nation that works first for itself. The result is that the advancement of their nation is to the detriment of our own.</div>
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The aerospace industry</h3>
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When GM closed its automobile plant in Boisbriand Jean Chrétien did nothing. His argument was that Ontario had automobiles and Quebec had aeronautics. And when the auto industry in Ontario struggled in the 2008 crisis, Ottawa did not hesitate to give it billions in aide.</div>
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But when it comes to helping out Quebec's aerospace industry, it's another matter. Quebec has not received its fair share of aid programs, with Ontario collecting the lion's share. Ottawa did not offer anything during the layoffs from Bell Helicopter, CAE and Bombardier.</div>
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Ottawa continues to postpone the announcement of financial support for Bombardier's C-Series, weakening this Quebecois company and forcing it to make cuts in its other operations. There is every reason to believe that Toronto banks have persuaded Ottawa to put pressure on Bombardier to divest its multi-voting shares, making it vulnerable to external takeover.</div>
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With the modernization of Pearson Airport, Ottawa decided to move the Canadian Air Traffic Center from Montreal to Toronto. In Toronto, the runways are not even suitable for the landing of Bombardier C-Series aircraft.</div>
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Instead of forcing Air Canada to comply with federal law requiring it to maintain its aircraft primarily in Quebec, the Trudeau government changed the law, abandoned Aveos workers and weakened the Quebec aerospace cluster.</div>
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The privatization of Air Canada had as a counterpart a guarantee that the company would always maintain its aircraft primarily in the Greater Montreal area and secondarily in Toronto and Winnipeg.</div>
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But with the decline in its demographic and economic weight, Quebec is marginalized in the federation. When Ottawa should intervene for Quebec, its needs are usually ignored. Quebec MPs from federalist parties rarely defend the interests of their nation. The interests of their party always come before the interests of their constituents.</div>
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Faced with this reality, the semi-state of Quebec struggles to compensate for the inaction of the Canadian state.</div>
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Pipelines</h3>
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Despite the many environmental issues, the three pan-Canadian parties are advocating the construction of new pipelines, such as Energy East and Keystone XL, in order to double oil production from the tar sands. Regardless of the serious risks of contamination to our rivers and the impact on global warming, jobs in the western provinces are more important. Canadian reality obliges... even the Green Party supports the exploitation of the tar sands!</div>
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According to environmental groups, Ottawa still subsidizes the oil industry to the tune of $3.3 billion a year.</div>
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Had such amounts been used to develop the green economy and the electrification of transportation, which are areas in which Quebec has the greatest potential, there is every reason to believe that today we could be a world leader in a promising industry.</div>
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Instead, the people of Quebec, through their taxes, support a moribund industry that runs counter to their economic interests.</div>
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In fact, the strong Canadian dollar in the 2000s, caused by rising oil prices and exports, seriously contributed to the plunge in our manufacturing sector. Unsurprisingly, Ottawa did not adopted any measure or industrial strategy to mitigate this effect on our economy.</div>
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The maritime industry</h3>
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The situation is the same for the shipping industry. Ottawa has awarded its shipbuilding contracts to Irving in Nova Scotia. The volume of these contracts is such that the company is unable to honor them, accumulating delays and cost overruns.</div>
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Meanwhile, the Davie shipyard in Lévis is rejected by Ottawa, threatening its survival. As if a seaway like the St. Lawrence could exist without the presence of even a single shipyard!</div>
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Hydro-electricity</h3>
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One of the most outrageous issues is that of Muskrat Falls or the Lower Churchill Project. In order to compete with Hydro-Québec's exports, Newfoundland decided to build a large hydroelectric power plant and an underwater cable to bypass Quebec in order to export electricity.</div>
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Since this province does not have the means to develop such a project on its own, it requested financial support from Ottawa. All the federalist parties supported the request and Ottawa's decision to grant a $5 billion loan guarantee. We are faced with a situation where our taxes are used to finance a project that will directly compete with Hydro-Québec. It should be remembered that Hydro-Québec never received any support from Ottawa for its hydroelectric projects.</div>
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This major injustice is coupled with a real fiasco in the management of the project. The province is multiplying the blunders and costs are exploding. Economist Jean-Thomas Bernard estimates the cost of producing electricity at 22 ¢ / kWh, while the export selling price is around 4 ¢ / kWh.</div>
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We are talking about a $15,000 per capita of debt for Newfoundlanders for this unprofitable project. It is clear that Ottawa will end up paying for this.</div>
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Faced with this money pit, Ottawa raised its support from $5 billion to nearly $8 billion and left the door open for additional funding. The federal government is even implying the possibility of imposing the construction of an electricity transmission line in Quebec to link Labrador to Ontario.</div>
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The Securities Commission</h3>
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There are numerous examples of how Ottawa does a poor job of serving Quebec's interests. After the Montreal Stock Exchange was bought up and then closed by Toronto's Stock Exchange, Ottawa sought to merge and centralize the securities commissions in English Canada.</div>
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Such a merger would lead to the disappearance of the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) and would once again benefit the Toronto financial sector. This would mean a further erosion of Quebec's powers.</div>
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Research and development</h3>
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Quebec is a leader in many high-tech sectors. As the economy of the rest of Canada relies mainly on the presence of subsidiaries of US companies, there is very little in-house research and development (R & D) in other provinces.</div>
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The Greater Montreal region is the second largest center in R & D in North America after Silicon Valley. Almost half of Canadian technology exports come from Quebec.</div>
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Since R & D is not an important issue in companies outside Quebec, Ottawa ends up doing very little to support our high-tech sectors. The federal government prefers to support industrial research in the university environment and the subsequent transfer of technology.</div>
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Again, the structure of the Quebec economy differs greatly from that of Canada and the federal government adapts its policies to support the economy of its national interests, to the detriment of ours.</div>
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Social economy and social programs</h3>
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It is not surprising that the federal government does nothing to support our social economy. This model is unique to Quebec and virtually non-existent elsewhere in Canada.</div>
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With respect to social services, Ottawa withdrew from funding for health, education and other services. This increases the pressure on Québec's public finances and justifies austerity policies.</div>
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In its latest changes to employment insurance, Ottawa has set up a special policy for regions affected by lower oil prices, disadvantaging regions of Quebec which were among the first victims of the previous reform regarding seasonal work.</div>
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In social services, there is also a form of competition between levels of government. For example, Quebec has adopted a comprehensive homelessness policy, ranging from prevention to reintegration, while Ottawa focuses on homeless shelters. The amounts paid are difficult to predict and Ottawa's measures do not fit very well with Quebec's policy.</div>
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The same applies to family policy. While Quebec has decided to promote child care with its CPE policy, the Trudeau government favors family allowances. Pooled under the jurisdiction of a single government, these resources would have provided a more effective family policy.</div>
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Consolation prizes</h3>
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Like it or not, Quebec is still a Canadian province. The Quebec nation continues to be administered by English Canada, which manages economic and social policies first and foremost in accordance with its own interests.</div>
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In most cases, this means a lack of support from Ottawa for Quebec which ends up hindering our economic development. Faced with this situation, equalization represents a very poor consolation prize. The same goes for the Trudeau government's infrastructure program. And these are consolation prizes that are largely paid with the taxes we send to Ottawa.</div>
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As long as Quebec remains in the Canadian federation, it will be deprived of the tools available to the central government which are currently used to develop the economic interests of English Canada. Therefore, Quebec struggles to take its place in a globalized economy with unequal weapons. </div>
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By <a href="http://lautjournal.info/20161206/la-dependance-canadienne-du-quebec" target="_blank">Gabriel Ste-Marie</a>, MP for Jolliet, researcher at the Contemporary Economics Research Institute and lecturer at Université du Québec à Montréal<br />
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<br />veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-15067501609301714222016-11-29T16:50:00.003-08:002017-04-02T15:46:51.228-07:00Exodus<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For the third part of my inadvertent Propaganda Trilogy... Er... Well, in case you missed it, part one was about how Maclean's Martin Patriquin <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2016/04/martin-patriquins-long-road-to-senat.html" target="_blank">distorts issues and twists words</a> in order to misinform his readers about Quebec. Part two was on the prezel-like <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2016/10/jean-francois-lisee-and-big-lie.html" target="_blank">über-twisting of Jean-François Lisée's words</a> by the media as part of their never-ending mission to delegitimize Quebec sovereignists by labeling them as intolerant. And now, in part three, I will look at a bit of propaganda that has been repeated so often that it has practically become dogma. I am referring to the Exodus Myth! This myth has recently been <a href="http://ipolitics.ca/2016/11/15/the-night-quebec-changed-everything/" target="_blank">recounted once again</a> in honour the 40th anniversary of the PQ's first election victory:</div>
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<i>"The impressive bank towers of the famous Toronto skyline, and the city’s unquestioned standing as the heart of Canada’s financial services industry, owe much to Lévesque and the PQ."</i></div>
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But I think a better telling of this myth can be found in this Globe and Mail <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/torontos-wealthy-fiddle-as-the-city-turns-to-dust/article754346/" target="_blank">article</a> from a few years back:<br />
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<i>"After the Second World War, Montreal was undoubtedly the country's premier city. It had the biggest population, the best parties -- Expo 67 and the 1976 Olympics -- a lovely historic centre, a vibrant café culture and, most importantly, economic power. With a little effort, it could have buried upstart Toronto.</i> </div>
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<i>Then came Mr. Lévesque's Parti Québécois, with its Draconian language laws and rejection of all things national. The anglo population -- the business class -- took the path of least resistance and fled to Toronto. Large companies, led by Sun Life, followed. Dull, constipated Toronto began to thrive and soon replaced Montreal as Canada's economic and cultural centre, all because of the Montreal diaspora. Toronto should erect a 50-metre statue of Mr. Lévesque in gratitude."</i></div>
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This myth is meant as a cautionary tale. It's the story of a bad little ethnic group that imagined itself to be a nation and thought it could set its own rules, but then all of the money flew away. Poor, stupid little Quebec! The moral of the story is that it's best to keep your head down, go with the flow, and submit to the dominant ideology.</div>
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A few facts</h3>
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It is, of course, a fact that Toronto overtook Montreal as an economic center during the 20th century, but to make the PQ or Quebec nationalism the scapegoat of this economic shift is extremely dishonest.<br />
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The first signs of this shift began decades before the PQ came into existence. The <a href="https://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/-/media/Files/Programs-and-Areas/CanadianBusinessHistory/Stock%20Market%20Crash%20of%201929_UPDATED.pdf" target="_blank">Toronto Stock Exchange surpassed</a> Montreal's Stock Exchange in trading volume in the 1930s, and it is a position Toronto never relinquished. Throughout the 40s, 50s and 60s Toronto outgrew Montreal by quite a bit. If you're only looking at the cities themselves then, yes, it looks as though Toronto finally overtook Montreal in the late 1970s, but as an economic unit, Toronto had really been larger than Montreal for many years. This is because Toronto forms the center of a collection of satellite cities and towns, in addition to its suburbs, which is called a "<i>conurbation</i>." Toronto’s conurbation, which curves around the western end of Lake Ontario, has been nicknamed the Golden Horseshoe.<br />
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Montreal’s economic growth, on the other hand, was not enough to create a conurbation. It was contained withing the city and its suburbs. That is why it is deceptive to compare population sizes of the two cities and jump to the conclusion that not until the 1970s had they become more or less equal in economic terms. Toronto supplanted Montreal as Canada’s chief economic center considerably before that, probably before 1960. Again, all of this occurred before Mr. Lévesque's Parti Québécois and its "<i>Draconian language laws.</i>"<br />
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Why did this shift occur? There are <a href="https://michelpatrice.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/montreal-and-toronto/" target="_blank">many reasons</a> but put simply, Montreal was the gateway to the inner continent and so it became Canada’s economic center. With the development of the inner continent on both sides of the border, the economic center of gravity moved west and Toronto benefited from this. The development of infrastructure like canals, railways and of course the St. Lawrence Seaway made this shift possible. It should be noted that prior to the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959, all ocean-going vessels had to stop in Montreal to unload goods which were then shipped to the Great Lakes on smaller vessels or by rail. The Seaway made it possible for ocean-going vessels to simply bypass Montreal.<br />
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We can also point to other culprits like the <a href="https://michelpatrice.wordpress.com/2015/01/25/the-auto-pact/" target="_blank">Auto Pact</a> which helped the automotive industry supplant the pulp and paper industry as the number one industry in Canada. Most of the jobs that resulted from this pact were created in southern Ontario. And so people flocked to the Golden Horseshoe with an estimated 1,000 a month arriving between 1956 to 1961. Between 1965 and 1971, the Toronto Metropolitan Area alone gained 185,530 Canadian migrants. These people came from all over Canada including Quebec.<br />
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It is true that there was a spike in out-migration from Quebec following the election of the PQ in 1976, and many of the people leaving were undoubtedly anglophones heading for Toronto, but demographically they were just a drop in the bucket. Their exodus was definitely not responsible for an economic shift that had been going on for decades, nor can we say that Quebec nationalism was the cause of this shift.<br />
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The truth is actually the other way around. It was the economic shift from Montreal to Toronto that made a francophone renaissance in Montreal possible and this lead to a new Québécois nationalism. Had Montreal remained the economic center of Canada, all of the people who flocked to Toronto would have come to Montreal instead making Quebec's metropolis an English city and Quebec culture would have remained a museum piece frozen in time as Jane Jacobs described in her wonderful book <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2014/05/montreal-and-toronto.html" target="_blank"><i>The Question of Separatism</i></a>.</div>
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Fraser's creative interpretations</h3>
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Like all good myths, the details often change in its retelling but the moral of the story is generally the same. </div>
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A few months ago a right-wing propaganda mill, the Fraser Institute, produced a <a href="https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/interprovincial-migration-in-canada-quebeckers-vote-with-their-feet" target="_blank">study</a> about the inter-provincial migration patterns of Canadians. For some reason, they decided to make it all about Quebec. Their conclusions, which were <a href="http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-lost-600-000-residents-to-other-provinces-since-1971-1.2965361" target="_blank">uncritically repeated</a> in the media, is that Quebec has lost 600,000 people to other provinces since 1971. In the study itself, the authors don't give a clear explanation as to why people seem to be fleeing but they suggest that something is very wrong with Quebec because as the Fraser Institute explains, "<i>The movement of people from one place to another, migration, can be a powerful indicator of a jurisdiction’s success or failure</i>" In fact, the subtitle of their so-called study is "<i>QUEBECKERS VOTE WITH THEIR FEET.</i>"</div>
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The problem comes when you actually read their shoddy report because it says the following:</div>
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<i>"Quebec experienced the lowest level of total out-migration of any of the provinces over the period from 1971/72 to 2014/15. In 2014/15, Quebec experienced out-migration of 3.9 people per 1,000 population while Ontario experienced out-migration of 5.1 people per 1,000 population. The remaining eight provinces recorded out-migration per 1,000 population of between 9.2 (British Columbia) and 23.5 people (Prince Edward Island)."</i></blockquote>
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<i>"Put simply, Quebec had the most stable domestic population in terms of out-migration among the provinces over the period from 1971/72 to 2014/15."</i></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjboP70nEQePAIQ-61o2iDhLmV5omMPQL8ivrCLN-PpnalPmn_y4PK6A0hLSr1vUQcDfZcPC2Gpv9zOYESxYgilX1TL0IpWsBQS2QC8aHVSL8pwZua4t6tDJfAivJXDvhThwfkRtfo5I8/s1600/2016-11-29+18_43_28-interprovincial-migration-in-canada.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjboP70nEQePAIQ-61o2iDhLmV5omMPQL8ivrCLN-PpnalPmn_y4PK6A0hLSr1vUQcDfZcPC2Gpv9zOYESxYgilX1TL0IpWsBQS2QC8aHVSL8pwZua4t6tDJfAivJXDvhThwfkRtfo5I8/s1600/2016-11-29+18_43_28-interprovincial-migration-in-canada.jpg" /></a></div>
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So there you have it, fewer people have left Quebec than any other province. Is that a sign of our success? Aren't Quebecers voting with their feet by staying? The problem is that "<i>Quebec also recorded the lowest level of in-migration of any province between 1971/72 and 2014/15</i>" and so their is a deficit (with the other provinces). Overall, Quebec's population is growing, of course. </div>
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The population of Quebec was 6,027,765 in 1971 and is 8,294,656 today. On the other hand, the population of Newfoundland went from 522,100 in 1971 to 514,536 in 2011. And it is <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/population-plunge-predicted-for-newfoundland-and-labrador-1.2530146" target="_blank">predicted</a> that province’s population will fall to 482,000 by 2035. In fact, the population of Newfoundland is expected to shrink more over the next two decades than in any other part of Canada. So why didn't the Fraser Institute decide to focus this study on Newfoundland? I get the feeling the authors were intent on making a point specifically about Quebec regardless of anything else.</div>
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In interviews with the media, the authors gave what they believe are the reasons for Quebec's inter-provincial migration deficit and it basically boils down to high taxes, an anti-business environment, and a relatively closed society. The most obvious reason, language, was barely mentioned. But the fact is, 42% of Quebecers are bilingual whereas the same is true for only 9% of Canadians from outside of Quebec. So moving to Quebec and living and working in a French-speaking environment is simply not feasible for the vast majority of them, hence, they don't move here. Case closed! Who knows, perhaps the constant anti-Quebec propaganda in the Canadian media is also a factor. </div>
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The Fraser Institute obviously started out with their own right-wing, Quebec bashing conclusions and then tried to make the data fit, but it doesn't really. They must have felt confident that no one in the Canadian media would challenge them on their bullshit... and they were right! These right-wing ideologues loath Quebec's more interventionist model and so they've basically recycled the old Exodus Myth in order to attack it. The moral of the story is essentially the same: a bad little ethnic group thought it could set its own rules with disastrous consequences. It's best to keep your head down, go with the flow, and submit to the dominant ideology. </div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-82945389024656897212016-11-13T07:17:00.001-08:002016-11-13T18:09:31.359-08:00A more inclusive Bill 101<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Recently, there was an <a href="http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-its-time-to-modernize-bill-101-for-the-sake-of-a-more-inclusive-quebec" target="_blank">opinion piece</a> in the Gazette by Deepak Awasti and Murray Levine which called for a "<i>more inclusive</i>" Bill 101. It's hard to believe that it took two people to write this gibberish but nonetheless the article does contain some of the fallacies that are routinely repeated by the opponents of the <a href="http://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/showdoc/cs/C-11" target="_blank">Charter of the French language</a>, so it is worth addressing. </div>
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<br />An anglophone minority?</h3>
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The authors attempt to frame this issue in the context of an oppressive francophone "<i>majority</i>" and a beleaguered anglophone "<i>minority</i>." Quebec, however, does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in a part of the world where English is the dominant, majority language and speakers of this language enjoy all of the benefits of this majority status even when they are a numerical minority, like in Quebec. This fact cannot be simply ignored. It's a rather important detail. Anglophones are a minority in Quebec like white people are a minority in Detroit. It's not really something that marginalizes them in any way.</div>
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In fact, when a group of anglophones went before the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations in the 1980s claiming that they were victims of violations of article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Committee observed that "<i>provisions of article 27 refers to minorities in States</i>", which English-speaking people in Canada are not. It stated that the "<i>authors therefore have no claim under article 27 of the Covenant.</i>"</div>
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But even if we consider Anglo-Quebecers as a real minority, they have an enviable situation compared to other minorities. Quebec anglophones have their own publicly funded schools system, which they control. This includes three English-only universities that get <a href="http://www.lapresse.ca/debats/votre-opinion/201302/22/01-4624566-les-universites-anglophones-financees-demesurement.php" target="_blank">almost a third</a> of all government financing for higher education. There are roughly 15 hospitals in Quebec where you are guaranteed service in English. Most government services are available in English on demand. All laws passed in Quebec are written in French and English. You have the right to use English in the National Assembly. In fact, anglophones in Quebec have the right to demand that all of their court proceedings be in English. Therefore a judge in Quebec must be able to render verdicts and pass sentence in English. </div>
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We just need to compare to see the stark differences. In the Greater Sudbury region of Ontario where francophones make up 28% of the population there is only one partially bilingual hospital where, in the words of <a href="http://ici.radio-canada.ca/regions/ontario/2011/01/25/007-hopital-regional-sudbury-bilinguisme.shtml" target="_blank">Denis Constantineau</a>, director of the Sudbury Community Health Center, you can be admitted to the hospital in French, but you will likely die in English because the more you progress in the system, fewer French services are offered.</div>
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A <a href="http://csfontario.ca/en/articles/172" target="_blank">study</a> conducted by the Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities of Canada concluded that: "<i>…access to health care services in French for Franco-Ontarians is severely lacking in hospital services, community health centers, medical clinics, and home care: these four sectors cover most health care services available in Ontario. Hospital emergency services are often the key entry point to the health care system, yet three quarters of Franco-Ontarians are denied such access in their language. 74% of Franco-Ontarians said they have either no access at all or rarely access to hospital services in French. In fact, only 12% claimed that they could access hospital services in French at all times.</i>"</div>
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Or as we recently saw in the <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/alberta-not-obliged-to-translate-laws-into-french-supreme-court-rules/article27386005/" target="_blank">Caron case</a>, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Alberta had no constitutional obligation to translate its laws into French. So Quebec anglophones have rights that francophones in most of English Canada do not have.</div>
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And setting aside the issue of rights, there is the omnipresence of American and Canadian media (magazines, newspapers, music, TV shows, computer software and video games) which means that the English language occupies a prominent place in Quebec regardless of anything else. Two of the twelve daily newspapers in Quebec are published in English. 19% of magazines and other periodicals published in Quebec are in English. There are 15 English radio stations in Quebec (vs. 11 in 1970). And 35% of all movies shown in theaters in Quebec are in English. All of this leads to English having a greater <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/03/english-versus-french.html" target="_blank">power of attraction</a> over French even in Quebec.</div>
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No real linguistic minority has a situation anywhere near as good as this. Anglophones in North America, whether they are in Quebec or not, are simply not a minority. They are part of the overwhelming majority. The real minority in this story are the North American francophones. Trying to remove this fact from the context is dishonest.</div>
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<h3>
<br />The sign law</h3>
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Quebec's sign law seem to produce most of the hysteria from Quebec's anglophone community. It is their most tangible evidence for oppression. I admit that the original version of this law (the French only version) was controversial even though I don't think it violated freedom of expression which is meant to protect the pluralism of political, ideological and artistic expression and is only remotely related to commercial signs. And even with that version of the law, anglophones in Quebec continued to do business in English. The sign law did not prevent anglophone merchants from advertising in English on radio and television and in newspapers, neighborhood publications, etc. It only affected commercial signs. But why regulate the language of commercial signs?<br />
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I often compare Quebec's sign law to regulations which aim to preserve a city's unique architectural heritage. Many cities around the world have regulations regarding new construction to ensure that these buildings are architecturally and contextually compatible with the existing streetscape. The reason for this is that some cities have a very unique architectural style and the people who live in these cities wish to preserve it. If they allow people to build whatever they want, over time, that unique style could vanish. </div>
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Quebec is the only French-speaking society in North America. A majority of Quebecers want to preserve this unique trait and feel that people who do business here should contribute to this uniqueness instead of contributing to the dominant current of cultural homogenization. And so, we have regulations to ensure that the “<i>visage linguistique</i>” in Quebec remains predominately French. </div>
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When the Supreme Court ruled against the "<i>French only rule</i>" of Bill 101's sign law (<a href="http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/docs/bill178/2.htm" target="_blank">Ford v. Quebec</a>), it still conceded that the purpose of the legislation —to assure the quality and influence of the French language in Quebec— was a valid one. English had become so commonplace in the “<i>visage linguistique</i>” of the province that it “<i>strongly suggested to young and ambitious francophones that the language of success was almost exclusively English. It confirmed to anglophones that there was no great need to learn French. And it suggested to immigrants that the prudent course lay in joining the anglophone community.</i>” Given this threat to the French language, the court decided that although an outright ban was unreasonable, it would not be unreasonable to require “<i><b>the predominant display of the French language, even its marked predominance.</b></i>” So the sign law as it exists now is based on the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada. </div>
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The idea behind Bill 101</h3>
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There is no denying that Quebec is unique in that it is the only majority francophone state in North America. It is the only society on this continent where you can do pretty much whatever you want to do in life and succeed at the highest levels in French. But the existence of this francophone society in Anglo North America is precarious given the overwhelming dominance of English. Therefore, certain protectionist measures are justified. The Supreme Court of Canada could see the legitimacy of this and most reasonable people can see it too, but there are some who simply refuse to see it.</div>
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In their article Awasti and Levine claim that wanting to make French the common language of all Quebecers is excluding people. I really don't see how. Having French as the common langue in Quebec does not mean that it is the only language spoken here just as English is not the only language spoken in Toronto, but it is the common language. People don't get upset if they have to speak English to get some kind of service in Toronto, it's just normal.</div>
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Bill 101 aims to create that kind of normalcy for French in Quebec. But some people feel that it is their God-given right as Canadians to never have to speak anything other than English from sea to shining sea. Of course, francophones can never hope to expect such a thing with French, but who cares about that. Anglophones obviously have some greater value which means that they should never be expected to speak the language of "<i>the other.</i>"</div>
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Are the authors of this article really motivated by a desire for equality and inclusiveness or could something else be motivating them? Well, as it happens, one of the co-authors (Murray Levine) has visited my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WhyQuebecNeedsIndependence/" target="_blank">Facebook page</a> on a number of occasions, and he made the following comment during a discussion on the possible partitioning of an independent Quebec:</div>
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"<i>With 70% against separation and the low birth rate of the Quebecois the point is moot. There is not going to be separation and there will likely be no partition. We are stuck with the pouriture of Amerique de nord until Montcalm rises from the dead and defeats Wolfe!</i>"</blockquote>
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Murray Levine, Why Quebec needs independence page, April 4th, 2013</blockquote>
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Yes, that's right Murray seems to think that an entire people are nothing but rot ("<i>pouriture</i>" [sic] is French for "<i>rot</i>"). Maybe this explains why he is so vehemently opposed to the idea of French as the common language in Quebec. Maybe it's not really about a desires for a more "<i>inclusive</i>" Quebec after all. Maybe his opposition to Bill 101 actually comes from a much darker place. Whatever the case may be, I don't think we need any lessons on inclusiveness from Murray Levine.</div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-73819720229083836612016-10-23T06:11:00.001-07:002018-01-03T06:06:25.919-08:00Jean-François Lisée and the Big Lie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself."</i></td></tr>
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<h3>
European immigrants are the best</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"One candidate for the top job [Jean-François Lisée] defines “<i>perfect immigration</i>” as European" </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/lisee-does-the-full-trump-to-sway-pq-faithful/article32174178/" target="_blank">Konrad Yakabuski, The Globe and Mail</a>, Oct. 3, 2016</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"He [Jean-François Lisée] has also sketched out a vision of “<i>perfect</i>” immigration. Surprise, it hails from primarily white European cities." </blockquote>
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<i><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/leadership-choice-a-pivotal-moment-for-the-parti-quebecois/article32265826/" target="_blank">Globe and Mail editorial</a>, Oct. 05, 2016 </i></blockquote>
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"He [Jean-François Lisée] warns about the dangers of immigration and says “<i>perfect immigration</i>” involves bringing in French-speaking Europeans"</blockquote>
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<i><a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2016/10/16/quebec-should-reject-appeals-to-nativism-editorial.html" target="_blank">Toronto Star editorial</a>, Oct. 16, 2016 </i></blockquote>
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These claims are based on comments made by Jean-François Lisée during an interview with Philippe Teisceira-Lessard of <i>La Presse</i> on September 26, 2016. This is my translation of what he<a href="https://www.facebook.com/jflisee/posts/1185320838199020" target="_blank"> actually said</a> during that interview:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<i>JFL: </i><i>I have two proposals.</i> </blockquote>
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<i>The best immigration possible is what we are doing right now with Quebec International and its <a href="http://journeesquebec.gouv.qc.ca/" target="_blank">Quebec days</a>. Employers from Quebec, who are experiencing a shortage of labour, travel to France, Belgium and Barcelona, they have kiosks, receive CVs and meet people who can exactly meet the demands for the job.</i> </blockquote>
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<i>Then, they hire this person and bring them here, they find housing for them, schools for their children... these people are immediately integrated. It is the perfect immigration that responds perfectly to the needs of Quebec's economy and ensures the success of the neo-Quebecer.</i></blockquote>
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<i>This concerns me greatly. If we bring people here, it must be in a welcoming environment. It must lead to their success.</i> </blockquote>
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<i>The second thing that I propose: the immigration of graduates. This is to ensure that we attract to Quebec, in our CEGEPs, our universities, our technical schools, francophone students from around the world and welcome them, integrate them, and graduate them with degrees from here.</i> </blockquote>
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<i>So there will be no debate about whether their credentials are good or not, they are our credentials. It's in this way that we will retain the majority them.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>That is immigration that is win-win. It's win for our economy, and it's a win for neo-Quebecers that are immediately on a path of success.</i> </blockquote>
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<i>Q: So the best immigration is the European immigration?</i> </blockquote>
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<i>JFL: Not necessarily, I'm saying francophones from around the world. That means Senegalese francophones and francophones who have French as a second language but who can study in French. So anyone from Shanghai to Santiago who can study in French is welcome.</i> </blockquote>
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<i>Q: So we need to better choose our immigration?</i> </blockquote>
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<i>JFL: Sure. We must not only choose the best, but create paths to the success of every neo-Quebecers. For me an engineers who drives a taxi, or a specialized technician who serves tables... immigrants with shattered dreams, that does not interest me.</i></blockquote>
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<i>I don't want this to happen anymore. So the more we target, the more we will foster success ... and as I say in my program on foreign students, a young Haitian student who is very good, but penniless, must be helped to success.</i></blockquote>
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<i>I am willing to not only pay his scholarship, but also his living expenses, so that francophones from around the world will know that Quebec is a center of excellence, and it is a place where they can succeed in life.</i>"</blockquote>
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How do we get from these words to the claim that Jean-François Lisée believes that the perfect immigration is white and European? It's obvious that Lisée was using the activities of <i>Quebec International</i> with its<i> Quebec days</i> as an example of an immigration that perfectly fits the needs of the host country and perfectly takes care of the needs of the immigrant. It is therefore the perfect immigration which is a success for everyone. Lisée seems to think that all immigration should be more like this. What a monster!</div>
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To be fair to the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, it was the alleged journalist, Philippe Teisceira-Lessard, of the fanatically federalist <i>La Presse</i> who got the propaganda ball rolling by omitting important details of what Lisée said and <a href="http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/politique-quebecoise/201609/26/01-5024433-limmigration-peu-utile-pour-leconomie-dit-lisee.php" target="_blank">reporting his comments</a> as: "<i>The 'best immigration possible' it is the workers that Quebec employers recruit in 'Paris, Brussels and Barcelona' who correspond 'exactly to the labor needs' and who are immediately hired and 'immediately integrated'.</i>" But you would think that the Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star could have managed to get their hands on an actual reporter to check up on a claim before printing it as truth. You would think that but you'd be wrong. Any opportunity to delegitimize Quebec sovereignists by labeling them as intolerant is jumped upon, not questioned.</div>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
Lisée: far-right, bad for humanity</h3>
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While the "<i>European immigrants are the best</i>" claim was completely made up, other attacks against Lisée are at least based on actual facts. For example, it is true that Lisée wrote an <a href="http://quebec.huffingtonpost.ca/jean-francois-lisee/interdiction-de-la-burka-dans-lespace-public_b_11577394.html" target="_blank">article</a> asking whether we should ban the burka in Quebec. In this article, he claimed that it is also a question of security as terrorists have used the burka to hide weapons in Africa. The Star found this argument bizarre: "<i>He has mused about forbidding women to wear burkas and niqabs in public, using the bizarre argument that they’ve been used by terrorists in Africa to conceal AK-47s</i>"<br />
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Again, it's a shame that <span style="text-align: justify;">the Toronto Star </span>doesn't seem to have any reporters on hand to check these things out. In fact, all that they would really need is an internet connection and a search engine to find out that both Chad and Cameroon have <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33166220" target="_blank">banned the burka</a> following <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-chad-violence-idUKKCN0PL0A520150711" target="_blank">terrorist incidents</a> where the perpetrator had used a burka to conceal his weapon, and Senegal seems to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/18/senegal-bans-burqa-stop-terrorists-disquising-islamic-dress" target="_blank">considering doing the same</a>.<br />
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While few people in the west would agree that women should cover themselves up from head to toe, it is perfectly legitimate to criticize a burka ban on the grounds that it infringes on individual liberty or the freedom of religion. However, people often criticize the idea because they say that excluding veiled women from the public space is marginalizing them and so preventing them from being exposed to the idea of equality between men and women. To this <span style="text-align: justify;">Lisée</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> replied that "</span><i>if our society tolerates the overt manifestation of the oppression of women in the public space, it validates the idea that this oppression is acceptable and accepted in our society.</i><span style="text-align: justify;">" So what is really the more liberal view? It's up for debate.</span></div>
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But to some, questioning Canada's state religion of <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2016/09/the-problem-with-multiculturalism.html" target="_blank">multiculturalism</a> makes you a heretic particualry if you are a Quebec sovereignist. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom" target="_blank">Philippe Couillard</a> used Lisée's article to claim that he<span style="text-align: justify;"> was akin to unnamed far-right political parties </span><span style="text-align: justify;">in Europe</span><span style="text-align: justify;">. If Couillard truly believed that wanting to ban the burka makes one a fascist then he missed a golden opportunity to call out French </span>Prime Minister Manuel Valls during his <a href="http://www.cp24.com/news/french-pm-wraps-up-two-day-canadian-visit-with-quebec-city-events-1.3114841" target="_blank">recent visit</a> to Quebec since France is one of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/burka-bans-the-countries-where-muslim-women-cant-wear-veils/" target="_blank">many countries that have banned this type of clothing</a>. In fact, there are even <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/raheel-raza/niqab-burka-ban-canada_b_8189112.html" target="_blank">Canadian Muslims</a> who are in favor of banning the burka. </div>
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Couillard's reaction is really the knee-jerk reaction of a brainwashed lapdog. He is just parroting the line that Quebec nationalism is ethnocentric but Canadian nationalism is universal, which is itself a <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/07/the-demonization-of-quebec.html" target="_blank">form of racism</a>. Canadian multiculturalism is irreproachable and the only opinion that you can have on immigration is that you want more. Any other opinion on the matter makes you racist, xenophobic, inward looking and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/10/08/pq-under-jean-francois-lisee-similar-to-european-far-right-philippe-couillard-says_n_12410050.html" target="_blank">negative for humanity</a>. </div>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
Conclusion</h3>
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Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate ideas, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist. Since Quebec sovereignists reject the Canadian “<i><a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2014/03/quebec-nationalism-and-canadian.html" target="_blank">national idea</a></i>” and refuse assimilation into Canadian universalism, the impulse among Canadians is to reduce Quebec sovereignists, with their competing nationalism and their own concepts of universalism, to an ethnic group with racist designs. Quebecers are depicted as a minority community incapable or unwilling of defending individual rights or of claiming universalism. This view is routinely presented in the Canadian media. It is sometimes based on exaggerations or outright fabrications, as seen with the "<i>European immigration</i>" claim. All that matters is the overarching narrative of Canadian moral superiority over Quebec. </div>
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But behind this resentment against Quebec nationalism is a tacit recognition that the continued existence of a Quebec nation with its own national identity is a direct challenge to the Canadian imperial system. For it is clear to anyone who knows anything about Canadian history that Canada itself is the product of imperial conquest, and that Quebec is, in many ways, Canada's colony. Anything that has the slightest whiff of self-determination on Quebec's part is seen as a threat to the legitimacy of the Canadian state. Hence the hair-trigger <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2013/06/quebec-bashing-101.html" target="_blank">accusations of racism</a>, the <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2014/05/canadas-feel-good-racism.html" target="_blank">hypocrisy</a>, the double standards and the outright slander...</div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-76313605544641313922016-09-20T15:40:00.000-07:002016-09-20T15:40:41.294-07:00Can Quebec unilaterally secede from Canada?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh48quabjfA-Xin79XNtyPcoJp9rL9D8ggOYpEW3XuvyGe9wqjDIr-t_JhWyi94Wimf9hSrdGOYjnlDgpPgMDmozYX_kOHPL54hpGhXbsWtV4YUCA5Mid255lf-kvJC5uvc8NHslmXn0uE/s1600/nest2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh48quabjfA-Xin79XNtyPcoJp9rL9D8ggOYpEW3XuvyGe9wqjDIr-t_JhWyi94Wimf9hSrdGOYjnlDgpPgMDmozYX_kOHPL54hpGhXbsWtV4YUCA5Mid255lf-kvJC5uvc8NHslmXn0uE/s320/nest2.jpg" width="294" /></a></div>
The government of Quebec can decide to unilaterally secede from Canada because it holds a right to pursue secession under Canadian constitutional law, and a unilateral declaration of independence would not be illegal under international law. This is based on constitutional and international law, as determined by the Supreme Court of Canada and the International Court of Justice.</div>
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With regard to Canadian constitutional law, the Supreme Court of Canada in its August 20, 1998 <a href="http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1643/index.do" target="_blank">Reference re Secession of Quebec</a> unanimously affirmed that: “<i>The rights of other provinces and the federal government cannot deny the right of the government of Quebec to pursue secession, should a clear majority of the people of Quebec choose that goal, so long as in doing so, Quebec respects the rights of others.</i>”</div>
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Hence Quebec has under Canadian constitutional law a “<i>right</i>” to secede. In addition, and according to the court, “<i>(t)he clear repudiation by the people of Quebec of the existing constitutional order would confer legitimacy on demands for secession, and place an obligation on the other provinces and the federal government to acknowledge and respect that expression of democratic will by entering into negotiations and conducting them in accordance with the underlying constitutional principles.</i>” Quebec’s right to secede thus has a corollary, which the Court presents as the “<i>constitutional duty to negotiate</i>.”</div>
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The Court did not rule that Quebec has the right to seek to achieve secession “<i>unilaterally</i>.” In this regard, the judges do state that “<i>the secession of Quebec from Canada cannot be accomplished by the National Assembly, the legislature or government of Quebec unilaterally, that is to say, without principled negotiations, and be considered a lawful act</i>.” However the unanimous judges added:</div>
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“<i>Conversely, violations of those principles by the federal or other provincial governments responding to the request for secession may undermine their legitimacy. Thus, a Quebec that had negotiated in conformity with constitutional principles and values in the face of unreasonable intransigence on the part of other participants at the federal or provincial level would be more likely to be recognized than a Quebec which did not itself act according to constitutional principles in the negotiation process. Both the legality of the acts of the parties to the negotiation process under Canadian law, and the perceived legitimacy of such action, would be important considerations in the recognition process. In this way, the adherence of the parties to the obligation to negotiate would be evaluated in an indirect manner on the international plane</i>.”</div>
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This last formulation suggests that if Quebec negotiated in accordance with the applicable constitutional principles and negotiations were unsuccessful, the issue of secession and, indeed of unilateral secession, would become an issue to be dealt with at the international level. Hence, the state of international law on this issue would become highly relevant. And how does international law deal with a unilateral declaration of independence which is adopted in order to effect secession? In its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Court_of_Justice_advisory_opinion_on_Kosovo%27s_declaration_of_independence" target="_blank">advisory opinion</a> of July 22, 2010, on the accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo, the International Court of Justice stated as follows:</div>
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“<i>(T)he Court considers that general international law contains no applicable prohibition of declarations of independence. Accordingly, it concludes that the declaration of independence of 17 February 2008 did not violate general international law.</i>”</div>
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On the basis of this determination, the government of Quebec, just like the government of Kosovo, can decide to unilaterally secede. And such a decision would not violate international law.</div>
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The successive governments of the Parti Québécois have consistently made known that they intend to negotiate the terms of Quebec’s independence with the government of Canada. A unilateral decision to secede from Canada has thus never been the preferred option for the political parties, movements and citizens who promote independence for Quebec. But Quebec’s right to pursue secession, recognized in Canadian constitutional law, should not be meaningless.</div>
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After a successful referendum on independence and negotiations conducted by the government of Quebec in accordance with the underlying constitutional principles, a new Clyde Wells (who torpedoed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meech_Lake_Accord" target="_blank">Meech Lake</a> Agreement in 1990) might well emerge and refuse to adopt the constitutional amendment required to acknowledge and respect the expression of democratic will of the people of Quebec. Such a refusal would then justify a decision to unilaterally secede from Canada and the adoption of a unilateral declaration of independence would become a legitimate option for Quebec. And it would be legal.</div>
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<i>Based on arguments presented by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Turp" target="_blank">Daniel Turp</a>, a law professor at the Université de Montréal, former Bloc Québécois MP and former member of the National Assembly of Québec, in a debate hosted by the <a href="http://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/can-quebec-unilaterally-secede-from-canada-yes/" target="_blank">Macdonald-Laurier Institute</a> on the question of Quebec's right to unilaterally secede from Canada.</i></div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-42344146608028533502016-09-10T19:27:00.000-07:002018-01-03T08:54:52.804-08:00The Problem with Multiculturalism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU6mRyRGKm5ZG6qB_zq9n6RNtV6dDUIhTycXKTynOgqE6Iee5p8Iyf3t94IEZx4QYE-3QlfWjFkW2cK0Q4JlomS2zoNLfvf1rVPwaqBGqWsqUjBKuL8edJZBrrZGWahWC5RhyphenhyphenlG0DS1Rg/s1600/multikulti-flag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU6mRyRGKm5ZG6qB_zq9n6RNtV6dDUIhTycXKTynOgqE6Iee5p8Iyf3t94IEZx4QYE-3QlfWjFkW2cK0Q4JlomS2zoNLfvf1rVPwaqBGqWsqUjBKuL8edJZBrrZGWahWC5RhyphenhyphenlG0DS1Rg/s640/multikulti-flag.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The problem in general</h3>
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Most educated people, when they hear the word “<i>multiculturalism</i>”, assume it to be synonymous with diversity. It's not surprising, since the word seems to be a conjunction of “<i>multi</i>” (many) and “<i>cultural</i>” (cultures). So the logical conclusion is that multiculturalism is simply a doctrine that says mixing lots of cultures together is good. However, “<i>multiculturalism</i>” is not the same as cultural diversity. </div>
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In political theory multiculturalism refers to an approach that states adopt in order to negotiate the relationship between specific cultures and other members of society. Multicultural policies are an attempt to build a bridge between the state and minority communities by looking to particular community organizations and leaders to act as intermediaries. Multicultural policies accept that society is diverse but implicitly assume that such diversity ends at the edges of minority communities. In other words, they institutionalize diversity by putting people into ethnic and cultural boxes and defining their needs and rights accordingly. </div>
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Multicultural policies tend to reinforce the differences between groups based on ethnic and religious identities. They grant certain “<i>group rights</i>,” often to the detriment of individual rights. They favor tradition over modernism, and community over fundamental human rights by supporting and emboldening traditional religious leaders.</div>
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In a sense, multiculturalism is a rejection of modern Enlightenment values. It's rooted in the belief that universal citizenship, equality before the law, and equality of opportunity are insufficient and that the state must actively work to protect the cultures and beliefs of immigrant communities by granting privileges on the basis of membership in these religious or ethnic groups.</div>
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As an ideology, multiculturalism encompasses a variety of approaches, not all of them inconsistent with Enlightenment, liberalism or modernity. However, it does tend to place greater emphasis on diversity than on equal rights and equal opportunities for all. Its advocates often push for value pluralism and moral relativism: the idea that different moral outlooks (both those that respect individual liberty, and theocratic or fundamentalist ideologies that do not) are equally legitimate.</div>
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Cultures, however, are not homogeneous but complex. Multiculturalism attempts to describe loose groupings of individuals with similar backgrounds, religions or language as a “<i>culture</i>” and then assumes that the diverse individuals within that culture belong to the same “<i>community</i>”. Far from protecting, say, “<i>all Jews</i>” or “<i>all Muslims</i>” from generalizations, it reinforces the political fiction of cultural or religious unity. </div>
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Rather than appeal to Muslims and other minorities as citizens, multiculturalism assumes that minorities’ true loyalty is to their faith or ethnic community. In effect, governments that adopt multicultural policies are subcontracting their political responsibilities out to minority leaders, who rarely represent their entire community and are usually on the more conservative end of the spectrum. This can lead to absurd situation like when <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/mcguinty-government-rules-out-use-of-sharia-law/article18247682/" target="_blank">Ontario</a> was considering allowing Muslim faith-based tribunals i.e. Sharia law, in its justice system.</div>
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The problem in regards to Quebec</h3>
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In English Canada, multiculturalism remains a sacred cow. The term is often used in contrast to intolerance or even racism, as if anyone who criticizes it must be a xenophobe who hates immigrants. But in reality, multiculturalism is itself a close cousin of racism – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djemila_Benhabib" target="_blank">Djemila Benhabib</a> calls it “<i>multiracism</i>” – because it exaggerates the importance of the community into which one is born, to the detriment of one’s individuality.</div>
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Multicultural policies essentially encourage immigrant communities to hold on to the culture of the country they left. This can lead to insular and ghettoized communities. Canada has been more immune to the negative effects of multiculturalism than many <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipGpAUKJtzI" target="_blank">other countries</a> mainly because it shares a language and culture with the global hegemon. Canadian multiculturalism depends on the dominance of American culture on this continent to keep its multicultural "<i>mosaic</i>" together.</div>
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This is simply not true for us in Quebec. In fact, the opposite is true. Our existence is in resistance to the dominant culture on this continent. So Canada's multicultural polices, which ostensibly work so well in English Canada, are not at all suited to our reality in Quebec, but they are imposed on us anyways.</div>
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Canada has never been a very well defined country. In fact, there have always been widely divergent interpretations of what Confederation, the so-called founding of this country, was really about. To George-Étienne Cartier, the Attorney General for Canada East during the negotiations on Confederation and the principal leader of French Canada, it represented a pact between two nations. This is clear from what he wrote in <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Minerve" target="_blank">La Minerve</a></i> on July 1, 1867:</div>
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"<i>Such is […] the significance that we must attach to this constitution, which recognizes the French-Canadian nationality. As a distinct, separate nationality, we form a State within the State with the full use of our rights and the formal recognition of our national independence.</i>"</blockquote>
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Others saw Confederation as a pact between the provinces. After all, it's the British owned provinces of North America (with certain exceptions) that got together to create the federal government. However, when the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Confederation_Party" target="_blank">Anti-Confederation League</a> in Nova Scotia won 36 out of 38 seats in the provincial legislature, and 18 of 19 seats federally, not long after Confederation, they found that there was, in fact, no way out after Britain refused their secession. Canada's imperial nature became evident to them at that moment.</div>
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John A. Macdonald, on the other hand, was in favor of legislative union, i.e. a unitary state with a single Parliament for all of Canada. He didn't get that but to a large extent, Macdonald achieved the type of centralized federalism that he desired. The powers of <a href="http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/federal/disallow.htm" target="_blank">disallowance and reservation</a> in Canadian federalism made that perfectly clear.</div>
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Nonetheless, in the early days of Confederation, there seem to have been some acceptance of the binational nature of Canada, as seen in the <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/12/how-west-was-won.html" target="_blank">Manitoba Act</a>. But that acceptance was soon thrown out the window as the demographics of this country changed and Canada basically became <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2016/06/the-spirit-of-regulation-17.html" target="_blank">British Canada</a> which begrudgingly tolerated French in Quebec since it was still the majority language there. </div>
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In the 1960s, francophones in Quebec began to reject their second class status and wanted to become "<i><a href="http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/readings/lesage.htm" target="_blank">master in their own house</a></i>." There was also a growing demand for the recognition of the binational and bicultural character of Canada and this was even followed up with the threat of "<i><a href="http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/bios/johnsond.htm" target="_blank">equality or independence</a></i>." Canada responded by setting up the Royal Commission on bilingualism and biculturalism, presided by André Laurendeau, editor of <i>Le Devoir</i>, and Davidson Dunton, president of Carleton University. </div>
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This commission agreed that Canada should formally recognize its binational nature. But instead, Canada adopted a policy of multiculturalism. It must be emphasized that this policy of multiculturalism was adopted in 1971 under Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s government as an answer to the prescriptions contained in the commission's report, and that Trudeau's sudden rise to power at that time was largely due to his staunch opposition to Quebec nationalism. </div>
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One of his goals in adopting this policy was undeniably to drown Quebec nationalism in a sea of multiple cultures, thus replacing “<i>bi</i>” with “<i>multi</i>.” So while multiculturalism was enshrined in Trudeau's 1982 constitution, no mention is made of the existence of a Quebec nation. Canada is described as a single, bilingual, and multicultural nation. By recognizing a multitude of cultures, multiculturalism negates any notion of duality and nullifies Quebec's claim to distinctiveness on the basis of culture.</div>
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So, we have gone from being one of the founding nations of Canada (at least, that's how we saw it) to an ethnic minority similar to groups of recent immigrants. It's not that we believe that we are more "<i>special</i>" than Italian or Ukrainian Canadians. But let's be honest, Italian or Ukrainian culture is not being created in Canada. They are living and evolving cultures in Italy and the Ukraine, not in Canada. Immigrant communities are simply holding on to the culture of the old country and trying to pass it down to the next generation like some kind of family heirloom. Multiculturalism encourages this behavior but despite these efforts, each generation usually becomes increasingly assimilated into the dominant culture of the host country.</div>
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We are no more French immigrants to Canada than Brazilians are Portuguese immigrants to Brazil. Our culture is a 400 year old French-speaking, North American culture that has always been diverse in its own way. It (or remnants of it) can be found all over this continent. Today, however, it is only in Quebec that it is a living culture that can evolve and integrate newcomers. We were our own distinct nation long before Confederation. We are not just another ethnic tile in English Canada's multicultural "<i>mosaic</i>." Canadian multiculturalism without any constitutional recognition of Quebec's distinctiveness is an inherently assimilationist policy, and it is for this reason that it is widely rejected in Quebec. </div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-61368273363613066842016-07-17T17:03:00.001-07:002016-09-11T17:30:27.159-07:00Justifying the Means<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyOg-K2jaHElsDgA5w6Gf06_w2fR0sBzGnyFBkZkRLgIWptd6ySeRfeejsK4F92ENxebxVapbBjCiJjYoWiEsOO3YQ5HkcqGuzoHA3pAWCRCa_YVcqefwjfZFCmcXy3EZi3ZZPH3vPxL4/s1600/Trudeau_crazy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyOg-K2jaHElsDgA5w6Gf06_w2fR0sBzGnyFBkZkRLgIWptd6ySeRfeejsK4F92ENxebxVapbBjCiJjYoWiEsOO3YQ5HkcqGuzoHA3pAWCRCa_YVcqefwjfZFCmcXy3EZi3ZZPH3vPxL4/s400/Trudeau_crazy.jpg" width="341" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Money and corruption will save Canada</i></td></tr>
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A country united by a slush fund</h3>
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Years prior to the 1980 Quebec referendum, former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau put it bluntly: "<i>One of the means to counter-balance the attraction of separatism is to use the time, the energy and enormous sums of money at the service of Canadian nationalism.</i>" For Mr. Trudeau and the federal Liberals, <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/10/trudeaus-hero-myth-october-crisis.html" target="_blank">all means</a> were justified to preserve national unity.</div>
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More than fifteen years later, forces fighting sovereigntists would steal a page from the 1980 referendum when all the stops were pulled out to keep Quebec in Confederation, including slush funds, secret contributions and political infiltration.</div>
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Much like in the 1990s, the late 1970s saw obscure pro-Canada committees raising secret funds, a Liberal-friendly ad firm executing Ottawa's visibility campaign and there was also an informant -- none other than the Parti Québécois' minister of intergovernmental affairs, <a href="http://quebecblogue.com/l-etapisme-de-claude-morin-et-la-traitrise/" target="_blank">Claude Morin</a>, mastermind of the entire PQ referendum strategy -- who was on the RCMP payroll.</div>
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As a paid RCMP informant Mr. Morin (he admitted that fact in May of 1992) would give the Trudeau Liberals every reason to believe that they could succeed in halting the separatist threat. In 1974, Mr. Morin persuaded Parti Québécois leader René Lévesque to introduce in the party program not one but two referendums in order to achieve sovereignty: one to receive a mandate to negotiate sovereignty-association with the rest of Canada and another to approve the deal. The strategy served to put the brakes on the momentum the separatist PQ gained when it took office in 1976.</div>
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"<i>It was in the mentality of the Liberal Party of Canada at the time to build a steamroller and use whatever means necessary to avoid caving in to Quebec and to finally crush the separatists</i>," said Richard Le Lay, a former <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Conservative_Party_of_Canada" target="_blank">Progressive Conservative</a> organizer who was a founding member of a pre-referendum committee.<br />
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"<i>The federal Liberals' objective was to take power, hold on to it and eliminate the separatists.</i>"</div>
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The Canadian Unity Council was a federal government-funded body founded in the 1960s to promote national unity. Two years before the 1980 referendum, a pre-referendum committee was founded after Mr. Le Lay persuaded leading council figures, <a href="http://l-express.ca/option-canada-le-chef-du-bureau-du-quebec-a-toronto-tombe/" target="_blank">Jocelyn Beaudoin</a> (the Quebec government's representative in Toronto until his role in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ay5V-mNhtM" target="_blank">Option Canada</a> was revealed) and Louis Desmarais (brother of Power Corp. founder <a href="http://www.barakabooks.com/catalogue/derriere-letat-desmarais-power/" target="_blank">Paul Desmarais</a>), to begin promoting national unity before the adoption of a new law in Quebec that would prohibit corporate contributions to election and referendum campaigns.</div>
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Mr. Le Lay headed a public relations firm called <i>The Communications Associates</i> and worked with ad firms such as Vickers and Benson on a number of national unity contracts. Michel Robert (former Chief Justice of the Quebec Court of Appeal who stated that separatists should not be named to the bench) eventually took charge of the pre-referendum committee, made up of seven provincial and federal parties and many pro-unity groups that received direct funding from Ottawa.</div>
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At the same time, money from private corporations began flowing into the coffers of a discreet committee of business leaders called the Pro-Canada Foundation, headed by Montreal tax expert Redford MacDougall.</div>
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The list of donors, the amounts contributed, the names of fundraisers and the amounts spent were all kept secret. The money was needed to fund ad campaigns promoting national unity and to ensure the federal government's visibility in Quebec. A report was later leaked to the media, which unveiled that the group alone had received $2.7-million from about 115 corporate donors from across Canada who worked closely with the federal Liberal government to defeat the separatist threat.</div>
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"<i>As soon as [Jean] Chrétien and his assistant Eddie Goldenberg took over [the pre-referendum committee] before the referendum campaign, everything changed and we were all excluded,</i>" Mr. Le Lay said. "<i>It was obvious that under Chrétien and Goldenberg . . . the end justified the means.</i>"</div>
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The federal Liberals dumped Mr. Le Lay's company and brought in the ad firm BCP, headed by Jacques Bouchard, a close, personal friend of federal Liberal cabinet minister André Ouellet. BCP created a subsidiary firm, <i>Communicateurs Unis</i>, to launch thousands of dollars in ad campaigns for various federal ministries aptly aimed at persuading Quebecers to vote No in the referendum.</div>
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"<i>We never knew how much the Pro-Canada Foundation had truly raised or spent before the campaign. It was never declared,</i>" Mr. Le Lay said. The money was never reported as official contributions as was also the case in the 1995 referendum, especially during one event when Ottawa recruited corporate support for a major rally in Montreal only days before the vote. It was estimated that the event cost several million dollars.</div>
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In both cases Ottawa argued it was not required to abide by laws in Quebec limiting spending. But the <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news2/background/groupaction/gomeryreport_phaseone.html" target="_blank">Gomery inquiry</a> has offered a look at the workings of the Liberal Party in Quebec, a structure that also has its roots in the pre-referendum politics.</div>
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In 1978, when Claude Ryan, a stern Quebec Liberal with impeccable integrity, took over the provincial party, he never suspected the extent of Ottawa's involvement in Quebec politics but he had had misgivings about some of Ottawa's pre-referendum tactics. His main political organizer, Pierre Bibeau, recalled how a shouting match erupted between Mr. Ryan and Mr. Chrétien, then Mr. Trudeau's Quebec lieutenant, at a meeting he attended with his federal counterpart, Mr. Goldenberg, several weeks before the 1980 referendum.</div>
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"<i>Mr. Chrétien argued that the campaign was about the breakup of Canada and wanted Ottawa to play a more prominent role. But Mr. Ryan insisted that under Quebec law he was the boss of the No side and refused to cave in,</i>" Mr. Bibeau said. "<i>Mr. Chrétien didn't trust the Quebec Liberal Party.</i>"</div>
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The mistrust partly explained why Mr. Chrétien funded a parallel structure that gave a greater role to the Canadian Unity Council, which before that had limited prominence. When Mr. Chrétien became prime minister in 1993 he was determined to defeat the separatists. He came within a whisker of losing the country in the 1995 referendum and did not want to let it happen again.</div>
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"<i>The visibility in Quebec of the Government of Canada had been significantly reduced from the mid-1980's until I became prime minister,</i>" Mr. Chrétien told the Gomery commission. "<i>We would ensure that the threat of a new referendum would be removed... We were going to restore the visibility of the Government of Canada in Quebec.</i>"<br />
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To hell with the rules <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.375px; line-height: 17.325px;">*</span></span></h3>
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When Jacques Parizeau was asked about the difference between Chrétien’s methods from Pierre Trudeau’s, he noted "<i>there’s a difference in means, but the spirit is the same. Ottawa looks to prevent at all costs the independence of Quebec whatever it takes. Trudeau went as far as to jail 500 Quebecers (in October 1970) for no reason other than to battle sovereignty and paint it as a violent movement.</i>"</div>
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As for Chrétien, Parizeau added, "<i>he summed up his vision of things pretty well when he declared in 2002 that results showed that his government acted properly since support for independence was lower than it was back in 1995.</i>" In other words, for Chrétien, the end justified the means.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikqrdEb_JU_oTe3CRhkDpQXtSynJRgp_FdgILpbW8YjDNQf2eWR9Z_b5frdz86mDGuG1QYYJXbko1M2n_yL9iyYCn-yXCft01e5rr1qGcWBFwAyh5R-xgCQ-0bsZjKPCaKb4HX0geGqUI/s1600/Chretien_Jutin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikqrdEb_JU_oTe3CRhkDpQXtSynJRgp_FdgILpbW8YjDNQf2eWR9Z_b5frdz86mDGuG1QYYJXbko1M2n_yL9iyYCn-yXCft01e5rr1qGcWBFwAyh5R-xgCQ-0bsZjKPCaKb4HX0geGqUI/s400/Chretien_Jutin.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: 12.8px;">Here's how you screw over Quebec and make money...</i></td></tr>
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What he was defending with polls was the unleashing of a pro-unity campaign of unprecedented scope to increase Canada’s visibility in Quebec and strengthen Quebecers’ identification with Canadian symbols in order to reduce support for sovereignty. This, he hoped, would either abort a third referendum for lack of support or win it, should one ever be held again.</div>
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A central aspect of Chrétien’s Propagandagate was the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsorship_scandal" target="_blank">sponsorship program</a>: the corruption and money laundering which sprang from the channeling of $250 million of public funds to sponsor events in Quebec, including $100 million that went to Liberal-friendly communications firms. Given the scope of this scandal and its <i>raison d’être</i> to prevent another referendum, Parizeau said this should prompt sovereignists to reflect on how it might affect their own approach.</div>
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"<i>One thing is now clear: Through all these years, we followed the laws adopted by René Lévesque on the referendum and the financing of political parties. We obeyed the law and we were had like children. Now we see that the federal side resorted to illegal means and influence peddling. So we must ask ourselves what to do in order to remain respectful of the criteria of honesty we chose for ourselves while no longer being as naive as we were.</i>"</div>
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Based on an article by <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/justifying-the-means-in-the-fight-for-quebec/article18227783/" target="_blank">Rhéal Séguin</a> , The Globe and Mail, May 2005.<br />
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* “<i>In Canada two weeks before the referendum in 1995 Yes were suddenly eight to 10 points ahead. It was more difficult for us because it was a provincial issue and the federal government I led could not get involved. </i><i>But in the last nine days I said <b>to hell with the rules</b> and organised a huge meeting in Montreal in which thousands of people flew in to send a message that we wanted Quebec to stay with us.</i>”<br />
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Jean Chrétien, <a href="https://www.sundaypost.com/news/political-news/former-canadian-prime-minister-issues-warning-to-scots-that-divisive-wounds-may-take-some-time-to-heal/" target="_blank">Sunday Post</a>, September 21 2014</div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-80279556037028502422016-07-01T05:37:00.000-07:002017-05-30T15:45:51.674-07:00Competing Nationalisms<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPHEq9cYJ9O773ous_Z91B4JjUU8BYVnlri3AGj610vxnP1eDv4Gh5b9jW3NqoZy6Z9Qk4MvfeI-idnyOQnYLzUqpQ5GBWwwJlSgF4YRbgn3d-wR7SoIlA5ScMrmq3fJ_Vo4kNnXLnBhk/s1600/equipe-premier-ministre-stephen-harper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPHEq9cYJ9O773ous_Z91B4JjUU8BYVnlri3AGj610vxnP1eDv4Gh5b9jW3NqoZy6Z9Qk4MvfeI-idnyOQnYLzUqpQ5GBWwwJlSgF4YRbgn3d-wR7SoIlA5ScMrmq3fJ_Vo4kNnXLnBhk/s640/equipe-premier-ministre-stephen-harper.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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CHANGES IN QUEBEC DURING THE 1960s<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The transformation of nationalist ideology in Quebec is a well known story. With a new conception of the nation as urban, industrial, and modern that became dominant in the 1960, old constitutional arrangements were no longer sufficient. The Quebec government needed additional powers if it were to meet its responsibilities as the only government in Canada controlled by a francophone majority. By the same token, now that francophones formed a modern society their status within Canada had to be redefined so as to be truly based on equality. Francophones had always believed that their relationship with the rest of the country must be based on equality, but English Canadians clearly did not; in fact few of them were even aware that francophones saw Canada as a compact. </div>
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In short, the 1960s saw growing demands for a formal revision of the Canadian constitution so as both to entrench a dualist vision of Canada and, especially, to secure needed powers for the government of Quebec. </div>
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During the 1960s, there were some serious attempts among political and intellectual leaders to grapple with these issues. In 1963 the Liberal government of Lester B. Pearson created a Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism whose mandate included recommending what steps should be taken to develop the Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding nations. </div>
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As for the status of Quebec itself, during the early 1960s Prime Minister Pearson openly recognized Quebec's distinctiveness with such statements as: </div>
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<i>"While Quebec is a province in the national confederation, it is more than a province because it is the heartland of a people: in a very real sense it is a nation within a nation." </i> </blockquote>
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Moreover, during this period the Pearson government allowed Quebec to exercise a de facto particular status by opting out of a large number of joint federal-provincial cost-shared programmes and even exclusively federal programmes.</div>
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Although there may not have been majority support among English-Canadian political and intellectual elites, the "<i>two nations</i>" thesis and a special status for Quebec were viewed as legitimate positions for discussion, and did have advocates in English Canada.</div>
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CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW CANADIAN COUNTER-IDENTITY AND A NEW CANADIAN NATIONALISM</h3>
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By late 1960s, however, this effort to accommodate the new Quebec nationalism had been replaced with a new strategy: to deny outright Quebec nationalism, in fact to seek to undermine its underlying bases. In effect, the new Quebec identity was to be challenged with a new Canadian identity. The primary architect of this new strategy was, of course, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a Montreal-based intellectual and political activist who became Prime Minister in 1968. </div>
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Within this new Canadian identity, there are at least five discrete components: official bilingualism; a charter of rights; multiculturalism; absolute equality of the provinces and the reinforcement of national institutions. Each of these elements of Canadian political nationality can be directly traced to the fundamental objective of defeating the Quebec independence movement. </div>
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Official Bilingualism</h4>
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Through official bilingualism the Trudeau government sought to establish the myth that the French language was present throughout Canada. Demographically, this manifestly is not the case, and never has been. The use of French has always varied enormously from province to province. Only in Quebec does the majority (80%) use French; the next largest francophone proportion, New Brunswik’s is only 31 %. Moreover, in all provinces but Quebec and New Brunswick assimilation has been very high. As a result, in most provinces the proportion of the population which uses primarily French at home is now below 3%. Nonetheless, official bilingualism gave French the same formal status as English throughout the country, at least for federal purposes, however marginal it might be to day-to-day life.</div>
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On this basis, official bilingualism promised to nullify Quebec's claim to distinctiveness on the basis of language by making all of Canada like Quebec. Canada as a whole, rather than just Quebec, would be the home of francophones. As Pierre Trudeau declared in 1968 if minority language rights are entrenched throughout Canada then the French-Canadian nation would stretch from Maillardville in BC to the Acadian community on the Atlantic Coast:</div>
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<i>"Once you have done that, Quebec cannot say it alone speaks for French Canadians... Mr. Robarts will be speaking for French Canadians in Ontario, Mr. Robichaud will be speaking for French Canadians in New Brunswick, Mr. Thatcher will speak for French Canadians in Saskatchewan, and Mr. Pearson will be speaking for all French Canadians. Nobody will be able to say, "I need more power because I speak for the French-Canadian nation""</i></blockquote>
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The Charter of Rights and Freedoms</h4>
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Reinforcement of language rights was, in turn, the central purpose of the second element of the Trudeau government's pan-Canadian counter identity to Quebec's: an entrenched bill of rights which was incorporated as part of 1982 constitutional revision. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms deals with many other rights than linguistic ones: political, legal, mobility, social, etc... But language rights clearly were its <i>raison d'être</i>. The provision for minority-language education rights is the only section of the Charter not to be subject to the notwithstanding clause.</div>
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Multiculturalism</h4>
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A third element of the Canadian identity is multiculturalism, which the Trudeau government proclaimed in 1971. Canada might have two official languages, but it was to be seen to have an infinite number of cultures. The federal government committed itself to "<i>support all of Canada's cultures</i>". Previously, much of the public discussion had linked bilingualism with biculturalism. It was in these terms that in 1963 the federal government under Lester B. Pearson had established its royal commission to examine Canada's national unity crisis: the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism.</div>
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The Trudeau government's adoption of a policy of multiculturalism often is seen simply as a reponse to the demands of Canadians whose origins were neither British or French. Many of their leaders campaigned against the concept of biculturalism. Contending that it necessarily excluded their components of the population, they argued for a more inclusive term. But the Trudeau government clearly had an additional purpose in rejecting biculturalism for multiculturalism: by recognizing a multitude of cultures multiculturalism could rein in the notion of duality and nullify Quebec's claim to distinctiveness on the basis of culture.</div>
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The Equality of the Provinces</h4>
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The Trudeau government's fierce commitment to the principle of absolute equality among the provinces was clearly rooted in its determination to counter the claims of Quebec nationalists.</div>
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Insisting that "<i>federalism cannot work unless all the provinces are in basically the same relation to the central government</i>", Trudeau declared on one occasion that, "<i>I think particular status for Quebec is the biggest intellectual hoax ever foisted on the people of Quebec and the people of Canada</i>".</div>
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Reinforcement of National Institutions</h4>
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Finally, this insistence on a uniform federalism was coupled with a determination that the federal government play a significant role in the lives of all Canadians (Québécois included), whether it be through programmes of direct transfer payments, such as Family Allowances, or major national undertakings, such as the National Energy Program. From the late 1960s onwards Ottawa was greatly concerned that its actions be "<i>visible</i>" to Canadians.</div>
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CONTRADICTORY IMPACT OF NEW CANADIAN "<i>COUNTER-IDENTITY</i>"</h3>
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Not surprisingly, the new Canadian identity has not fared well in French Quebec, the population for which in fact it had been designed. Not only has the conception of Canada as a bilingual nation with a strong francophone presence from coast to coast lacked credibility in Quebec, but the principle of formal equality between English and French increasingly has appeared as an obstacle to the types of intervention by the Quebec state needed to strengthen the role of French within the province.</div>
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On the other hand, each of these elements of a new "<i>pan-Canadian</i>" identity has had a certain resonance in English Canada. Many English Canadians have embraced them as the basis of their own conception of Canada. In particular, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has become a central element of the dominant notion of Canadian nationhood. Equally entrenched is the principle of absolute equality of the provinces: this was amply demonstrated in the opposition to the Meech Lake Accord.</div>
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Trudeau's success in mobilizing the federal government, and a good number of mainly of English-speaking Canadians, on behalf of this new Canadian identity presents some striking ironies. Whereas the strategy had been designed to transform the way in which Quebec francophones saw Canada, instead its impact has been primarily upon another population: English Canadians. In fact, the new Canadian identity that Trudeau helped to formulate has become the basis for a new Canadian nationalism which enjoys strong support in much of English-speaking Canada, although not in Quebec. Yet, Trudeau had always professed a deep opposition to all forms of nationalism. This was the rationale for his fierce rejection of Quebec nationalism and his decision to enter federal politics in order to combat it.</div>
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Ultimately, this new Canadian nationalism has rendered virtually impossible any constitutional reponse to the new Quebec identity. As a consequence, rather than leading to national integration, federal dissemination of this new "<i>pan-Canadian</i>" identity has deepened the divid between English Canada and Quebec.</div>
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Taken from a <a href="http://www.icps.cat/archivos/WorkingPapers/WP_I_107.pdf?noga=1" target="_blank">text</a> by Professor <a href="http://www.glendon.yorku.ca/gspia/about-us/school-director/biography-kenneth-mcroberts/" target="_blank">Kenneth McRoberts</a>, 1995</div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-70417375633961762192016-06-22T17:51:00.002-07:002020-12-31T19:08:49.158-08:00The Battle of the Park<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOLI8qgglfr0h40hj_HnuaqnkfVKO4jRQOCeNj4MZw5IFXgto5IzKyCNJXBE6cfXou85dFrrESUg1piOqrlTAjBLGb1fGEq2iexjVlgHWA2tU9oy7uSTsOOuWE1-3dE8vbUQrNJostcRY/s1600/vimi.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOLI8qgglfr0h40hj_HnuaqnkfVKO4jRQOCeNj4MZw5IFXgto5IzKyCNJXBE6cfXou85dFrrESUg1piOqrlTAjBLGb1fGEq2iexjVlgHWA2tU9oy7uSTsOOuWE1-3dE8vbUQrNJostcRY/s320/vimi.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The decision to rename a Montreal park from "<i>Vimy</i>" to "<i>Jacques Parizeau</i>" has sparked outrage in certain circles. In fact, former Ontario Premier <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Rae" target="_blank">Bob Rae</a> called the decision "<a href="https://twitter.com/BobRae48/status/743410868247994368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" target="_blank">an insult pure and simple</a>." I doubt that former Quebec Premier <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Landry" target="_blank">Bernard Landry</a> has any opinions on what the people of Toronto should name their parks but Bob Rae feels it is his place to tell us who we should honor. It's easy to <a href="https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/middle-finger-picture-id641091926?k=6&m=641091926&s=170667a&w=0&h=27ijysNipoW8kX8pVA04wcLALSAMR8z4U-0OdwlbZeA=" target="_blank">answer Bob</a> but there are many Montrealers who share his opinion so let's consider the two options and their meaning for Quebec. </div>
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Vimy Ridge</h3>
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The First World War was a pissing contest between empires which turned into a slaughterhouse. The initial influx of enthusiastic volunteers quickly dried up and thoughts turned to conscription. Obviously, Quebecers had no interest in volunteering to get themselves blown up for an empire that clearly held them in contempt. The infamous <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2016/06/the-spirit-of-regulation-17.html" target="_blank">regulation 17</a> severely restricting French instruction in Ontario’s schools had been passed in 1912 and was therefore still fresh in people’s minds. </div>
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Henri Bourassa, founder and then director of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Devoir" target="_blank"><i>Le Devoir</i></a>, actively campaigned against conscription. Naturally, the reticence on the part of Quebecers to go to France in order to inhale mustard gas for King George V aroused the hostility of English Canadians. English newspapers were filled with Quebec bashing (a national sport, then and now). Some Orangemen MPs in the House of Commons called for the arrest of Bourassa and the suppression of his newspaper. </div>
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Despite overwhelming opposition in Quebec the Military Service Act was passed on July 24th 1917. This bill called to arms all able-bodied men, single or widowed, between the ages of 20 to 35 years. Naturally, many men didn't want to go. If you didn't think you were fit for military service, you could make your case before a special tribunal in the hopes of obtaining an exemption. The judges on the tribunals, however, had a very restrictive view of what constituted unfitness. The population of Quebec was shocked by several cases of virtual invalids being sent to the front.</div>
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The Military Service Act was enforce in Quebec by the hiring ‘<i>spotters</i>’, men of dubious reputations and questionable methods. These spotters weren't policemen, but rather former boxers or wrestlers, and sometimes figures from the criminal underground who were paid a bonus for catching "<i>deserters</i>." So even if you did have an exemption, it could be ripped up in front of you and you could then be accused of desertion. Men whose exemption requests were still before the tribunal, were often picked up off the streets and weeks later their parents would find out that their son was sent to Europe.</div>
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These tactics lead to some violent confrontations in Quebec, the most famous of which was an <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/04/quebec-under-war-measure-act-1918.html" target="_blank">uprising in Quebec City</a> in 1918. The federal government responded by invoking the War Measures Act and sending in troops from Ontario and the western provinces. These troops opened fire on the crowd killing five men and injuring dozens. This is what that First World War means to Quebecers.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY0-aq6TXFwmjDa8uw5IRu1c_qOwYfoAAfvcdEw86E77FcVSw2IvdaVTT000mpEWkkgSZPiuY-n3U2NqK7YO0H2DlQ_IzLuv1HABL4y8YnnrkJ706B8JTiX6L1COOLZrPPKqrElej3lO8/s1600/over-the-top.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY0-aq6TXFwmjDa8uw5IRu1c_qOwYfoAAfvcdEw86E77FcVSw2IvdaVTT000mpEWkkgSZPiuY-n3U2NqK7YO0H2DlQ_IzLuv1HABL4y8YnnrkJ706B8JTiX6L1COOLZrPPKqrElej3lO8/s320/over-the-top.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>God save the King</i></td></tr>
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The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vimy_Ridge" target="_blank">battle of Vimy Ridge</a> was just one of the many bloodbaths of that war. The only thing notable about it was the proportion of Canadian vs British troops involved. The Canadians who fought at Vimy Ridge fought for the British Empire. They weren't fighting for our "<i>freedoms</i>" (certainly not for Quebec's freedom). English Canadians see this battle as a defining moment for Canada where the common identity of Canadians was somehow forged on the battlefield. The fact that Quebecers have a very different view of that war, and therefore that battle, is irrelevant to them. In fact, it fills many Canadians with contempt.</div>
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Jacques Parizeau</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtVOnP9jYaTglVqZLuK6eFJbxSKPWA2-uxLnEb6uLP6TqmYrwFVkpWgK1Vz8PYVe1vztaP6gVvHh42GU9S95zv1e2WkNzQrB4Xs79nf_IYc3pVhkTwsyRz3FXCcD7rUjirIkMvIBEEFi4/s1600/politique131.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtVOnP9jYaTglVqZLuK6eFJbxSKPWA2-uxLnEb6uLP6TqmYrwFVkpWgK1Vz8PYVe1vztaP6gVvHh42GU9S95zv1e2WkNzQrB4Xs79nf_IYc3pVhkTwsyRz3FXCcD7rUjirIkMvIBEEFi4/s320/politique131.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>
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Jacques Parizeau was a major player during Quebec's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_Revolution" target="_blank">Quiet Revolution</a>. He was recruited as an economic adviser to Premier Lesage and became part of a group of bright, young civil servants who transformed Quebec, overhauling departments and creating new agencies to modernize the province. He is most associated with the establishment of the <i>Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec</i>, a pension fund manager with a mission to help support Quebec companies.</div>
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But Parizeau also played a role in the nationalization of electricity in Quebec. He helped crunch numbers for then minister of natural resources, René Lévesque. Parizeau was part of the team sent to New York to borrow $300 million to finance the project. Parizeau also helped create Quebec’s own venture-capital fund, the <i>Société générale de financement</i> and was instrumental in setting up the Quebec Pension Plan. </div>
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The creation of institutions like <i>la</i> <i>Société générale de financement</i> and <i>la Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec</i> helped make capital available to francophone entrepreneurs. The goal was to promote the formation of a <i>Québécois </i>business class as a means of reducing the province’s economic dependence on foreign or English Canadian capital. Private companies like Cascades, Bombardier, Lavalin, Provigo, Quebecor, etc benefited from these policies. In 1960 francophones only controlled 47% of Quebec's economy, by 2000 they controlled 67%. That's a substantial achievement by any standard and Jacques Parizeau had a hand in bringing it about.</div>
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Even if he had never entered politics, Jacques Parizeau would still be remembered for the role he played during this important time in Quebec's history. But he did enter politics and he was a true Quebec patriot. His dream was to take Quebec out of the shadow of British North America (i.e. Canada) and have it take its place among the nations of the world. It is a noble dream but it is for this dream that he is so despised by English Canadians.</div>
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Conclusion</h3>
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When Lord Durham was sent to Canada following the <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2016/05/the-birth-of-quebec-nationalism.html" target="_blank">rebellions of 1837-38</a> he said that he found "<i>two nations warring in the bosom of a single state</i>." This appears to be still true today. The name of this park is just the latest battle in this never ending war. A bloodbath for the British Empire is a significant nation-building event for English Canadians but is pretty meaningless to Quebecers, and a man who contributed so much to the advancement of the Quebec nation is held in contempt by English Canadians. </div>
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This would be fine if we were two separate countries but we aren't. We are part of the same country, and it is a country that defines itself as a <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2014/03/quebec-nationalism-and-canadian.html" target="_blank">single nation-state</a>. It is a country that refuses to recognize Quebec as a distinct nation. And so, as long as Quebec remains a province of this country, its national identity, its history, and its language will always be contested. Canadian nationalism is not content to exist only in English Canada. It must always be on display in Quebec as well, and it must always compete with any distinctly <i>Québécois </i>nationalism.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9DKVjKMfa0m6RuXipLRcmBvEOxL8GqN63ivaEV3APgCnk6R_PADBO72JUdn8ITdyty25eMQdaZneUsBstMhr1aati3forRKeuF0ZCAfoJjd-ymP1Mf5FXhaXz8qqqswKKR6lwKCBlXvc/s1600/Unity2.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9DKVjKMfa0m6RuXipLRcmBvEOxL8GqN63ivaEV3APgCnk6R_PADBO72JUdn8ITdyty25eMQdaZneUsBstMhr1aati3forRKeuF0ZCAfoJjd-ymP1Mf5FXhaXz8qqqswKKR6lwKCBlXvc/s400/Unity2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Correction</b>:<br />He fought to liberate his nation<br />They fought for the British Empire</i></td></tr>
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This aggressive Canadian nationalism stems from Canada's colonial roots. Canada is essentially a <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2013/02/whats-wrong-with-canadian-empire.html" target="_blank">relic of the British Empire</a> and in many ways its imperialist attitudes towards Quebec persist to this day. A relationship of equals has never existed between our two nations. It's always been one of domination. This park incident is just another manifestation of this domineering attitude. English Canada will tell us who we should be honoring and who we shouldn't. </div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-50765486397566025822016-06-06T18:06:00.000-07:002016-06-06T19:50:58.931-07:00The Spirit of Regulation 17<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSVDCfEOxmBUjMYbu1fnRxRuc2pN-xYWD8bj_zQESqXT85yOhoq4xFXMH-AtU6ibzVz2r7_w2GTq4XiFqA3IWsAnK2df8RueukO5ko6I8tLmXOCFQAzzKjAgQfU4Lpms4RO3VYAabtJTM/s1600/KCB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSVDCfEOxmBUjMYbu1fnRxRuc2pN-xYWD8bj_zQESqXT85yOhoq4xFXMH-AtU6ibzVz2r7_w2GTq4XiFqA3IWsAnK2df8RueukO5ko6I8tLmXOCFQAzzKjAgQfU4Lpms4RO3VYAabtJTM/s320/KCB.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19520626&id=LTErAAAAIBAJ&sjid=bJkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=7013,3936545&hl=fr" target="_blank">Keep Canada British</a></td></tr>
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On the 22nd of February, Kathleen Wynne, the Premier of Ontario, offered her province’s <a href="http://www.catholicregister.org/item/21821-ontario-sorry-for-attempt-to-crush-french-culture" target="_blank">apologies for the implementation of Regulation 17</a>. This regulation was imposed on the French-Canadians of that province in 1912. It outlawed bilingual education in Ontario, making English the only language of instruction allowed by law. In an <a href="http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/canada/464195/l-ontario-a-change-pour-le-mieux" target="_blank">article</a> published in <i>Le Devoir</i> on the 29th of February, a professor from the University of Ottawa, Gilles Levasseur, maintained that the main intent of that regulation was to improve the quality of English instruction in primary schools. The measure caused much prejudice, but thanks to a courageous gradualism, many wrongs were righted.</div>
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But what was the spirit of this regulation? Was it simply a desire to improve the quality of English instruction? Not exactly! In the context of the times, Regulation 17 did not intend to improve the lot of the minority. Just the opposite! The Anglo-Saxons of the province simply took advantage of their majority in the legislature to declare war on what they called the French-Canadian “<i>threat</i>”. Their objective was not to educate, but to denationalize the French-Canadians of the province, and indirectly, to intimidate the others – i.e. those from Quebec – who had the bad idea of moving to Ontario. After all, the slogans of the time were things like <i>Hands off Ontario! Keep Canada British!</i> The message couldn’t be clearer [1].</div>
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The goal was therefore to prevent northern Ontario from falling into the hands of the French-Canadians. At the time, the agricultural potential was estimated at 16 million arable acres, which constituted a zone of considerable potential expansion. The province tried to entice and to recruit colonists from Scandinavian countries, but to no avail. As for the Anglophones of the province, they were already starting to leave their lands for the city and jobs in industry. So, did they have to resign themselves to leave such rich lands undeveloped? It would seem so [2].</div>
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As for the French-Canadians, they had been familiar with those territories for more than two centuries, and they had amply demonstrated their ability to organize and settle new lands. But the social Darwinian theories of the time, which were increasingly popular since the 1880’s, made them into a threat against racial supremacy in the province. People no longer spoke about the French-Canadian problem, but rather of the French-Canadian “<i>threat</i>”. A solution had to be found for the “<i>French-Canadianism</i>” that was spreading in the province [3].</div>
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In 1912, Regulation 17 constituted an adequate solution for the denationalization of those who were already established, but what good was it if nothing was done against the arrival of new French-Canadians. The solution would come in 1918.</div>
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Since Confederation, Ontario got rich from the sale of Crown lands and the granting of forestry rights. But there was still a lot of land left, especially in the North. Since French-Canadians were the only takers, a decision had to be made: should the path be left open for them, or should it be shut down? Public opinion, alarmed by the danger, wanted a vigorous response. It wasn’t long in coming. It would arrive in January of 1918. So, what was it?</div>
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The dragon breaks its chains</h3>
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The ministry of lands and forests would continue to sell Crown lands to French-Canadians, but a clause would be added to the contract. Henceforth, the buyer agreed to obey, expressly and without reservation, all “<i>laws, statutes, rules and regulations of every character whatsoever</i>” of the province, under penalty of forfeiture of all real estate which would revert back to the Crown [4]. The attorney general would act on his own discretion without interference from the courts. In addition, no compensation would be given for payments already made, improvements to the terrain, or the construction of a house or buildings.</div>
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By 1918, the laws and regulations of Ontario already numbered in the thousands. A buyer exposed himself to ruin over the most minor of infractions. For instance, if he were caught with one broken headlight, or an expired fishing permit, he risked having his land confiscated, along with his house and other buildings. Can one imaging anything more violent and uncivilized? Modern history doesn’t give very many examples, except perhaps the confiscation of Jewish property during the Second World War.</div>
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In the face of such a denial of rights and common sense, one would have expected cries of indignation from the public and the press of Ontario, but nothing of the kind happened! The few newspapers that talked about the issue tried to justify its necessity [5]. The policy of provincialization of French-Canadians, i.e. keep them from leaving Quebec, had to be supported.</div>
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From a legal point of view, the measure was justified by a frankly imperialist interpretation of the constitution. Thus, when the French-Canadians accepted to submit to the Constitution of 1867, they also renounced to “<i>all their political rights and claims based on the past</i>”. It was as if French-Canadians had no rights prior to 1867. From now on, their only rights are those that appear expressly, in black and white, in the 1867 bill. If it wasn’t in there, it didn’t exist! It was that simple [6].</div>
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Interpreted that way, the Constitution of 1867 became a new capitulation: the French-Canadians were subject to the proposed contract, and handed over the keys of the country to their new masters. In addition, they agreed not to have any ambitions outside their province. They were provincialized: Hands off Canada! As George Brown put it as he left the Quebec Conference of the 27 of October 1864: <i>“French-Canadianism entirely extinguished!”</i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Their fate within Confederation was therefore
sealed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">We shouldn’t be too surprised; the judicial spirit of English Canada is strong. One only has to read the ruling in the <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/12/how-west-was-won.html" target="_blank">Caron-Boutet</a> case by the Supreme Court on November 20 2015, to realize that the judicial spirit of 1918 crossed the generations and that it still dominates us like the sword of Damocles above our heads.</span></div>
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By <a href="http://vigile.quebec/L-esprit-du-Reglement-17" target="_blank">Christian Néron</a>, member of the Quebec Bar association, constitutionalist and historian, March 10th 2016.</div>
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<b>References:</b></div>
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Christian Néron, <a href="http://notrehistoire.net/textes_histoire_droit/placard.pdf" target="_blank">Dans le placard des donneurs de leçons</a><br />
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Moore" target="_blank">William H. Moore</a>, <a href="https://archive.org/stream/clashstudyinnati00mooruoft#page/n9/mode/2up" target="_blank">The Clash! A Study in nationalities</a>, J. M. Dent and Sons, London, Ontarion, 1918.</div>
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Excerpts from <a href="https://archive.org/stream/clashstudyinnati00mooruoft#page/216/mode/2up" target="_blank">The Clash! A Study in nationalities</a> by William H. Moore, 1918:</div>
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[1] Page 217</div>
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"<i>In Ontario it is pointed out that if we were to allow the French-Canadians to extend and flood over Northern Ontario, we should some day have to fight for the predominance of Anglo-Saxonism. Within the past few months hundreds of thousands of chauvinists' dollars were devoted to publicly advertising the imminence of the peril which threatens Anglo-Saxonism...</i>"</div>
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[2] Page 227</div>
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"<i>...while in Ontario, as we have seen, English-speaking farmers, so far from being willing to replace French-Canadian farmers, are by thousands giving up their land sometimes not waiting for a purchaser and moving to city and town. But there were the King's lands in New Ontario. Over these English-speaking Canadians, possessing a majority in the Provincial Legislature, were trustees. The Provincial machinery could be used to prevent French-speaking subjects of the King from preserving their lingual interests in this part of Canada. What did it matter that Canada's crying need was food, and more food? What did it matter that the Mother Country had cabled: Speed up farm production? What did it matter that Ontario had for many years vainly endeavoured to find colonists for these fertile, unplowed lands?</i>"</div>
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[3] Page 223</div>
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"<i>Mr. Foy was then a Minister of the Crown in Ontario, the Minister responsible for Ontario's law, and his statement must have been accepted by English-Canadians as the government's opinion that the French-Canadians had already too many rights; and by French-Canadians as equally authoritative that the government was in reality preparing for the complete destruction of the French language in Ontario.</i>"</div>
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[4] Page 228</div>
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"<i>All these considerations were submerged in the resolve that the King's subjects who spoke French and attended mass, should not secure a further footing on the King's lands in Ontario. Plainly the situation was extraordinary and could be met only by extraordinary measures. But the government was not abashed; it went the full distance and required applicants for the King's lands to sign papers that they would obey unreservedly "all Provincial laws, statutes, rules, and regulations, of every character whatsoever," on the understanding that failure to comply with any of these rules and regulations should "entail forfeiture without compensation" of "all rights and of any moneys paid on account of purchase of the land." A moment's reflection will serve to show the far-reaching importance of such action. Will the reader think for a moment of the vast amount of "Provincial laws, statutes, rules and regulations of every character whatsoever that may be in force from time to time," and say that there is not somewhere in his hidden past particularly if he own an automobile a blemish which stands for a violation of law or regulation that would under this regulation have put his home in jeopardy? </i></div>
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<i>That the government is aiming at violation of the school laws, and not its veterinary or automobile regulations, affects the principle only to make it worse. There is nothing that more readily saps respect for law than the existence of government regulations which it is not intended to enforce. That it may be intended to enforce the regulation only against French-Canadian violation of school regulations and not against that of English-Canadians and statements to this effect are being freely made from the hustings affects the principle only to make it more vicious. The foundation of loyalty is justice. The State expecting equal loyalty from all, and now demanding equal military service from all, ought to give justice equally to all.</i>"</div>
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[5] Page 229</div>
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"<i>Men are being forced to swear away their rights to a common participation in the protection accorded property in the land of Ontario and yet the press to which we might naturally have looked for a defence of justice, raises no outcry at its destruction. It is not the properties of its owners, nor the properties of its readers and advertisers that are being deprived of the protection of the Courts. So far from condemning Ontario's action, the English press of the Province has defended it as a fitting punishment upon men and women who resolutely struggle for the preservation of their fathers' tongue in a land discovered and explored and made safe for civilisation by their fathers.</i>"</div>
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[6] Page 219</div>
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"<i>On behalf of the Ontario Government, it is contended that there is constitutional justification for cancelling any privileges which may have been previously allowed ; which may have been implied in the Quebec Act. Granting that at the time of the Conquest the French-Canadians were guaranteed the preservation of their religious faith, and that then schools were universally considered as a matter of religion (exclusively so in Canada) granting that the French-Canadians, were for many years, continued in the free use of their language, even after Confederation (after the Ottawa River had become a boundary line) it is pointed out that their special lingual rights had ceased to be revealed by tacit and unwritten agreement after they had been put down in black and white in the British North America Act. It is therefore argued that the Canadian Constitution of 1867 must be regarded as superseding all pre-existing political arrangements; hence, by accepting the document, the French-Canadians have forfeited all right of appeal to earlier promises and guarantees.</i>"</div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-59300634155135053732016-05-19T17:31:00.004-07:002016-05-21T08:52:23.083-07:00The Birth of Quebec Nationalism<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPo81u36HPuzRc5R7FQyjfhvN9DmPzwau_i2N9mysFMwb68lgVVZDVXab7NZnQfvxtr90UEzDB7tOzubae6pkDPT3YzA2gLhom_cnDUqWjN7FMUpOUf_NMLFKzkm7kGKPT9GwtCOo14MQ/s1600/patriote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPo81u36HPuzRc5R7FQyjfhvN9DmPzwau_i2N9mysFMwb68lgVVZDVXab7NZnQfvxtr90UEzDB7tOzubae6pkDPT3YzA2gLhom_cnDUqWjN7FMUpOUf_NMLFKzkm7kGKPT9GwtCOo14MQ/s320/patriote.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">The early 19th century was marked by the birth of French Canadian </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 20.79px;">[1]</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;"> nationalist sentiment. This nationalism was akin to national liberation movements worldwide, notably in Europe and South America. Between 1804 and 1830, Serbia, Greece, Belgium, Brazil, Bolivia, and Uruguay won their independence. In Lower Canada, this movement took the form of parliamentary fights. The years 1805 to 1810 were particularly noteworthy in this regard. Francophone Legislative Assembly members were a homogenous bloc, with their own party—</span><em style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Le Parti canadien</em><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">—and their own newspaper—</span><em style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Le Canadien</em><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">, started in 1806. Up until 1820, executive power was successively wielded by </span>governors general<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;"> Carleton (lord Dorchester), Prescott, Craig, Prevost, and Sherbrooke. They wavered between confronting francophones and seeking to appease the House of Assembly. For example, when he was displeased with the elections, Governor James Henry Craig dissolved the Assembly and seized </span><em style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Le Canadien</em><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">. He was exasperated that francophones talked constantly of the "<i>Canadian nation</i>" and its freedoms: "<i>They seem to want to be considered a separate nation. They are constantly going on about </i></span><em style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">la nation canadienne</em></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px;"><i>.</i>" In 1810, Craig described the Canadians as follows:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.0018px;">I mean that in language, religion, attachment, and customs, [this people] is completely French, it has no other tie or attachment to us than a shared government; and that it in fact holds us in mistrust […], feels hatred […]. The dividing line between us is complete.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px;">Ross Cuthbert (1776–1861), the long-time anglophone member for Warwick (Lower Canada) and a member of the Executive Council, wrote an account of the Canadians' French character in 1809:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #666666; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.0018px;">A stranger travelling across the province without entering the cities would be persuaded he was visiting a part of France. The language, manners, every symbol, from vane to clog, join together to lead him astray. […] Should he enter a house, French politeness, French dress, French apparel will strike the eye</span><span style="color: #666666; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.0018px;">. Should one of the daughters of the house decide to sing, he'll likely hear the lovely ballad </span><em style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sur les bords de la Seine</em><span style="color: #666666; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.0018px;">, or some other song that transports him to a beautiful valley of Old France. Among the portraits of saints in the guest room he will also notice that of Napoleon. In short, he could not imagine he had crossed the borders of the British Empire.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px;">But this prominent Anglican citizen of Lower Canada saw the situation as an anachronism that would disappear "<i>in the effervescence of a British solvent.</i>" On June 6, 1823, Lower Canada Chief Justice James Stuart (1780–1853), who was also a member of the Executive Council and the member for William Henry, submitted a brief on a draft Union that had this to say about the refusal by Canadians to assimilate:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #666666; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.0018px;">Lower Canada is mostly inhabited by what one could call a foreign people, despite the fact sixty years have passed since the Conquest. This population has made no progress towards assimilation with its fellow British citizens, in language, manner, habit, or sentiment. It continues, with a few, rare exceptions, to be as perfectly French as when brought under British dominion. The main cause of this adherence to national particularities and prejudices is certainly the impolitic concession that was made to it, of a code of foreign laws in a foreign tongue.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">In its May 21, 1831 issue </span><em style="border: 0px; color: #222222; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Le Canadien</em><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;"> wrote,</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #666666; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.0018px;">There is not to our knowledge a French people in this province, but a Canadian people, a religious and moral people, a people at all times loyal and freedom-loving, and capable of delighting therein; this people is neither French nor English, Scottish, Irish, or Yankee, it is Canadian.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">Throughout this period, anglophones did not consider themselves "<i>Canadians</i>." They proudly called themselves </span><em style="border: 0px; color: #222222; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Britons</em><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">—meaning </span><em style="border: 0px; color: #222222; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">English</em><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">—and bore loyalty only to the British nation, not the "<i>Canadian nation.</i>" The term "<i>Canadians</i>" was only used condescendingly to refer to French-speaking </span><em style="border: 0px; color: #222222; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Canadiens</em><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">. This troubled era was marked by conflict between the </span>governor general<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">, backed by English merchants, and the mainly francophone parliament: religious quarrels, threats of assimilation, parliamentary crises, the battle over "<i>subsidies</i>," immigration troubles, the draft political union, and more. </span></span></div>
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The Policy of Anglicization</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">In 1810, Governor </span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">James Henry Craig</span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;"> sent a dispatch to the British government proposing a series of measures he believed would restore harmony to Lower Canada. These measures included "<i>the need to anglicize the province,</i>" "<i>resort to heavy American immigration to submerge the French Canadians,</i>" the requirement to own "<i>substantial land holdings</i>" to be eligible for the Assembly, and especially "<i>the union of Upper and Lower Canada for a more certain and prompt anglicization.</i>" Below is an extract of Governor Craig's dispatch: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For many years, English representatives have scarcely made up a quarter of the total Assembly, and today out of fifty members representing Lower Canada, only ten are English. One could posit that this branch of government is entirely in the hands of illiterate peasants under the direction of several of their fellow countrymen whose personal importance, in contrast to the interests of the country in general, depends on the continuation of the current depraved system. [...] </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The petitioners of Your Majesty cannot omit to note the excessive scope of political rights that have been granted to this population to the detriment of its fellow British subjects; and these political rights, at a time when the population feels its strength growing, have already given birth in the imagination of many to the dream of a distinct nation called the "Canadian nation." [...] </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The French inhabitants of Lower Canada, today distanced from their fellow subjects by their particularities and national prejudices, and ardently aiming to become, through the current state of affairs, a distinct people, would be gradually assimilated into the British population and with it merge into a people of British character and sentiment.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">For </span>Governor<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;"> Craig, it was unthinkable for the Assembly to have only 10 anglophone members out of 50 and that they be "<i>in the hands of illiterate peasants under the direction of several of their fellow countrymen</i>." There was already talk at the time of a "<i>distinct nation</i>" and "<i>distinct people</i>," an idea that would resurface 200 years later in the 1990s with the expression "<i>distinct society</i>." In 1836, a movement even pushed for partitioning Montréal Island and the county of Vaudreuil (on the western border near Ontario) to reattach them to English Upper Canada. The outcry from anglophone Townshippers and the City of Québec put a stop to the movement. </span></span></div>
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Anglophone and Francophone Newspapers</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Significantly, newspapers had been bilingual since the start of the British regime. The first newspaper, which was founded in June 1764, was <em style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">La Gazette de Québec/The Québec Gazette</em>. Of the nine papers published between 1764 and 1806, eight were bilingual, the only exception being <em style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">La Gazette littéraire</em> launched in 1778 by Fleury Mesplet (1734–1794). Quite often, the English text came first, followed by a French translation, or else the English text ran in the traditionally better left column, with the French on the right. Whatever the case, most subjects were culled from foreign newspapers, nearly all British or American.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18.0018px;">Bilingualism in newspapers continued until the early 19th century. Several years later (1808), when </span><em style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Le Canadien</em><span style="line-height: 18.0018px;"> devoted 85% of its space to the election, the British and the Catholic clergy reacted with condemnation. On December 4, 1809, the Bishop of Québec, Mgr. Joseph-Octave Plessis, violently attacked </span><em style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Le Canadien</em><span style="line-height: 18.0018px;"> for "<i>ruining all the principles of subordination and inflaming the province</i>." Exasperated, Governor James Henry Craig ordered the seizure of </span><em style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Le </em><em style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Canadien</em><span style="line-height: 18.0018px;">'s presses in 1810 and the arrest of its senior editors. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">
Political Parties</span></h2>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">In politics, francophone members became increasingly aggressive and formed Le Parti canadien, while anglophones gathered in the Tory Party. Each group had its own newspaper: </span><em style="border: 0px; color: #222222; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Le Canadien</em><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;"> (Parti canadien) and the </span><em style="border: 0px; color: #222222; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Québec Mercury</em><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;"> (Tory Party), which vied with each other. Antagonism grew between francophones and anglophones, and debates turned poisonous. In 1805, the ruling British business bourgeoisie, which opposed political concessions for French Canadians, founded a militant newspaper, the </span><em style="border: 0px; color: #222222; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Québec Daily Mirror</em><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">. On October 27, 1806, the Québec Mercury attacked Canadians in these terms:</span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.0018px;">This province is already much too French for an English colony. To defrancize it as much as possible, if I may use this expression, should be our primary goal. </span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><em style="border: 0px; color: #222222; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Montréal Gazette</em><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;"> put forward equally extremist views in 1836: "<i>The time for indecision has passed. The British must either crush their oppressors or meekly accept the yoke that has been prepared for them." </i>Anglophones feared falling under the supremacy of a<i> "French republic.</i>" They called for the union of the two Canadas and spoke openly of assimilation, while Canadians denounced favouritism, the governor's corruption and arbitrariness (the "<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_Clique" target="_blank">Chateau Clique</a></i>"), and anglophone control of the councils. Francophones wanted an elected Legislative Council, oversight of government spending, and the maintenance of the seigniorial system and even threatened to join the U.S. Year after year, the abuse continued and even grew worse, profiting a group of the governor's personal friends. In 1827, a petition with 87,000 names denounced the profiteers known as the "<i>Chateau Clique</i>." The Gosford-Gipps-Grey Commission had predicted in 1837 that British settlers "<i>would never consent without armed struggle to the establishment of what they see as a French republic in Canada.</i>" T. Fred. Elliott, secretary of the Gosford-Gipps-Grey Commission, seems to have clearly understood the issue of Lower Canadian duality:</span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.0018px;">French Canadians could not have failed to notice that the English have seized all the riches and all the power in each country where they have set foot. In all parts of the world, civilized or savage, the English have shown, whether as British subjects in the East or as settlers in revolt on this continent, the same inability to mix with others, the same need to predominate. One must admit that this could not be an agreeable thought for the gentle and easy-going race that finds itself caught in the midst of growing institutions and nations of English origin.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For him, the solution was to placate French Canadians and train them to govern themselves with the help of their fellow British citizens. But Elliott was only speaking personally and had little authority as secretary. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Through several strong-arm tactics, Governor Craig succeeded in arbitrarily dissolving certain Houses of Assembly. Francophones and anglophones bunkered down for several years in hardened conflict that totally paralyzed the state. In 1834, French Canadian MPs went to London to present "<i><a href="http://english.republiquelibre.org/The_Ninety-Two_Resolutions_of_the_Legislative_Assembly_of_Lower_Canada" target="_blank">92 resolutions</a></i>" designed to update the 1791 Constitution. They called for an elected Legislative Assembly and greater political powers (responsible government and tax administration). Mired in its domestic problems, the British government took its time. In the meantime, as a pressure tactic, the House of Assembly refused to vote on the budget until London accepted its demands. The official response came three years later in May 1837. The British government rejected the proposals of the <i>Parti canadien</i> (which had become the <i>Parti patriote</i>) and flatly refused the House of Lower Canada's requests.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px;">As though to add fuel to the fire, officials authorized the colonial government to dispense with the Assembly's consent for the use of public funds, cemented the privileges of anglophone capitalists, and raised the spectre of uniting the two Canadas. These measures fired up the revolt movement and forced the Patriots' leader Louis-Joseph Papineau to choose between submission and revolt. Once Papineau started to galvanize a population fed up with the economic crisis, inflation, unemployment, cholera epidemics, poor harvests, and political rot, the conflict was ripe for an armed confrontation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqN7l0EgxytsBuDaIScrHcRU34vGhUW57WxukTnT0VC_b6uBVvzC6s33xSw4jLr45k5FYJq3GYROWyD0I1S_JXKyz_OwpmS7DoGGoS7FWpMXmtQpAIJwlBrSlPBDr7-JmLtk58rGQYw4U/s1600/Sait-Eustache.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqN7l0EgxytsBuDaIScrHcRU34vGhUW57WxukTnT0VC_b6uBVvzC6s33xSw4jLr45k5FYJq3GYROWyD0I1S_JXKyz_OwpmS7DoGGoS7FWpMXmtQpAIJwlBrSlPBDr7-JmLtk58rGQYw4U/s400/Sait-Eustache.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The battle of Saint-Eustache</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px;">The armed revolt of the Patriots broke out in fall 1837. They engaged the British army in combat near Montreal and in Saint-Denis, Saint-Charles, and Saint-Eustache. British officials soon intervened and quickly crushed the rebellion, spreading terror by looting and burning several villages, while the Catholic clergy preached loyalty, obedience, and resignation. The following pastoral letter of October 24, 1837, by then Bishop of Montréal Mgr. Jean-Jacques Lartigue is telling in this regard:</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #666666; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.0018px;">Everybody, said Saint Paul to the Romans, shall be subject to the powers of God. And it is He who has established all those in existence. Therefore, he who opposes these powers disobeys God's order. And those who disobey earn damnation for themselves. The prince is God's minister to do good. And since it is not in vain that he wears the gladius, he is also His minister to punish evil. You must therefore obey him not only through fear of punishment, but also as a duty of conscience. [...] And you must see at present that we cannot, without neglecting our duties and placing our own salvation in peril, omit to purge your conscience of such a slippery step.</span> </span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px;">However, some historians believe that the 1837 Patriots' Rebellion was staged by Montréal loyalists, who provoked the Patriots to be able to accuse them of treason and thereby fight them legitimately. In any case, this is what Patriot militant Dr. Edmund B. O'Callaghan believed, who compared the situation in Lower Canada to that of his native Ireland:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #666666; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.0018px;">They wanted, as in Castlereagh in Ireland, to incite the people to violence, then abolish their constitutional rights. In the history of the union of Ireland with England, you will retrace as in a mirror the 1836–1837 plot against Canadian liberty.</span> </span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.0018px;">For O'Callaghan, the government had knowingly armed volunteers and issued arbitrary orders to inflame the population and then cry rebellion once people were up in arms. During the 1837–1838 rebellion, between 200 and 300 Patriots died. Some 9,000 people participated in the uprising in Lower Canada.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The failure of the 1837–1838 rebellion was key to the development of francophone society in Lower Canada. Bitterly disappointed, French Canadians turned inwards and resigned themselves to their fate. For over a century, they took refuge in obedience, religion, agriculture, and conservatism. There was no Lower Canada Assembly for the next four years, as the main political figures were all in exile. The Catholic clergy filled the political vacuum. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.0018px;">Dispatched urgently by London, John George Lambton (Lord Durham) arrived in Quebec City with full authority to investigate and <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/05/the-blind-spot-in-our-history.html" target="_blank">report</a> on the situation in Canada.</span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 20.79px;">[1]</span><i> The name of our culture and of the people who belong to it was, since the original forging of our identity, <b>Canadien. </b>That is what the Native Peoples called us and it is what the French called us, but that name was essentially hijacked by another nation and so we eventually became known as <b>French-Canadians.</b> After the long held dream of a truly <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2014/03/quebec-nationalism-and-canadian.html" target="_blank">bi-national Canada</a> died, we became <b>Québécois </b>or <b>Quebecers </b>in English.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
From the <a href="https://slmc.uottawa.ca/?q=nationalist_ideology_lower" target="_blank">Site for Language Management in Canada</a> (University of Ottawa)<br />
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-40751543223615338732016-04-22T19:07:00.000-07:002016-04-22T19:44:28.612-07:00The Acadians take the Royal tour<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Minister of Canadian Heritage, Mélanie Joly, who encouraged us to "<i>learn more about John A. Macdonald's life and <a href="http://activehistory.ca/2015/01/john-a-macdonalds-aryan-canada-aboriginal-genocide-and-chinese-exclusion" target="_blank">vision for a country that values diversity, democracy and freedom</a></i>", has recently said that<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFVjooUkgEA" target="_blank"> "<i>being a constitutional monarchy was a decision that we made</i></a><i>.</i>" When exactly did we make that decision? I think it was a decision that was forced upon us and we eventually acquiesced to it to some degree. But nonetheless, the vast majority of Quebecers still reject monarchy despite the endless supply of colonised little buffoons like <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mariobeaulieu101/videos/820784738066274/" target="_blank">Mélanie</a>.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
In any case, let's mark the Queen's 90th birthday by reminiscing a little about the time that the Acadians "<i>made the decision</i>" to accept the British monarchy. In 2002, a group of seven Acadian historians decided to set the record straight after centuries of historical whitewash and the result was called the <i><a href="http://vigile.net/IMG/pdf/24-signataires_manif_beaubassin_1_.pdf" target="_blank">Beaubassin Manifesto</a>. </i>Here it is...</div>
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<h3>
THE BEAUBASSIN MANIFESTO</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRcNlidSptMgzTMy8cfNvcY2tq6xq2lD7YptWLzyt7ud_VKHw19bP5tLN3OTXBaEUax7IVKETVc14S2kesIQ50DXZJJ2exwrTJH4-VIBGUdEH4AzyRZGj07r27SygzBwdBX6zaFkyEEFU/s1600/Deportation_Grand-Pr%25C3%25A9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRcNlidSptMgzTMy8cfNvcY2tq6xq2lD7YptWLzyt7ud_VKHw19bP5tLN3OTXBaEUax7IVKETVc14S2kesIQ50DXZJJ2exwrTJH4-VIBGUdEH4AzyRZGj07r27SygzBwdBX6zaFkyEEFU/s400/Deportation_Grand-Pr%25C3%25A9.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grand-Pré: Round them up and ship them out</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>We, Acadians, are the survivors of genocide.</b></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Genocide is defined as “<i>the systematic destruction of a people or an ethnic group</i>”; this definition corresponds perfectly to the events of 1755, as British intentions at the time were well and truly to destroy a people and its culture. The Acadians were chased, dispossessed, starved and killed; their crops and homes were burned and their cattle killed or stolen. Furthermore, in order to insure the disappearance of the Acadians as a people, the British took pains to systematically divide them into small groups so as to force them to disperse in the thirteen Anglo-American colonies, while denying them the right to move. The British thus forced the disintegration of a society based on the family and their assimilation into the Anglophone colonies on the continent. <b>In light of these facts, it is clear that the British authorities were guilty of genocide.</b></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Half of our people lost their lives as a result, either directly or indirectly, of this exile imposed by the British</b>. Consequently, on an estimated population of 15000 to 18000 people, from 7500 to 9000 people died, mostly the weak such as children. Several factors explain this high mortality rate: the crowded conditions onboard ships (where food and water were insufficient), the epidemics caused by the unhygienic conditions of the voyage, the cold-blooded murder of many Acadians, as well as the order given by Lawrence [1] to starve out the Acadians hiding in the woods. The loss for our ancestors was therefore immense: they were dispossessed of their fertile lands, of their goods and possessions and they had to suffer the dislocation of their society, the disintegration of their culture, along with the enormous loss of life. The British used the banal term of “<i>deportation</i>” to describe this crime. We have enabled this distortion by using our own expression of “<i>Grand Dérangement</i>” (Great Disruption) so as to attenuate our tragedy.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>On their side, the victors try to rewrite their own history in an attempt to justify themselves in the eyes of future generations</b>. They also try to constrain us, the descendants of their victims, to accept this revisionist history by threatening those who would tell the truth with major sanctions. [2] This threat of sanctions was sufficient to create a silence amongst our people that has lasted for over 250 years. Right up to the present day, our schools offer a very limited view of our history, and this, out of “<i>respect</i>” towards the conquering people. Thus, we don’t speak of the horrors of “<i>genocide</i>” but of a “deportation.” Only the most audacious books speak of an “<i>ethnic cleansing</i>.”</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>What are the effects of these lies on the evolution of our people? For us, the signatories, the consequence is obvious: we have lost touch with our history prior to 1755</b>, that is, we have been forced to deny collectively the tragic elements of the period from 1755 to 1763. We assert that the Acadian people are suffering from a kind of collective amnesia: we do not celebrate our heroes; we do not commemorate the important achievements of the Acadian people during its colonial period. We don’t insist either on the success of the alliance and friendship between the Mi’kmaq and Acadian peoples, a friendship that survived all of the trials of the conquests and was broken only by the murderous acts of the British authorities. The Mi’kmaqs and the Acadians built a culture from the symbiosis between the two peoples, a culture that existed outside of the monarchist tradition and in an egalitarian context.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The reality of Acadia prior of 1755 has unfortunately been replaced by the myth of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangeline" target="_blank">Évangéline</a></b>. This fictitious character, created by Longfellow, reinforced the image of a conquered people. Évangéline is not history, but a story depicting a servile and victimized people, and it’s this image that we cultivate to this day. How else do you explain that the only Acadian university carries the name of one of those responsible for the Deportation with much of the blood on his hands, namely Robert Monckton? Why isn’t there a monument commemorating the 7500 to 9000 dead of the Deportation? These facts can only be explained by the collective amnesia of the Acadian people.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>By not recognizing the importance of the Deportation and its consequences, we cannot properly appropriate our people’s history</b>. Such a consciousness of our history is essential, because without it, it’s impossible for us to live our present lives and anticipate our future. The collective memory of the Acadian people can only be recovered if Acadians become intimately aware of the horrors of the events that bloodied the Acadian coasts. The loss suffered by our ancestors was immense: they were dispossessed of their fertile lands, of their goods and possessions and had to suffer the dislocation of their society, the disintegration of their culture, as well as enormous loss of life.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>In order to justify their actions, the British authorities went as far as to pretend that the Acadians refused to swear allegiance to the Crown</b>. Documents from the period demonstrate that in fact it was only a pretext for the Deportation. For one, the Acadian people already swore allegiance. For another, Lawrence already clearly indicated his desire to deport the Acadians. In a letter dated August 9th 1755, he affirms: “<b><i>I will propose to them the Oath of Allegiance a last time. If they refuse, we will have in that refusal a pretext for the expulsion. If they accept, I will refuse them the Oath, by applying to them the decree which prohibits from taking the Oath all persons who have once refused to take it. IN BOTH CASES I SHALL DEPORT THEM</i></b><i>”</i>.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The reasons explaining the Deportation are multiple and complex. But two motives are clearly invoked by the British to justify the Deportation. First of all, Lawrence’s correspondence explicitly demonstrates that the Deportation was seen as a measure against a people that the British perceived as a dangerous threat to the security of the territory of Nova-Scotia, due to the alliance of the Acadian people with the Mi’kmaqs, its proximity with Canada and its close ties with France. <b>Another British motive for the deportation of the Acadian people was the illegal appropriation of our ancestors’ fertile lands</b>: “<i>if we succeed in expulsing them, such an exploit would be the greatest that the English accomplished in America, for all will say that in the part of this province occupied by the French are the richest lands in the world. We can then put in their place good English farmers, and we shall soon see an abundance of agricultural products in that province.</i>”[3]</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
But, what entitles us to seek justice is that the Deportation was even illegal according to British law. It is undeniable that the Deportation was illegal for the following reasons:</div>
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<ol>
<li>In 1755, the Acadians were British subjects. In peace time, the law stipulate that their rights cannot be infringed upon.</li>
<li>Still with respect to British law, the theft of Acadian lands constitutes an illegal act.</li>
<li>As a result of Lawrence’s orders, many Acadians suffered significant damages and others were even executed.[4]</li>
<li>Following the armed rebellion of a dozen Acadians, the British decided to punish an entire innocent people, women and children included, thereby turning all Acadians into a nation of rebels. However, according to the law of the time, only those found guilty of a crime should be punished for that crime.</li>
</ol>
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<div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">[1] “</span><i style="text-align: justify;">If softer methods do not work then you shall have recourse to more energetic methods to embark them and to deny to those who flee any possibility of shelter, by burning their homes and by destroying anything in the land that might provide them sustenance (…)</i><span style="text-align: justify;">” Letter from Lawrence to Winslow, August 1755.</span></div>
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[2] As one example among many others, we can cite the re-francization campaign launched in Moncton in 1934 by certain people in L’Assomption. They wrote letters inciting the Acadian population to demand services in French in stores. In response, the Anglophones of Moncton immediately boycotted stores belonging to Acadians. In view of this, the Acadians were forced to abandon their campaign.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
[3] Letter dated the 9th of August 1755, published in the New York Gazette on the 25th of the same month and in the Pennsylvania Gazette the 4th of September.</div>
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[4] Lawrence offered the equivalent of $30 for a scalp from an Acadian man and $25 for a scalp from an Acadian woman, child or a Mi’kmaq.</div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-28360014751735542532016-04-10T07:37:00.000-07:002016-12-23T20:32:36.498-08:00Martin Patriquin's long road to the Senate<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcO5jaDQclcP2SiPu063LgWgSZhg-DhFRHPhMiBRXadv1kqcWHV3S9jEZwcF3CtRi1oDuFuyn7yOECnvXWTsKtpXtkS3zjblGf8YKx7fAfTIr1PIHaM9nGql2EMlchTZAhwVmjXfHKEg/s1600/patriquin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcO5jaDQclcP2SiPu063LgWgSZhg-DhFRHPhMiBRXadv1kqcWHV3S9jEZwcF3CtRi1oDuFuyn7yOECnvXWTsKtpXtkS3zjblGf8YKx7fAfTIr1PIHaM9nGql2EMlchTZAhwVmjXfHKEg/s1600/patriquin.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Professional liar</td></tr>
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Martin Patriquin is <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/" target="_blank">Maclean's</a> chief propagandist regarding Quebec and language issues. His job is to distort, misinform and subtly demonize through insinuation. In <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/why-quebec-is-fighting-against-its-rights/" target="_blank">a recent article</a>, Patriquin looked at a strange phenomenon in which Quebec is supposedly opposing the rights of francophones while purporting to defend them. The title of this article, "<i>Why Quebec is fighting against its rights</i>", suggests that he will provide us with an explanation for this strange behavior but he fails to do so.</div>
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The springboard for all this is the recent case which came before the Supreme Court of Canada regarding the Yukon Francophone School Board vs the government of the Yukon Territory. The francophone school board argued that it should be the school board and not the government that decides who is eligible for French education in the Yukon territory. Shockingly the Quebec government did not side with the school board. How can this be? How does this make any sense when Quebec claims to be defending the French language?</div>
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Patriquin doesn't give us a clear reason. He does give us a few quotes from Quebec government officials but without any context. Along with these quotes, he basically insinuates that Quebec must be afraid that a ruling for the francophones of Yukon could force Quebec to give anglophones in Quebec <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/08/quebecs-language-laws-and-schools.html" target="_blank">the same rights that francophones in English Canada enjoy</a>. The government of Quebec is, therefore, hypocritical when it claims to want to protect the French language. Its real goal must simply be the suppression of English for bigoted reasons and nothing else. </div>
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In reality, Quebec's position on these matters isn't difficult to understand at all, and has been consistent for a long time. But to understand this position, you need to understand <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/09/the-problem-with-canadian-federalism.html" target="_blank">the larger context</a> which is something that Patriquin will never give you. But I will...</div>
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The reason</h3>
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From the beginning of Confederation, francophones believed that <a href="http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/page-4.html" target="_blank">Section 93</a> of the Constitution Act 1867 included language rights. Anglophones believed otherwise, and in the decades that followed Confederation they enacted a whole series of <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/12/how-west-was-won.html" target="_blank">anti-French laws</a> which usually culminated in the banning of French schools. The federal government and the Supreme Court remained almost completely silent during this time even when the rights explicitly guaranteed in a federal act (The Manitoba Act) were being violated.</div>
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It was only when Quebec passed the Charter of the French language, which limited the use of English in Quebec, that the Supreme Court sprang into action in order to cut it into pieces. A few years later, a new constitution was imposed on Quebec which incorporated a charter of rights that contained several new clauses severely limiting Quebec's power over matters of language and culture.</div>
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Given this context, it is completely understandable why Quebec would oppose any further federal encroachment over its jurisdiction on language through Supreme Court rulings. However, since there is no constitutional recognition of Quebec's distinct situation within Canada (as the Meech Lake Accord potentially offered), these battles must be played out in the context of federal vs provincial rights, which sometimes puts it in opposition to francophones outside of Quebec. </div>
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But really, the root cause of this problem is that the premise on which Canadian language policy is based is simply false. It assumes that there is some kind of equality between French and English in Canada when there is not. One language is a minority language with all of the challenges that come with this reality, whereas the other is the dominant, majority language in this part of the world. And speakers of this language enjoy all of the benefits of this majority status even when they are a numerical minority, like in Quebec.</div>
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Canada's approach to language also completely ignores the important differences between the history of francophones in English Canada and that of anglophones in Quebec. The historical situation of francophones – underprivileged in education and income, suffering rampant language attrition, lacking public institutions which function in their language and thus the means to maintain their culture, etc – is somehow made analogous to the situation of anglophones in Quebec, where none of these historical indices of oppression were present. </div>
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A lying bag of crap</h3>
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Well, there you are, the explanation for Quebec's position on these matters with the context. It's really not that difficult to understand. I think Patriquin's inability to comprehend it is intentional and that his real purpose is to mislead his readers. To prove this point I'll focus on one example from this article, Patriquin's description of the Beaulac case and Quebec's reaction to it:</div>
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"<i>In 1999, the Quebec government again intervened in the case of Jean Beaulac, a convicted murderer from British Columbia who, the Court ultimately decided, deserved to have his trial heard in French in his home province. </i></blockquote>
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<i>Following the Beaulac decision in 1999, Parti Québécois justice minister Linda Goupil gave a decidedly bizarre press conference in which she said the case would “limit the collective capacity of Quebecers to protect the blossoming of their language.” She then quoted Voltaire—“The joy of some creates misfortune for others,” she said—and promptly refused to take any questions in English.</i>"</blockquote>
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The main problem here is that a transcript of the entire <a href="http://www.bibliotheque.assnat.qc.ca/DepotNumerique_v2/AffichageNotice.aspx?idn=3891" target="_blank">press conference is available online</a> and Patriquin's depiction of it is so clearly fraudulent. Here is some of what justice Minister Linda Goupil said: </div>
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"<i>The Court states that administrative contingencies must not be taken into consideration in respect to that right. The State must take the necessary steps to ensure the existence and maintenance of institutional bilingualism of criminal justice in all of Canada. This means, in practice, that a francophone from British Columbia could demand that in a criminal trial, the Crown prosecutor, the judge and the jury must be able to speak his language, i.e. French. </i></blockquote>
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<i>I can imagine that the government of British Columbia might question the applicability and practice of this judgment on the administration of justice over there. In Quebec, all anglophones already enjoy, in almost all cases, these privileges. Quebec has been offering this service to its linguistic minority for a long time. </i></blockquote>
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<i>But the Beaulac ruling does have an effect in Quebec in that it limits the collective capacity of Quebecers to protect the development of their language. In practice, this will mean that any defendant in Quebec may, to the extent that he has a minimal knowledge of the English language, require that his trial be held in English. Consequently, the judge and the prosecution must be able to speak English. </i></blockquote>
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<i>This is undeniably an extension of the current practice, which is that when the accused is an anglophone, we take steps to ensure that his trial is held in that language. However, this is a situation which is assessed case by case, depending on the real spoken language of the accused. In practice, this means that many trials are held each year in English in Montreal, Gaspésie and Estrie. </i></blockquote>
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<i>In conclusion, this judgment is reminiscent of the old adage that the happiness of some is the misfortune of others, I am very happy for francophones outside Quebec but in Quebec we did not need the Beaulac ruling to protect our linguistic minority, they already had these rights.</i>"</blockquote>
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The Deputy Minister for Legal and Legislative Affairs, Louis Borgeat, then added more information about the different laws implicated in this case and how this ruling might affect them. Questions were then taken from journalists including from anglophone journalists John Grant (CTV) and Richard Kalb (CBC). Mr Kalb asked the Minister if she would answer some questions in English. She said that she would rather not, explaining that she was still in the process of perfecting her English. Mr Kalb then said that this would be an opportunity for her to practice. People laughed and the press conference continued. Later on, the Deputy Minister did answer some questions in English.</div>
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Basically, it is impossible to read the transcript of that press conference and Patriquin's account of it without coming away with the obvious conclusion that Patriquin is a lying bag of crap. Why is he completely distorting this 17 year old press conference? Well, like all propagandists, he is not interested in informing the public. His goal is to form public opinion in a certain way. This often requires lies and distortions.<br />
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Perhaps, in the end, he hopes to follow in the footsteps of other shameless propagandists like <a href="http://lapravda.ca/andre-pratte-quitte-la-presse/" target="_blank">André Pratte</a> who was recently rewarded for his years of service with a seat in the Senate.</div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-2473351133553420362016-03-20T07:14:00.003-07:002016-03-20T15:50:49.098-07:00The Economy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For many, Quebec's economy is seen as the biggest obstacle to our ability to become independent. This section does not seek to demonstrate that Quebec is an economic paradise with no difficulties on the horizon. All states of the world, even the most powerful, face challenges of their own. If Quebec is not an economic paradise whose horizon is free from difficulties, nor is it the economic dunce that some try to portray it as. We have everything it takes to become not only a viable independent state but a more prosperous one.</div>
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To begin with, we must remember that we have abundant resources that will allow us to easily transition from our current situation to an independent Quebec. Our mining sector ranks among the top ten producers in world. The main minerals being mined in Quebec are iron, gold, copper and zinc. We also produce titanium, silver, magnesium and nickel as well as many other metals and industrial minerals, including diamonds. And that's just the beginning: 60% of our mineral potential remains unexplored. Forestry is also a sector that can contribute to our development.</div>
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We also have large reserves of drinking water. Within the context of global warming, this resource will become increasingly important. Moreover, hydro-power also puts us in an enviable position in this regard, allowing us to attract energy-intensive industries or for export in the case of rising electricity prices. In a similar vein, the St. Lawrence River is an important strategic resource since its waterway reaches the heart of North America. As an independent country, we would be able to regulate traffic and impose regulations and tariffs that seem most appropriate to us without having to account for Ontario's needs. Currently, the bulk of maritime traffic through the St. Lawrence is directed to the Great Lakes without any real benefits for us. The benefits are primarily for the Toronto area.</div>
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Finally, our main wealth is, and should remain, our brains. Quebec scientists, artists, athletes and innovators are already bringing Quebec to the world. Having a population that is three times as bilingual and seven times more trilingual as anywhere else on the continent also represents an important economic asset for us.</div>
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For any state, possessing wealth - natural or otherwise - is not enough, it must be able to develop competitive industries and companies. It must also be able to protect its strategic interests, that is to say, the competitive advantages it has over other states in certain industries. Like other nations of the world, we too must defend our strategic interests. However, our interests do not always coincide with those of Ottawa. By remaining a province of Canada, we are entrusting an important part of our economic levers to another nation which often has other objectives.</div>
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First of all, the industries that get support from the Canadian and Quebec governments are not the same. On the one hand, there is the oil and automobile industries, and on the other, there is renewable energy, aerospace and forestry. When the automobile industry based in Ontario experienced difficulties in 2009, the Canadian government invested $10 billion to help maintain jobs, but when at the same time, similar difficulties were felt in our forestry industry, it was essentially our government in Quebec that came to its aid. As for oil, $1.4 billion are invested each year by Ottawa (over $60 billion since 1970). Meanwhile, Hydro-Québec had to be financed almost exclusively by our government and has never had the benefit of any significant Canadian funding.</div>
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Oil prices are another example of the divergence between our economic interests and those of Canada. Low oil prices are good for our economy, but they hinder Canadian growth. The fact is, we do not have an oil industry, the benefits to our economy are at best indirect. The disadvantages, however, are extremely obvious because high oil prices lead to a strong Canadian dollar, which hurts our exports. An estimated 55,000 jobs in Quebec's manufacturing sector were lost in recent years due to the strong dollar. Furthermore, significant costs are to be anticipated for the implementation of Canada's goal for reducing greenhouse gases since Quebec, one of the greenest provinces in Canada, will end up having to pay for Alberta's pollution. Worse still, Ottawa has spared no expense in promoting the tar sands in Europe and lobbying to prevent it from being labeled as dirty energy. In contrast, it in no way defended our hydro-power when in 2010 the US Congress decided to consider hydroelectricity from Quebec as not being clean energy.</div>
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Our economic weakness as a province of Canada can also be seen in the area of international trade agreements. The global economy is governed by a multitude of trade agreements concluded between independent states. Canada rarely negotiates and signs these agreement with our interests in mind, but rather with those of the larger Canadian economy (mainly that of Ontario and Alberta). The recent free trade agreement with the European Union demonstrated this once again. During the final negotiations, the Canadian government offered Europe the import 17,000 tons of cheese in exchange for the opportunity to export 50,000 tons of Canadian beef. As European farmers are more subsidized than ours, this deal will greatly harm our cheese industry, which represents 60% of the Canadian total. Obviously, the beef industry, based mainly in Alberta, is satisfied with this outcome.</div>
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Everyone makes choices according to their own interests. We can't blame Canadians for wanting to defend their economic interests here and abroad. But then why should the people of Quebec have to justify their determination to defend their own economic interests? Unfortunately, it is almost impossible for us to adequately defend these interests as a province of Canada.</div>
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As an independent country, we could better use the money we currently send to Ottawa. The Government of Canada spends billions in areas that are of no interests to the majority of Quebecers. Examples are numerous: intensive military spending, subsidies to oil, the Senate, the Governor General, the monarchy, etc. Under military spending, Canada has more than doubled its funding in the last 14 years ($10.1 billion in 1998-1999 to $21.7 billion in 2013-2014). Canada's 2008-2028 defense plan will cost $490 billion. Therefore, Ottawa will require us to spend almost $113 billion on the military while we are being forced to cut spending on health and education. The plan includes more than $33 billion for the purchase of new ships for the Royal Canadian Navy, of which not a penny will be spent in Quebec, despite the fact that the Lévis shipyard is one of the world's best.</div>
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Among these examples of forced expenditure must be added the purchase of more than a billion dollars a year of services paid by Quebec to Ontario via the Government of Canada. Since the majority of the Canadian public service is established on our neighbor's territory, they largely benefit from the money we pay in taxes. Independence would enable us to bring home the bulk of this economic activity.</div>
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In addition, many Canadian programs or departments spend far less in Quebec than its economic or demographic weight would merit. As an independent country, we will stop paying for the Canadian Wheat Board, which mainly benefits the West. We will also cease to pay for the Canadian nuclear program, whose expenditures are mainly made in Ontario. Canada has 22 nuclear reactors, 20 of which are in Ontario. Quebec only had one, Gentilly, which will be closed for economic reasons. As an independent country, we will stop paying for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, whose expenses are incurred mainly in British Columbia and the Maritime provinces.</div>
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Another striking example is the system of Canadian tax credits that punishes us for some of our social choices. For example, our child care program costs us $149 million in tax credits because child care costs are lower in Quebec than is the rest of Canada. The situation is the same for tuition, we choose to keep our tuition low to promote access to school. The Canadian system, organized around the reality of other provinces, deprives Quebec students of $100 million in unused Canadian tax credits.</div>
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We must also consider the significant savings that would be achieved by eliminating the duplication of government. As an independent country, we would not have to pay for two Ministries of Finance, Health, Revenue, Natural Resources, International Relations, etc. Canadian officials of these ministries spend a lot of time administering parallel programs that could be streamlined or eliminated if control is passed to Quebec. One of the most absurd examples of such duplication is that of the Canadian Ministry of Health, which employs 9079 staff but only manages one hospital.</div>
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To add to all this, several studies have been done on the effects independence would have on the public finances of Quebec. The latest was done by <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2014/01/the-federal-government-money-well-wasted.html" target="_blank">Stéphane Gobeil</a> who clearly showed that the savings would be in the order of $7.5 billion whereas the costs would be of $5.5 billion. So as an independent country, we would save about $2.0 billion in the first year. In the past, other studies on this issue have all demonstrated the benefits of independence. In 1994, Jacques Parizeau ordered a study on costs and revenues of independence from the Minister for Restructuring, which indicated that we would have saved nearly three billion in 1995. In 2005, François Legault's "<i>Budget of the Year 1</i>" estimated that independence would generate more than five billion dollars in surplus.</div>
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With the savings generated by independence, our room for maneuver would be wider, allowing us more choices. For example, a more interventionist government could invest in our strategic sectors, a more conservative government could lower our taxes, while a more left-wing government could reinvest in health and education.</div>
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Conclusion</h3>
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Overall, being a province of Canada does not benefit us economically. We have all the potential to become a rich nation, free and prosperous. Already as a simple province, we have a modern and diversified economy which compares favorably with that of many sovereign countries. However, to face the economic challenges ahead and to bring about solutions that truly meet our needs, we need to decide our own economic future. Our political subordination, however, leaves us with very little leeway. Independence will not bring paradise on earth. We will still have to deal with a number of economic issues like natural resources management, public finance management, defending our economic interests, fighting against poverty, improving living conditions, etc. The difference is that we will have all the tools that allow us to face these challenges. We will, in short, have the power to put into action our own economic vision and undertake projects that fit that vision.<br />
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By economist <a href="http://faitesleoui.quebec/economie" target="_blank">Patrice Vachon</a> from <a href="http://faitesleoui.quebec/" target="_blank">Le Livre qui fait dire oui</a>.</div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-5249165685216206052015-12-25T20:10:00.000-08:002017-12-09T08:40:15.833-08:00How the West Was Won<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On December 4<sup>th</sup> 2003 in Edmonton, Gilles Caron, a truck
driver from Quebec but living in Alberta, turned left on a red light. Pulled
over by the police, he was given a ticket written in English only. Five days
later, Mr. Caron contested the validity of the ticket because it was not
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They were no doubt inspired by George Forest, a Francophone Métis from
Manitoba who fought right up to the Supreme Court the validity of an English-only
parking ticket by appealing to the commitment made towards the Métis upon the
creation of the province of Manitoba in 1870. Forest convinced the Supreme
Court to declare unconstitutional the 1890 law abolishing bilingualism in
Manitoba. That 1979 ruling caused the restoration of French as an official
language of Manitoba. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Strong tensions</h3>
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We shouldn’t underestimate what the impact of a victory for Caron and Boutet could have been in Alberta. The anti-French sentiment has deep roots in the West. Marie-France Kenny, the current president of the <i>Fédération des communautés francophones et acadiennes du Canada</i>, remembers that “<i>in the 1950’s, the KKK would burn crosses in front of our schools. The nuns would have to teach us French in secret</i>.”</div>
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We should also remember that in 1982, when Manitoba was forced by the Supreme Court to translate into French all of its law since 1890, the provincial government tried to come to an agreement with the <i>Société franco-manitobaine</i> (SFM) whereas it would forego that gigantic expense in exchange for improved services in French for certain ministries. The Anglophone population was nonetheless outraged and the offices of the SFM were set on fire.</div>
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The then president of the SFM, Léo Robert, and his wife Diane received death threats, followed by an anonymous letter warning them that their children had been followed from school in order to find their address, and that something bad could happen to the kids if the SFM persisted in its demands. To ensure their security, Léo and Diane were forced to leave their home and relocate their children outside Winnipeg. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<h3>
The inherent double-standard</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
In the end, the defenders of French in Alberta were spared such ugliness since the <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/alberta-not-obliged-to-translate-laws-into-french-supreme-court-rules/article27386005/" target="_blank">Supreme Court ruled</a> that Alberta had no constitutional obligation to translate its laws into French. It justified its ruling by saying that it cannot “<i>create new rights</i>” in the plaintiffs’ favor. The Court got creative by adding that “<i>linguistic rights have always been conferred in an express manner</i>”. On that, the Court is partly right, because while that assertion is true for francophones, it was never true for anglophones. In their case, “<i>the silence of the law</i>” has always been interpreted as conferring full linguistic rights. There are therefore two irreconcilable interpretations of rights built along Canada’s historic fault line, the goal of which is unquestionably the domination of one group and the inevitable subordination of the other. The Supreme Court has always had the duty to come running whenever Canada’s fundamental double-standard is threatened.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Supreme Court’s ruling sticks our noses into the harsh reality that the Constitution of Canada is nothing but an unequal contract built on a nineteenth century assumption of Anglo-Saxon superiority. The rights of Anglos were always held to be sacred but the rights of francophones were always negotiable. Section 133.2 of the 1867 Constitution (BNAA), which is still the law today, states that "<i>The Acts of the Parliament of Canada and of the Legislature of Quebec shall be printed and published in both English and French</i>". Quebec is therefore constitutionally obliged to write all of its laws in French and English but no such requirements were forced on to any other province until the 1980s. And these requirements, as the Supreme Court has made clear, do not apply to most of English Canada.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3>
The country that could have been</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div>
Manitoba exemplifies the Canada that could have been, but was deliberately prevented from coming into being. Following the Red River Rebellion of 1869-1870, the Parliament of Canada enacted the Manitoba Act. The Act embodied many of the demands that had been made by Louis Riel and the Métis at the time of the rebellion. These demands had been written in a succession of Petition of Rights drafted by the Métis and their Provisional Government at the time of the rebellion.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Essentially, the Manitoba Act created a Métis province. This had been forced on the Government of Canada by the position of strength of the Métis and by support in Quebec for such a move. John A. Macdonald, felt that the creation of a province, out of a part of the North-West Territory, was premature. The territory was not sufficiently populated and the “<i>true character</i>” of the West had not yet been established according to him. Macdonald probably had in mind a territory populated by white immigrant farmers from Ontario and the British Isles. The idea of entrusting the government of a province to Natives was evidently foreign to nineteenth century Anglo concepts of “<i>proper governmen</i>t”. The provincial status was the first, and main, concession made to the Métis. The province was given the name of Manitoba at the request of the Métis. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Given the concession of provincial status to the Métis, the federal government insisted on two points that were incorporated into the Manitoba Act: </div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>The new province was limited to a very small size, to an area immediately south of Lake Winnipeg and extending to the American border – hence the term of “<i>postage stamp province</i>” used to describe the size of Manitoba as created in 1870. It appears that by keeping the province small, the federal government was limiting the “<i>potential damage</i>” in having the Métis put in charge of a province. </li>
<li>All the “<i>ungranted or waste lands in the Province</i>” – essentially the Crown Lands, the natural resources and the revenue to be derived thereof – were vested in the government of Canada, rather than with the provincial government as was done elsewhere in Canada. Such lands were to be used “<i>for the purposes of the Dominion</i>”. Local control over land was removed from Manitoba as it was expected that the (Métis) government of Manitoba might interfere with the process of land distribution and settlement of white farmers in the province. This lack of control over its lands is what partly explains that the Métis lost control over their province by 1873-1875 as the small Métis population was rapidly submerged by the influx into the province of new settlers, primarily from Ontario. This model of withdrawing control of Crown Lands was later followed when Saskatchewan and Alberta were created in 1905. It created an anomalous situation by which an entire region (the Prairies) was treated differently than the other provinces. This lasted until 1930.</li>
</ol>
<div>
<div>
In the House of Commons, much debate took place on the model that should be followed in creating the political and social institutions of Manitoba. Many promoted the Ontario model that consisted of a simple form of government – akin to a municipal government –, a single public school system not organized around religious denominations, as well as a single language – English – in the courts and the legislature of the province. This model, popular in English-speaking Canada, was believed to foster unity. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Others, mostly from Quebec, promoted the Quebec model. This model fostered diversity. It provided for a dual denominational school system – one that recognized both Catholic and protestant schools – as well as two languages in the courts and the legislature of the province: French and English. In this latter model, the parliamentary institutions were elaborate and followed, as in the case of Quebec, the model of the British Parliament with an upper and a lower house. It is clear that the institutions of Manitoba were shaped in the Quebec model. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Thus, guarantees were extended to the French and the English languages. At the outset of Confederation, Canada chose the model of diversity, mostly because it matched the situation of the Métis who were French and English, Catholics and Protestants, but also because it was heavily favoured in Quebec. Consequently, in the early days of Confederation, a bilingual and bicultural country was emerging, especially if one keeps in mind that the Manitoba institutions were extended by federal legislation to the rest of the North-West in 1875. However, between 1890 and 1905, virtually all the bilingual and bicultural elements created in the West between 1870 and 1877, were abolished once anglophones had gained majority status and could impose their will over others.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3>
Ein volk, ein reich</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div>
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed the rise of nativist, racist and otherwise unenlightened movements in English Canada. Throughout Canada, French-Catholic minorities were systematically attacked one after the other in an attempt to make them conform to the White, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant mold. Everywhere, outside of Quebec, minorities, racial, ethnic or linguistic, were hounded. French-Catholic minorities stood as a symbol: their presence said that difference was acceptable and good, that diversity was welcomed. Their eradication would give to all the same message: conformity was what was desired. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In New Brunswick, in Manitoba, in the North West and in Ontario francophone rights were curtailed. Even where more justice should have been expected, such as in the federal government and parliament, French rights were openly disregarded. Only after long and protracted battles was French accepted on the stamps of Canada or on its currency, things that should have been symbols of the bicultural and bilingual nature of the country; meanwhile, few French Canadians rose in the civil service or in the army, and discrimination was rampant. Some of the laws that were passed in English Canada during this time included:</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>1871</b> - New Brunswick: The Common School Act imposes double taxation measures against French Catholic schools. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>1877</b> - Prince-Edward-Island: The Public School Act puts an end to the teaching of French in schools. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>1890</b> - Ontario: The Liberal government of Oliver Mowat adopted a law stating that English must be the language of education except when children cannot understand it. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>1890</b> - Manitoba: Official Language Act banning French, formerly an official language in the province. Premier Greenway diminishes the rights to French school, abolishes its use in the Parliament and in the Courts of the province. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>1891</b> - Ontario: The minister of education, George W. Ross, bans all French school books in Ontario. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>1905</b> - Alberta: The School Act of that year imposed English as the only language of instruction, while allowing some use of French in primary classes. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>1909</b> - Saskatchewan: The School Act makes English the only language of instruction but allowed limited use of French in primary classes. In 1929, a different Saskatchewan law abolished French in public education. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>1916</b> - Manitoba: The Thornton Act, by abolishing bilingual schools, completely ends the teaching of French in the province. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>1912</b> - Ontario: Circular of Instructions Regulation No. 17 and No. 18 Forbids the teaching of French above the first two grades of elementary school.</blockquote>
The Supreme Court never said a word about the rights of francophones during this time. If the linguistic rights of francophones weren’t conferred in an express manner, they did not exist according to the Court. But when Quebec enacted the Charter of the French language which limited the use of English in Quebec, the Supreme Court immediately sprang into action in order to cut it into pieces. The linguistic rights of anglophones in Quebec did not need to be explicitly defined, they were always inherent.<br />
<br />
Before Canada’s annexation of the West in 1870, official bilingualism had been the rule when the lands were under Hudson’s Bay Company control; at the time, roughly half of the inhabitants were French-speaking. We shouldn’t forget that it was Lower-Canada (Quebec)’s money that allowed Upper-Canada (Ontario) to get out of a crippling bankruptcy in 1840. And it was in large part Lower-Canada’s money that led to the acquisition of the rights to Rupert's Land in 1870. Yet despite this, the federal government made sure that the West would be English only.<br />
<br />
The federal government set out to recruit immigrants by the hundreds of thousands to settle the West. For that purpose, Canada eventually had hundreds of immigration officers, although nearly all of them were to be found in Great Britain, Ireland and in the United States. So while thousands of Québécois (close to one million from 1830 to 1930) emigrated to the United States, Canada recruited large numbers of British, Irish and American immigrants to fill the West. It was plain to see that the federal government did not care about the fate of the Quebecois and made no effort to repatriate them. Immigration from Europe was subsidized (each immigrant received free land and, by the 1920’s, a train ticket for the West; Quebecers who wished to go west had to buy their own tickets).<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
The name of the game is still empire</h3>
<br />
Canada only cleaned up its act in the 1960s when faced with a growing independence movement in Quebec. It is as it has always been. When forced to, Canada makes concessions, but when it has the upper hand, it imposes homogeneity, since this promotes unity. Today, with French declining across Canada, the federal government just needs to push for the wall-to-wall application of the “<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_rights#Territoriality_vs._personality_principles" target="_blank">personality principle</a></i>” to language and reject Quebec's attempts at establishing the “<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_rights#Territoriality_vs._personality_principles" target="_blank">territorial principle</a></i>” within Quebec, as it exists in Belgium and Switzerland. Canada is only promoting this type of “<i>bilingualism</i>” because it is now in its favor. The goal posts may have changed, but the game is the same. It is the domination of one nation over another i.e. empire.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-1343617934259014302015-11-01T10:45:00.000-08:002015-11-02T17:43:32.754-08:00Should Quebec be a country?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2FQPrKRdmiGsmoN_ZE9nhJRRjHlzbPmGx9uoNgtwjmyTaTSxvbiakZPOr96fwpSiJJyVOFtY-HSiBO5WjIIlcnTl1ZNJaUCHic1IQ6Pc9kout-FkclT6FoTxrXqW1y2mQYdVlXCVPW7g/s1600/LQFDO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2FQPrKRdmiGsmoN_ZE9nhJRRjHlzbPmGx9uoNgtwjmyTaTSxvbiakZPOr96fwpSiJJyVOFtY-HSiBO5WjIIlcnTl1ZNJaUCHic1IQ6Pc9kout-FkclT6FoTxrXqW1y2mQYdVlXCVPW7g/s400/LQFDO.jpg" width="278" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The book that makes you say: YES</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The independence of Quebec isn’t the project of a single political party
or generation; it’s the project of a people striving for its freedom. The
political freedom we seek is the same that countries such as Canada, Italy,
India or any other possess and will not relinquish: simply the freedom to
determine for themselves their way of life on their soil and the ties that bind
them to other peoples of the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
An old question?</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Political issues don’t become obsolete simply because time passes, like
fashion or music. A political issue becomes obsolete when it is resolved, when
the problems that created it are definitely solved.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The issue of Quebec’s independence goes all the way back to the 1830’s
and still hasn’t found a solution. As we will demonstrate in this work, the
problems – economic or environmental, to name just two – that we will have to
face in the 21<sup>st</sup> century only exacerbate the urgency for resolving that
issue.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Letting Ottawa make our political and economic decisions will always be
to our disadvantage whenever our interests conflict with those of the Canadian
majority. It was true in the past and it’s just as true now, and will remain
true as long as we don’t make Quebec a country. Whatever the party in power in
Ottawa, this dynamic is inevitable. In the Canadian system, this dynamic is
normal and even legitimate; but it’s not to our advantage. In the words of
Miron: “<i>as long as independence is not accomplished, it remains to be done</i>”<sup><span lang="en-CA">1</span></sup></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Obviously, our independence will not guarantee absolute freedom. The
peoples of the world don’t live in a vacuum, but in increasingly interconnected
political and economic systems. Even independent countries don’t always get to
do what they want. They have to take others into account and, ideally, get
along with them. They’re subject to strong pressures from external economic and
political powers, multinational companies and various lobbies. However, for a
people just as for an individual, greater freedom is always desirable since it opens
up possibilities and frees them from the hegemony of others. Independence is
the best means for standing up to global forces putting pressure on us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
What is independence?</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
When it comes to the independence of Quebec, we mean political
independence. The political independence of a state is its capacity to make all
of the laws applicable on its territory, to manage all of the taxes and
revenues collected from said territory, and to negotiate all treaties binding
it to other peoples of the world. Laws, taxes, treaties: these form the
cornerstones of a country’s independence.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
A state that does not possess these tools does not fully govern itself
and is not free to institute all of the policies necessary to serve its
national interests. Who would deny the legitimacy of the freedom that the
Brazilians, Congolese or Germans have to determine their own fate? This freedom
that we recognize as legitimate for others is legitimate for us as well.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In 1946, the UN had 55 member states<sup><span lang="en-CA">2</span></sup>.
Today it has 193. Since the 1980’s alone, around forty states have acquired
their independence. Amongst all those new countries, few benefited from an
economic and social context as favourable as ours and none seem to regret their
newly acquired liberty. If self-determination for those peoples were possible,
then ours is even more so.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
“<i>A country can do everything a province can, but not the reverse</i>”<sup style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="en-CA">3</span></sup></h3>
<div>
<sup style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="en-CA"><br /></span></sup></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Independent, we would keep all the powers we currently possess. But our
powers and responsibilities would increase, and the proportion of taxes and
revenues that we control would increase to 100%, like any other country in the
world. We could therefore do everything we did before, and more.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Essentially, making Quebec a country will open up new possibilities. It
means repatriating our political responsibilities, which would come entirely
under the control of Quebec’s democracy. Currently, a large part of the
decisions affecting us are taken by the Parliament in Ottawa, where we account
for only 23%<sup><span lang="en-CA">4</span></sup> of the seats.
This is the case most notably for decisions taken relating to defence,
international relations, the banks, monetary policy, the “<i>Indians and the lands
reserved for Indians</i>”, citizenship, criminal law, management of the
unemployment insurance, telecommunications, interprovincial rail
transportation, the transportation of hydrocarbons, maritime transportation,
the ports, the mail, subsidies for the arts, scientific research and many more.<sup><span lang="en-CA">5</span></sup></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Furthermore, even in areas that should be exclusively provincial, the
Government of Canada has ‘<i>spending powers</i>’ that enables it to invest the money
we send to it every year into projects chosen so as to serve the interests of
the Canadian majority. This regularly happens in the sectors of healthcare and
education, where the Canadian government tells us how to spend the money we
send it, so as to serve priorities that have nothing to do with our reality. The
example of transfer payments for education will be examined in subsequent
chapters.</div>
<div>
<div id="edn2">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
More centralization, less power for us</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Not only does the Canadian regime enormously
reduce the power we have over key aspects of our collective life, but its very
structure encourages an ever increasing centralization of powers in Ottawa’s
favor. Indeed, article 91 of the <i>Constitutional
law of 1867</i> gives to the Central Government all new powers and
responsibilities that appeared since its adoption. This article attributes to
Ottawa what is called <i>residual power</i>.
For instance, it’s because of this power that laws related to the internet, a
recent necessity, come under the Canadian government. All future responsibilities,
those that we cannot even imagine yet, will come under the exclusive
jurisdiction of a Parliament where we have an ever decreasing representation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<br />Independence: to the right or to the left?</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">When we look at the idea of independence, we
tend to wonder if it’s a left-wing or right-wing project so as to know if it’s
compatible with our values. Historically, the Quebec independence movement consisted
of an ideologically varied coalition that, overall, tended towards the
center-left.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Having said that, the independence project is
essentially characterized as a democratic project whose goal is the
self-determination of the nation. Quebecers will do as they wish with their
freedom, like any other people of the world. One can wish for independence so
as to eliminate the useless administrative structures that come with being a
part of Canada, just one can wish for it so as to free up the funds necessary
to finance a more accessible educational system. In any case, the independence
issue doesn’t lie on the left-right axis, but on the horizon of
self-determination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Choosing independence means wanting to govern
oneself. To oppose it means accepting being governed by the Canadian majority. That
is the issue. The freedom of a people, like that of a person, is valuable in
and of itself. Would it have been admissible to oppose suffrage for women on
the grounds that they might vote more towards the left or the right? Of course
not. We do not judge the value of other people’s freedom based on the use they
make of it. Let us have the same respect for ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Independence isn’t going to solve all of our
problems, but it will at least give us the tools necessary to solve them. Whatever
kind of country one wants, whether it would be more to the left or the right,
it is folly to think that we can build it without total control of all of our
laws, taxes and treaties that bind us to other nations. Independence won’t be
the end of history, but rather the beginning of a new chapter of it, one that
this time we will write ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The book that makes you say: YES</span></h3>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The goal of this work is provide a rational,
accessible and concise presentation of the concrete effects of our independence.
It is an introductory work that doesn’t require extensive knowledge of Quebec
politics. This book does not pretend to answer all questions about the subject,
but will instead try to present a multitude of reasons why Quebec should become
a country today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">It is our hope that after reading this work,
you will, like us, want to say: <b>YES</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Introduction to <i><a href="http://faitesleoui.quebec/" target="_blank">Le Livre qui fait dire oui </a></i> by Sol Zanetti, leader of <a href="http://www.optionnationale.org/" target="_blank">Option Nationale</a></span></div>
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<span lang="FR-CA">1 – Miron, Gaston. <i>Un long chemin : proses 1953-1996. </i></span>Montréal. Éditions L’Hexagone, 2004.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">2 – United Nations Organization, “<i>Increase in the number of member states from 1945 to today.</i>” United Nations Organization, Member states, 2015. Internet, May 30, 2015.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">3 – The quote is from Jean-Martin Aussant.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">4 – That proportion was 33% in 1867 and has been decreasing ever since.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">5 – Government of Canada, “<i>The constitutional distribution of legislative powers.</i>” Government of Canada, Ministry of intergovernmental affairs, 2015. Internet, May 28, 2015.</span></div>
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veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45329237096941460.post-29648213787428514402015-10-11T20:24:00.000-07:002016-10-16T10:45:13.656-07:00Trudeau’s Hero Myth: The October Crisis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg04EUgPfep8yn46dauWzoj9s0roesFCQREXlmcp80TrlEbWjTnbVFTwzNcmgA5d1J-9gvy15dwKQkey6tc5elR68s4N3mUJApR7lPrca1AaLGWsfmEwzNnScUwJa3iuozva4_o02ZNfk/s1600/octobercrisis.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg04EUgPfep8yn46dauWzoj9s0roesFCQREXlmcp80TrlEbWjTnbVFTwzNcmgA5d1J-9gvy15dwKQkey6tc5elR68s4N3mUJApR7lPrca1AaLGWsfmEwzNnScUwJa3iuozva4_o02ZNfk/s640/octobercrisis.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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Forty-five years ago, on October
16, 1970, in the middle of the night the government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau
proclaimed the War Measures Act following two political kidnappings by the <i>Front de liberation du Québec</i>. Under the
War Measures Act the Constitution and all civil liberties were suspended.
12,500 troops were sent into Quebec —7,500 in Montreal alone (For comparison,
8000 troops were sent to Dieppe in August 1942, a major Canadian operation; and
a no more than 3000 Canadian troops have ever been deployed to Afghanistan.)
Nearly 500 men, women, and children were arrested without charges, detained
incommunicado, without bail and without the right to communicate with a lawyer. Many of those arrested were poets, writers,
artists, and grass-roots organizers. The combined police forces (RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec and the Montreal
Police) entered and searched more than 10,000 homes without warrant. Two days
after War Measures were proclaimed, one of the hostages, Quebec Labor Minister
Pierre Laporte, was found dead in the trunk of a car.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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It is a wonder that Pierre
Trudeau maintains the aura, internationally and domestically, of the consummate
liberal and progressive. Time has come to reassess his record and the best
place to start is his proclamation of War Measures in October 1970. For a
starter, people should know that one of the first to congratulate Trudeau was
Nixon’s National Security adviser, Henry Kissinger, the man who has admitted
that he was already in the process of organizing a coup against Salvador
Allende.<o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>
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To justify the War Measures, the
Trudeau government claimed that Quebec was in a state of “<i>apprehended insurrection</i>.” In the speech on television explaining
the measures, Trudeau spoke of the two kidnappings, the request for help
received from the government of Quebec, and “<i>confused minds</i>” in Quebec. However, the leading police force at the
time, the RCMP, was opposed to invoking such sweeping measures as a means to
free the hostages and arrest the kidnappers. In an exhaustive study based on
hitherto confidential documents, security expert and political scientist Reg
Whitaker pointed out that “<i>the RCMP never
asked for the War Measures Act, were not consulted as to its usefulness, and
would have opposed it if they had been asked their opinion.</i>” It has also
been shown that Prime Minister Trudeau’s Principle Secretary Marc Lalonde
drafted the Quebec government’s request for War Measures and personally carried
the letter to Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa and oversaw its signing. The third
reason, “<i>confused minds</i>,” does not
even deserve an answer. Since when is “<i>confusion</i>”
a reason for suspending the Constitution and all civil liberties? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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War measures were devised for
war, hence the name of the act introduced into Canada’s political life in
August 1914. War measures were invoked in Canada during both World Wars. Under the
War Measures, the federal government can use all the powers it deems useful—and
it alone is judge—to achieve its goals. The government is not required to
obtain authorization from anybody. The measures entitled Trudeau in 1970 to say
exactly what Louis XIV said three centuries earlier, “<i>L’État, c’est moi</i>.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The War Measures suspend civil
liberties and judicial rights. Censorship is applied, and suspicion, distrust,
and denunciations run rampant. When Montreal morning man Rod Dewar declared on
October 16, 1970, “<i>I went to bed in a
democracy and awoke to find myself in a police state</i>,” he was immediately
suspended.</div>
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</div>
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It becomes easy and common to arrest and detain people incommunicado simply because they have, or are suspected of having, ideas deemed to be dangerous by the government. They have no right to their day in court before a judge or to communicate with a lawyer. That was how Italians in Quebec and Ontario were interned during the Second World War. That was how the federal government settled scores with what it considered to be an ethnically closed community of Japanese on the West Coast: 22,000 <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/japanese-internment-banished-and-beyond-tears-feature/" target="_blank">Japanese Canadians</a> were sent to camps for the entire war and more, and were never again able to reorganize as a community. The War Measures Act was also used to <a href="http://whyquebecneedsindependence.blogspot.ca/2015/04/quebec-under-war-measure-act-1918.html" target="_blank">combat opposition to compulsory military service</a> (conscription) in Quebec. The spectacular arrest and four-year internment without trial of <a href="http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Opinion+notorious+case+Mayor+Houde/7541237/story.html" target="_blank">Camillien Houde</a>, the Mayor of Montreal, Canada’s largest city at that time, was a severe warning to anybody who might be tempted to oppose conscription. The War Measures Act is based on unbridled authority, fear, and the threat of violence.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
With time, truth will out</h3>
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<br /></div>
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Three members of Trudeau’s
cabinet have stated that the government had no proof whatsoever of an
“<i>apprehended insurrection</i>” when the War Measures Act was pushed through
cabinet.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Former Trudeau minister Eric
Kierans explained in his memoirs that they made a “<i>terrible mistake</i>” and that “<i>their
common sense went out the window.</i>” Another minister, Don Jamieson, said in
memoirs that they “<i>did not have a
compelling case</i>” and that when they met the police just after War Measures
were imposed, they were upset to learn that the police had no evidence
justifying those measures. Worse yet, declassified British documents revealed
that in November 1970 Canada’s External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp told
his British counterpart that the government knew “<i>there was no evidence of an extensive and coordinated FLQ conspiracy</i>,”
adding that the FLQ was known to be no more than “<i>a small band of thugs; there was no big organization; just a gang of
‘young toughs’</i>.” Yet at that very time, the government was still applying
war measures in Canada and telling the population about the “<i>apprehended insurrection</i>.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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When the claim of an “<i>apprehended insurrection</i>” began to
appear flimsy, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his Principle Secretary Marc
Lalonde floated a story about a revolutionary provisional government that was
preparing to usurp power from the legitimately elected government of Quebec.
The man used as a conduit for the story was Peter C. Newman, editor-in-chief of
Canada’s most widely distributed daily, <i>The
Toronto Star</i>. Newman, however, has provided all the details of what he
described as the “<i>meticulously concocted
lie</i>” that Trudeau and Lalonde told him. That lie continues to be repeated
over forty years later.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
Might makes right</h3>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2bAYOCg4jW9n3Kg0nCRziPBRzMjRjR9UV7bE-gu0s_ommxHW7ER3Ia7wjT3EC7BAxY_7KmWx1B-U9AlsRGo89Oa7zYPbOnA77wY0mait1HHFWCgb12CnOoT1pyVOeP7XUc1Jf3hktZM4/s1600/creepy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2bAYOCg4jW9n3Kg0nCRziPBRzMjRjR9UV7bE-gu0s_ommxHW7ER3Ia7wjT3EC7BAxY_7KmWx1B-U9AlsRGo89Oa7zYPbOnA77wY0mait1HHFWCgb12CnOoT1pyVOeP7XUc1Jf3hktZM4/s400/creepy.jpg" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just watch me take peoples' rights away</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In spite of the lies, Canadians
still massively support Trudeau’s decision to invoke the War Measures Act in
1970 and at the time support for Trudeau's actions in English Canada was
almost obscenely enthusiastic. Journalist Robert Fulford remarked that, “<i>The people of Canada believe, not in civil
rights, but in civil rights when they are convenient.</i>” And historian Ramsay
Cook has noted that Canadians like “<i>peace
and they like order</i>” but that “<i>I
don’t think this has ever been a country that had an enormous interest in civil
rights.</i>”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But why invoke the War Measures
Act in the first place? The police didn’t ask for it and it arguably lead to the death
of one of the hostages. In fact, if we look at the October Crisis as a simple
hostage situation then Trudeau's actions seem heavy-handed and reckless. However, if we consider that Trudeau was
elected to do battle with the separatist threat in Quebec then his actions make much more
sense. The War Measures Act basically gave the FLQ two options: they could carry out their threats or run.
Either outcome was a victory for Trudeau. If they chose to run, they were cowards who would never be taken
seriously again, and if they carried out their threat, they were separatist murderers who could then be used to tarnish the entire sovereignist movement. Trudeau also
exploited the situation to justify terrorizing his political enemies, Quebec
nationalists, by rounding them up in the middle of the night and stripping them of their rights. In the end, Trudeau played politics with other people's lives as
much as the FLQ did. He didn't pull the trigger but he certainly shares responsibility
for Laporte's death.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
What Trudeau did was wrong in
every sense. It was wrong in the sense of law enforcement; in fact from that perspective, one could
call his performance criminally reckless or at best dangerously incompetent.
And it was wrong in a larger political sense; he violated the rights of
thousands of innocent people. Rights aren't rights if they can be taken away,
they are only temporary privileges.<br />
<br />
While Trudeau is falsely praised as a champion of charter rights, his defense of the War Measures Act provides a different story: “<i>There are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don’t like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed, but it is more important to keep law and order in this society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don’t like the looks of a soldier’s helmet... So long as there is a power in here which is challenging the elected representative of the people I think that power must be stopped and I think it’s only, I repeat, weak-kneed bleeding hearts who are afraid to take these measures.</i>” A reporter asked, “<i>At any cost? How far would you go with that? How far would you extend that?</i>” His infamous answer: “<i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7_a2wa2dd4" target="_blank">Well, just watch me</a>.</i>”<br />
<br />
People who admire Trudeau for his
handling of the October Crisis are possibly closet fascists who long for a strong
man to take charge and put people in their place, but it is unlikely that they would have supported such actions had they been directed towards English Canadians. Declaring martial law in
Quebec, on the other hand, was just the kind of thing Canadians were expecting from Trudeau when they
hired him, and he delivered. Trudeau rocketed to the head of the Liberal
party in the late 1960s because he was seen as someone who could put Quebec
nationalists in their place and he used this crisis like a true Machiavellian
opportunist to score political points. Unfortunately, Trudeau's martial law machismo also cost Laporte his life. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
Worse than Watergate</h3>
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<br /></div>
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The events that followed the
October Crisis are even more troubling. More than 400 illegal RCMP break-ins
were revealed by the Vancouver Sun reporter John Sawatsky on December 7, 1976
in his front-page expose headline “<i>Trail
of break-in leads to RCMP cover-up</i>”. Finally, on April 19, 1978, the
Director of the RCMP criminal operations branch admitted that the RCMP had
entered more than 400 premises without warrant since 1970. Among the over 400
admitted incidents were the following:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">In April 1971, a team of RCMP officers broke into the storage facilities of Richelieu Explosives, and stole an unspecified amount of dynamite. A year later, in April 1972, officers hid four cases of dynamite in Mont Saint-Gregoire, in an attempt to link the explosives with the <i>Le Front de Liberation du Quebec</i> (FLQ). This was later admitted by Solicitor General Francis Fox on October 31, 1977.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">In 1971, the RCMP chief superintendent Donald Cobb oversaw the infiltration of FLQ cells with federal agents, and the releasing of a fraudulent "<i>Manifesto</i>" on behalf of the La Minerve cell, calling for increased violence.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The issuing of 13 false FLQ press releases in 1971 from a dummy FLQ cell called<i> André Ouimet</i>, which claimed responsibility for the firebombing of the Brinks Company office in Montreal in January of the same year.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">On the night of May 6, 1972 the RCMP Security Service burned down a barn owned by FLQ member Paul Rose’s mother in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Rochelle, Quebec. They suspected that separatists were planning to meet with members of the Black Panthers from the United States. The arson came after they failed to convince a judge to allow them to wiretap the alleged meeting place.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The kidnapping of André Chamard, a law intern involved in the defence of the accused FLQ members on June 7, 1972. The RCMP first attempted to recruit Chamard as an informer using a drug case he was involved in as blackmail and subjected him to beatings and death threats.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A break-in at the <i>Agence de Presse Libre du Quebec</i> office on October 6, 1972 had been the work of an RCMP investigation dubbed Operation Bricole. RCMP speculated in the media that right-wing militants were responsible. The small leftist Quebec group had reported more than a thousand significant files missing or damaged following the break-in. The RCMP eventually pleaded guilty on June 16th, 1977 to the break-in. A similar break-in occurred in late 1972, orchestrated by RCMP, at the office of the Quebec Political Prisoners Movement.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">In 1973, more than thirty members of the RCMP Security Service committed a break-in to steal a computerized list of Parti Quebecois (PQ) members, in an investigation dubbed Operation Ham. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">In 1974, RCMP Security Service Corporal Robert Samson was arrested planting explosives at the house of Sam Steinberg, founder of Steinberg Foods in Montreal. While this bombing was not officially sanctioned by the RCMP, at trial he announced that he had done “<i>much worse</i>” on behalf of the RCMP, and admitted he had been involved in the APLQ break-in.</li>
</ul>
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In June 1977, the Quebec
government, headed by the Parti Québécois, decided to launch an inquiry into
the RCMP activities in Quebec, the <i>Commission
d’enquête sur des opérations policières en territoire québécois</i> (also known
as the Keable Commission). Every step of the way, the Commission met with
resistance and obstruction from both the RCMP and the federal government who
challenged the Commission’s jurisdiction to examine the affairs of a federal
agency, arguing that it was invading the prerogatives of the federal
government. The Trudeau government succeeded in having Canadian courts declare
the investigation unconstitutional, even though a large number of the dirty
operations were directed against the people of Quebec. It charged that the
Keable Commission would be violating the Official Secrets Act. Solicitor
General Francis Fox, refused to hand over subpoenaed documents, using the
“<i>absolute privilege</i>” accorded to the Solicitor General under Canada’s Federal
Courts Act, a privilege without any recourse to appeal.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Trudeau immediately setup his own competing inquiry, the McDonald commission. The mandate of this commission was formulated with a view to restricting and controlling disclosures of police activities. The reasons for invoking the War Measures Act were not to be examined on Trudeau’s orders. The final report was, according to former solicitor general Allan Lawrence, a “<i><a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2194&dat=19810826&id=Sr4yAAAAIBAJ&sjid=z-4FAAAAIBAJ&pg=1326,2659969&hl=fr" target="_blank">partial whitewash</a></i>” in that while there was some embarrassing revelations for the Trudeau government, such as when John Starnes, head of the RCMP Security Service, told Trudeau and some of his ministers during a cabinet meeting in December 1970 that the RCMP had been doing illegal things, there was much that didn’t make it in the report. And, unlike the Keable commission, the McDonald commission did not recommend that any charges be laid against RCMP officers involved in illegal activities. Of all the recommendations the McDonald commission did make, only one was implemented by Trudeau’s government with astounding speed: taking the security services away from the RCMP and giving it to a civilian agency, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). But right from the outset, some critics wondered why a civilian agency would be less prone to committing illegal acts than the RCMP? Today, CSIS is overseen, on behalf of Parliament, by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_Intelligence_Review_Committee" target="_blank">Security Intelligence Review Committee</a>. But since we know that bozos such as the weasel-like Phillipe Couillard and his partner-in-crime Arthur Porter were members of that committee at one time, it would seem that the critics were right.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
Empire and ambition</h3>
<br />
Occasionally, an ambitious politician from a peripheral nation within an empire manages to rise to the top. Stalin, for example was Georgian, not Russian, but he became the supreme ruler of the Russian-dominated Soviet Union and an important event in Stalin's rise to power was something called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Affair" target="_blank">Georgian Affair</a>.<br />
<br />
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia declared independence in May of 1918, in the midst of the Russian Civil War. However, in February 1921, Georgia was attacked by the Red Army. Stalin played a decisive role in engineering the Red Army invasion of Georgia following which he adopted particularly hard-line, centralist policies towards Soviet Georgia. Stalin favored the elimination of local nationalism and insisted that all three Transcaucasian republics – Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia – join the Soviet Union together as one federative republic. The Georgians wanted their country to retain an individual identity and enter the union as a full member. Lenin disliked Stalin's policy towards Georgia, as he believed all Soviet states should be on equal standing with Russia rather than be absorbed and subordinated to it.<br />
<br />
Basically, Lenin did not want the U.S.S.R. to appear as an empire as Communists were meant to be anti-imperialists. Stalin, for his part, needed to prove his loyalty to this new Russian-dominated empire or "<i>union</i>". Crushing his own people did the trick and having a Georgian invade Georgia deflected accusations of imperialism. Win-win!<br />
<br />
Like the Soviet Union, the Canadian state is an relic of empire and remains a “<i>prison of nations</i>.” The use of repression as an instrument of government policy is rooted in the very nature of Canada. But in an age of democracy and the end empires, it was important to get a Quebecer to implement the hard-line on the rising Quebec nationalism of the 1960s. Trudeau was just the kind of unscrupulous bastard that Canada needed.<br />
<br />
As for Trudeau's motives for despising Quebec, we can only guess that he wanted revenge on the closed, conservative French-Canadian Catholic society he knew in his youth, not realizing that it was the product of Canadian imperialism, the net result of the collusion between the Anglo-protestant bourgeoisie and the Catholic church. The Canadian empire gave him the means to carry out his retribution against Quebec. All he needed to do was flatter the Canadians on their supposed greatness and assure them that he will take care of their Quebec problem.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<i><br /></i>
<i>Based on a <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/10/06/trudeau-s-darkest-hour/" target="_blank">text</a> by Guy Bouthillier</i><br />
<br /></div>
veritasEtjusticiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115380451103317791noreply@blogger.com3