Lies, crimes and referendums

“The Clarity Act's main purpose is to prevent a fraudulent secessionist referendum. In 1995 (and to a lesser extent, in 1980), the Parti Québécois presented a trick question to confuse Quebecers as to what exactly they were voting for. Exit polls in 1995 showed that many 'Yes' voters in particular thought they were voting for renewed federalism, a new partnership with Canada, and other distortions and misinformation 

Is that how you want to create a country, on lies and innuendo? 

In 1995, we know Mr. Parizeau was aiming for a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) all along. His so-called "partnership" offer to the ROC was not sincere. Next time, Quebecers will know that the proverbial cart will not be put before the horse. 

Thanks to the Clarity Act, Quebecers - all Quebecers - can decide their fate in confidence. If we must have another referendum it will be done under the rule of law without ill-defined terms like "sovereignty" and "sovereignty-association" muddying up the debate. To those who advocate a separate Quebec, produce your arguments and let the people decide.”

These are the words of a typical federalist. The premise underlining all this is the idea that evil separatists want a completely separate and independent Quebec in order to create some kind of racially pure country. However, they know that if they told everyone about their diabolical plan, the vast majority of Quebecers would reject it (you see, most Quebecers are nice enough but they aren't too bright and so can easily be fooled by the separatist villains). So instead of clearly stating their intentions, the separatists use deceit to achieve their goals...

Thankfully, the good people in Ottawa have found a solution. It’s called the Clarity Act. Now if those evil separatists try to have another referendum, Ottawa will decide if the question was clear enough for the simple-minded Quebecer. And even if a majority vote YES, you have to assume that a good portion of them were unable to understand the question so 50% + 1 is nowhere near enough. What is enough? Well, that’ll be decided later.

This typical federalist also claims that there were 85,000+ stolen NO votes in the 1995 referendum. Never mind that the total number of spoiled votes in the 1995 referendum was 86 501 (1.82%), which is pretty average in any election. He assumes that they were all NO votes without any evidence. The 1992 pan-Canadian referendum had a 2.18% spoiled vote rate and a far more cryptic question but strangely enough, it was the federal government calling that referendum, not the evil separatists.

It’s true, there were a few incidents in 1995 of vote counters showing a bias against NO votes when judging their validity but that issue was addressed diligently and thoroughly by the Chief Returning Officer immediately after the referendum. Former Quebec Chief Justice Alan B. Gold's report, vetted by three respected law professors from three different universities, concluded that the spoiled ballots resulted from the reprehensible but isolated actions of a few individuals working independently and that no evidence was found indicating a widespread plot to take away people's right to vote. Moreover, the law was changed shortly thereafter to prevent recurrence. Nonetheless, the myth of the stolen NO votes lives on. I believe it lives on because it is a way of countering the accusations of true criminality that took place during that referendum.

The reality is that the majority of the sleaze, corruption and dishonesty has clearly come from the federalist side in our referendums and it has been so egregious that I don’t consider that we've had, so far, a clear referendum on the issue of Quebec’s political status. 

These referendums must be seen within the context of the constitutional battles of the time. Most Quebecers basically wanted more autonomy for Quebec and constitutional recognition of Quebec's status as a distinct nation. The debate was about how to achieve this. Some argued that this could be done by reforming Canadian federalism and others said that we needed to first declare our sovereignty and then to negotiate a partnership with Canada. In the end, neither side got what they wanted. The winners were the minority in Quebec who deny the very existence of a Quebec nation and want to keep Quebec subordinated to Ottawa at all cost. And their great victory was achieved through deceit and criminality. 

1980

The 1980 referendum was to give René Levesque’s Parti Québécois government a mandate to negotiate Sovereignty-Association which would create a sovereign Quebec within a Canadian framework. It was not proposing a complete break with Canada and would have been followed by a second referendum to decide the final status of Quebec. This was the question asked to Quebecers:

"The Government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations; this agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, levy its taxes and establish relations abroad — in other words, sovereignty — and at the same time to maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency; any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will only be implemented with popular approval through another referendum; on these terms, do you give the Government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?"

The campaign seems to be remembered mainly for a couple of rather insignificant gaffs committed by the YES side e.g. the Yvette comment by PQ cabinet minister Lise Payette. Mrs Payette denounced women supporters of the "No" side as Yvettes (the name of a docile young girl in an old school manual). She went so far as calling Claude Ryan's wife, Madeleine, an Yvette. This backfired spectacularly as the Yvettes, led by Madeleine Ryan, held a number of political rallies in response to her remarks.

Another gaff was an off-the-cuff remark made by Lévesque himself. Lévesque had made the error of telling a group of Mexican journalists that the referendum was showing Trudeau's “Elliott side”. By this he meant that Trudeau seemed more preoccupied by the interests of English Canadians than by the interests of French Canadians. This was depicted as an ethnocentric remark which infuriated Trudeau or at least he feigned outrage and used this remark to paint Lévesque as someone who only considered people of French ancestry as real Quebecers. Trudeau made an emotional speech in which he named prominent Quebecers with Irish, English or Aboriginal names and asked "Are they not Quebecers?”.

What is usually forgotten is that the campaign was not between Sovereignty-Association and the status quo. The NO side knew that a majority of Quebecers were not happy with the constitutional order in Canada, so they made this a fight between Sovereignty-Association and Renewed Federalism. What this renewed federalism meant was not entirely clear but this was something the Quebec Liberal leader, Claude Ryan, had been going on about for a while. At first, it was a sort of asymmetrical federalism with a special status for Quebec but later morphed into a more decentralized federation after realizing that English Canada was not going to go for the special status idea. What is clear is that it meant more power for Quebec.

Pierre Trudeau said on several occasions that he had no intention of negotiating Sovereignty-Association with René Lévesque making a YES vote possibly pointless as a victory for the YES side would only give Lévesque a mandate to negotiate. But the clincher was when Trudeau said in Montreal's Paul Sauvé arena a few days before the referendum that he would interpret a NO vote as a mandate for a renewed federalism. He knew what Quebecers would understand by those words and he knew that he had no intention of giving them anything of the kind.  

Instead they got the unilateral repatriation of the constitution in 1982 without Quebec’s consent. This was a complete betrayal of Trudeau's promise to Quebecers. The Canadian government imposed on Quebec a substantial reduction in the powers of Quebec’s National Assembly. Quebec also had imposed on it an amending formula that has turned out to be a constitutional straitjacket. The unanimous consent of the provinces is now required for certain fundamental changes to the constitution (like changes to the amending formula). It's ironic how Quebec's consent was not required for adopting such a rule in the first place. This constitution was viewed in Quebec as a complete break of the "dualistic" pact of 1867 between the two founding nations and a denial of Quebec's existence as distinct nation.

Trudeau even ignored the recommendations of his own national unity task force. In 1979, the Pepin-Robarts task force on national unity released its report. The Pepin-Robarts report said this: "Quebec is distinctive, and within a viable Canada it should have all the powers necessary to maintain and develop its distinctive character. Any other solution short of this would lead to the rupture of Canada." The Pepin-Robarts report said that in 1979. Three years later, we got a Constitution that paid absolutely no regard to those statements.

Ryan, with his ideas about a renewed federalism, was left out and betrayed, as were all Quebecers who had voted NO expecting an answer to some of Quebec’s longstanding demands. Some Liberals, like Claude Forget, the provincial Liberal spokesman on constitutional affairs would try to rewrite history and claim that no such promises were ever made. However, Ryan would later write the following about Trudeau’s actions: "When he committed himself a few days before the referendum, in a speech delivered at Montreal's Paul Sauvé arena, to reform of the Canadian federal system, several people, including the author of this book (i.e. Claude Ryan) had understood that what he had in mind was an operation that would be designed and carried out along with his referendum allies. ... But Trudeau had his own agenda, which was not that of the Quebec Liberal Party."

The federalist that I quoted at the beginning of this article stated that in 1995 many YES voters believed they were voting for a renewed federalism, a new partnership with Canada… I don’t believe that for a second but it is irrefutable that many NO voters in 1980 were voting for a renewed federalism along the lines stipulated by Claude Ryan but that was certainly not what they got. Is this not deception?

1995

"To hell with the rules"

In the 1995 referendum, when polls were showing that the YES side was leading, the federal government decided that Quebec referendum laws did not apply to it and that victory had to be achieved at any cost. In the words of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien: 

"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. But in the last nine days I said to hell with the rules 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."

This attitude of laws-be-damned on the part of the federal government not only led to the well-known but legally dubious Unity Rally, it also led to the creation of the mysterious Option Canada. Option Canada could be described as an illegal electoral slush fund. It was created and managed secretly - Quebec's Chief Returning Officer learned of its existence when a Montreal daily broke the story in March 1997. It was granted money under the false pretext of supporting linguistic duality. The accounting documents show that those who dreamed it up had the clear intention of violating the Quebec Referendum Act by funneling some $5 million into the NO campaign and thereby almost doubling that side's resources. Most of the money went into the ad campaign, foreshadowing the ad scam that rocked the Liberal government years later. The secretive pay rolling of campaign "volunteers" also foreshadowed the wads of cash used for similar purposes as Judge Gomery revealed.

Option Canada thus differs from other slush funds in that it was a creation of the Government of Canada run by the Liberal Party. That is the crux of the problem because it is a case of the government secretly and illegally funding an organization in order to defeat a legitimate and democratic political movement. Some might shrug that off saying that it was done to save Canada. If so, what principle will they be able to raise to oppose similar underhanded manoeuvres aimed at defeating other legitimate democratic movements elsewhere in the country?

This network of corruption would later be the same corrupt network behind the sponsorship scandal (ad scam). Those crimes were investigated to some degree during the Gomery inquiry but the scope of the investigation was limited. What was done during the referendum, which is a far more serious crime against the people of Quebec and democracy itself was never properly investigated.  Yet the people behind these crimes are the same ones who would later impose their anti-democratic Clarity Act with its ill-defined terms ostensibly to prevent separatist tricks and deceptions. Orwell would be impressed!

Conclusion

Quebec has gone through many changes to its political status throughout its history. In 1759, it was done through military force and conquest. In 1840, it was forced into a union with Upper-Canada after its rebellion was brutally crushed. This union was made with the expressed intention of marginalizing and assimilating francophones. In 1867, the province of Canada joined Confederation by a simple act of parliament. It's true that a slim majority of Quebec representatives voted to join Confederation but it was as the Courrier du Canada was to put it at the time: "la moins mauvaise des choses dans un monde fort mauvais" (the least harmful thing in a world of harmful things). Independence was never on offer. Confederation at least gave us our state back: The Province of Quebec. There was no referendum as the Rouge party was calling for, there was no clear question and there was no clear majority.

In recent decades, Quebecers have chosen a more democratic route for deciding their political fate: the referendum. There should be clarity and honesty in Quebec's next referendum on sovereignty but Ottawa has no place in dictating its terms or policing its honesty as it has absolutely no credibility in the matter. It would be like Bernie Madoff policing Wall Street.

Quebec Bashing 101

Quebec bashing, otherwise known as the anti-Quebec sentiment which is a rather nice term for something so ugly, is basically a manifestation of racism. I know, I know, You’re going to say “I’m not racist, I just hate Quebecers” or “I can’t be racist since I routinely accuse Quebecers of being horrible racists… and I mean that as a bad thing” or even this gem that was once offered up to me as a justification “It’s not racism because Quebecers aren't a race”.  Nonetheless, Quebec bashing is, without a doubt, an acceptable form of racism in Canada.

The Quebec basher will often pose as a social commentator who is simply casting a critical eye on Quebecois society but what he finds is invariably sinister. Hey, it’s not his fault. That’s just the way things are in Quebec, right? Wrong! Why? Because when there is a consistent habit of always applying double standards, of ignoring context or anything positive, of distorting and exaggerating anything negative, making these negative things emblematic of an entire people and not of individuals then your social commentary is more akin to saying that Mexicans are lazy or Jews are greedy. Endlessly repeating “Quebecers are racist” is no different.

According to most studies on attitudes towards immigrants  or statistics on hate crimes, Quebecers don’t seem any worse than Canadians; sometimes they do better than the Canadian average. However, the impression you get in the Canadian media is that things are far worse in Quebec than in the rest of Canada. Recently it was reported that the Quebec Soccer Federation had decided to ban the wearing of turbans on the soccer field. This got huge media coverage. It even reached India. This story provoked the usual “analysis” in Canadian media about how sick and racist Quebec society has become. I don't remember having any kind of say in the QSF's decision so why am I, as a Quebecer, being dragged through the mud?

Meanwhile, Quebec signs yet another historic agreement with the James Bay Cree. It's a power sharing agreement that gives the Cree a substantial say in what goes on in almost a third of Quebec. A territory the size of Italy. This agreement is simply building on a previous historic agreement commonly called "Paix des Braves", which was signed by Bernard Landry in 2002. These agreements could be a model for Canada, giving native people a far greater say about what goes on in Canada's vast expanses. But English Canada has never agreed to cede this much power to the native people. In fact, this is what the Cree Grand Council had to say about La Paix Des Braves: 

"Most importantly, the Crees signed the "Agreement Respecting a New Relationship Between the Cree Nation and the Government of Quebec" on February 7, 2002 that implements certain obligations of Quebec to the Cree People for community and economic development under section 28 of the JBNQA. While Canada has similar and sometimes joint obligations with Quebec under the same section, Canada has yet to sign a similar agreement to implement its obligations."

Why doesn't this say anything about Quebec and Canada? Why is this story relegated to the back pages whereas the silly soccer controversy is talked about non-stop and even reaches India? Why don't we talk about the high standard of living of the Quebec Cree compared to the Cree living just across the border in Ontario? Why don't we talk about the fact that Native people are underrepresented in the prison population of Quebec whereas in Saskatchewan Native people are over-represented by a ratio of seven to one? Wouldn't this suggest that people in Saskatchewan are far more racist than Quebecers? Why does one story get so much more attention than the other? Simple: one story fits the "Quebecers are racist" narrative and the other doesn't.

Another example: In the run up to the Iraq war there were demonstrations in many cities around the world including in Montreal and Toronto. The one in Montreal attracted about 150,000 people whereas in Toronto only 15,000 showed up despite the fact that Toronto has a greater population than Montreal. I remember thinking "Well, that's interesting! I wonder how the Quebec-haters are going to spin this one".

The next day Le Devoir had an editorial cartoon about the Quebec government's plan to attract more visible minorities into the civil service. It showed Osama Bin Laden applying for a job as a civil servant in Quebec. When asked about relevant experience, he answered that he had once belonged to a sleeper cell. Get it? Civil servants... Sleeper cell... Well, the people at CBC radio didn't. To them the Osama character was a generic Arab and so this cartoon was insinuating that all Arabs are terrorists... More proof that Quebecers are racist! When I got to work, this is what my Anglo colleagues were talking about.

Arab-hating racists aren't likely to go out in the streets to protest the probable slaughter of Iraqis. The fact that ten times more people protested in Montreal than in Toronto did not even register in the Anglo mind. It didn't convey any significant information about Quebecers or Canadians. Twisting a cartoon from Quebec's only sovereignist newspaper in order to make it look racist did register. That's what grabbed their attention. An anti-Semite isn't simply someone who believes negative stereotypes about Jews, it's a person whose mind is constantly looking for confirmation of these negative stereotypes. Information that contradicts his beliefs doesn't register in his mind. It's non-information. 

Ask an anti-Semite to describe the Jews and you'll get a grotesque caricature. Ask a Klansman to draw you a black person and you'll get a hideous sub-human monster. Ask the Canadian media about Quebec and Quebecers and you'll get something pretty similar. Everything negative is exaggerated beyond reason and given far too much attention. Quebec basically has no redeeming qualities. Its language laws are the worst oppression since Nazi Germany and are the cause of every single problem from crumbling bridges to school shootings...

From inferior race to racists

In the beginning

I think it's important to take a brief look back at the history of race relations in Canada in order to put Quebec bashing in its proper context. I believe the backdrop to all this could be the old English-French rivalry going all the way back to the Hundred Years' War. Then, the English Reformation, when most of England converted to Protestantism and France remained Roman Catholic, added an even deeper division in which each side could see the other as not only as a foreign evil but also a heretical one. However, a new element was added to the mix in North America, one that never existed in Europe. This element stems from the fundamental difference between the English and French colonies in North America and their relationship with the Native population.

New England was from the outset an attempt to literally build a new England. It involved cutting down trees and eliminating the native population. Consequently, the English had no respect or kindness for the natives of the New World.  The Puritans in Massachusetts tended to see the Indians as filthy, torture loving savages and were comfortable with their elimination or migrated absence.

The objectives of the French in the New World were less ambitious. New France was basically a trade colony and existed primarily for the fur trade. Champlain, the founder of New France, was no Cortés or Pizarro. He did not come as a conqueror. He came to set up a business venture and the native people were an important part of this business. They did the actual hunting. Champlain’s mission was to make alliances with the natives and get the business up and running, it was not about conquest and subjugation. French settlements in Quebec were made following alliances with the Native people and with their consent. By all accounts, French settlers tended to coexist peacefully with the local Indians. In fact, there were many cases of intermarriage between the two groups.

Now, obviously I’m not suggesting that the French were morally superior to the English. French imperialists simply did what was in their interests as all imperialists do. A good relationship with the natives was good for business and military alliances with them was France’s strategy to level out the ten to one demographic imbalance between New England and New France. Nonetheless, this set the tone for the relationship between French and native and it also created the perception among the English that the French in North America had “gone native”. Of course, this wasn't merely a perception, particularly in western parts where the merging of French and Cree even gave rise to a new language called Michif.

 

Not quite white

After the Conquest,  French Canadians not only lost their commercial empire in the West but most of their access to executive positions in their society and the capacity to shape their destiny as a people. Before 1760, they had access to most important business, military, and political positions in the colony. Afterwards, not only did the population lose some of their elites, who moved on to pursue their careers elsewhere in the French Empire, but those who remained in New France lost their handle on government, administration, business, and the military. The French Canadian gentry entered into decline. Gradually, the colony’s elites were overwhelmingly composed of the Anglo minority, power residing in the hands of London and of men nominated by Britain. And thus began nearly two centuries of French Canadians mainly occupying the role of an exploited underclass. 

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau, an American philosopher and author, visited Lower-Canada (Quebec) and wrote about his travels in “A Yankee in Canada" (1853). In this book he gives us his impressions of French-Canadians:

"It has been observed by another that the French Canadians do not extend nor perpetuate their influence. The British, Irish, and other immigrants, who have settled the townships, are found to have imitated the American settlers and not the French. They reminded me in this of the Indians, whom they were slow to displace, and to whose habits of life they themselves more readily conformed than the Indians to theirs.... Thus, while the descendants of the Pilgrims are teaching the English to make pegged boots, the descendants of the French in Canada are wearing the Indian moccasin still… The impression made on me was that the French Canadians were even sharing the fate of the Indians, or at least gradually disappearing in what is called the Saxon current."

George Vattier, a French academic who taught at the Royal Military College of Canada in the early 1920s summarized the English Canadian attitude towards French Canadians in his book “Essai sur la mentalité canadienne française”:

“What hurts French Canadians most is that people pretend to disregard them, and speak and act as if they were not there... when they were the ones who discovered and colonized this country, and founded Québec a century and a half before the English took it over!... They will be less inclined to forget it to the extent that English Canadians still pretend to consider them inferior and intellectually backward, often alleging that most of them are Métis, or at least are barely educated, speak a dialect that has nothing in common with French, and are opposed to progress and only suited to occupy second-rate positions. In this connection, the English have constantly repeated... that French Canadians were only fit to be “hewers of wood and drawers of water”.”

Even as recently as the 1960s the president of CN at the time, Donald Gordon, openly said that the reason that none of his 17 vice-presidents were French Canadians was that no French Canadian was competent enough to hold such a position. In other words, French Canadians were an inferior people not capable of big and important things. This was a commonly held view by English Canadians for most of our history together. Of course, today, talk of racial inferiority is no longer acceptable and it is quite astounding how quickly this was turned into "Quebecers are racist". We therefore went from being racially inferior to English Canadians to being morally inferior to them in about a decade. By the 1970s people like Mordecai Richler were already spreading lies about how the PQ were using a Nazi song in their political campaign.

Racism as a propaganda tool

The media image you get of Martin Luther King Jr today is the "I have a dream" MLK. It's the image of the man who said racism is bad and we should all just get along. But there was another Martin Luther King Jr, a more radical one. He is conveniently forgotten by the media of today. He was the man who said that America was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. He was the man who opposed the Vietnam war and denounced the economic injustice in America. That MLK was vilified in the media at the time and would still be vilified today were he around. He was vilified because he challenged the established order in the US.

The desire among many Quebecers for independence is no more sinister, racist or xenophobic than the desire among Canadians to remain independent from the US or Britain. Quebec's independence movement is as legitimate as any other national liberation movement and is not based on any kind narrow-mindedness or bigotry. But it is a threat to Canada's established order. Therefore, it needs to be smeared and constantly associated with negative things like racism, etc. That is exactly what the Canadian media does. I'm not saying there is a big conspiracy. It's more of a big Quebec bashing bandwagon that people are encouraged to jump on. It gives you an instant, eager audience clamoring for more. Criticizing the bandwagon will get you ignored which is a bad career move for a media type.

Chrétien & Dion explain the Clarity Act

Jean Chrétien and Stéphane Dion, Canada's crack national unity experts, were sent to the UK and Spain to advise those countries on how to deal with their growing separatist threats.

We have obtained the transcripts of their meeting with David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK.

It should be noted that Chrétien and Dion are the masterminds behind Canada's unity building Clarity Act.¹

DC: Hello Mr Chretien and Mr Dion, Thank you for coming and helping us with our separatist problem.

JC: Hello, Mr Cameron. Don't worry, we're like the Ghostbusters except it's for separatists... Who you ganna call, eh? Haha!

SD: Good one, Boss!

DC: Yes, well... We're glad you're here. We know you passed some groundbreaking legislation, the Clarity Act, in Canada which lays down the ground rules for these separatist bastards so that they cannot cheat their way to independence.

SD: Yes, we redefined the very meaning of word "clarity". I feel we achieved a clearer kind of clarity.

DC: Clearly!

JC: That's right, mon Stéphane. And we put those separatists in their place, eh? I love putting separatists in their place. I consider it the job Canadians hired me to do... So what would you like to know Mr Cameron?

DC: Well, let's start with the "clear question" part of the act. How do you define that?

JC: We don't, of course. That's the idea.

SD: If I may Boss? We feel that any indication in the question of a willingness to negotiate a partnership or to keep mutually beneficial ties or of just being reasonable in general might lead people to believe that they are dealing with rational adults who would negotiate independence in good faith. We feel that this is misleading. We want people to see us as the kind of psycho who threatens to kill his girlfriend if she even thinks of leaving. That's why we threatened to cut Quebec up if it ever leaves.

DC: I see. Well, I think the question in the Scottish referendum is quite clear: "Should Scotland be an independent country?". So I don't think we can do much on that front.

JC: Oh, I don't know. Maybe I think Scotland "should" be an independent country but I don't want it to be independent. How do I vote then? It's not clear... I'm confused!

SD: Exactly! Also, "an independent country" is not very clear. Which independent country? Maybe that country is the UK. Who knows what the voter really intends when he votes YES. You know, people aren't too bright.

JC: Good point, mon p'tit Stéphane... Also, the question doesn't say when. Maybe I think Scotland should be an independent country 200 years from now. Again, how do I vote? I'm confused and I forgot my glasses. I think "Do you really want to destroy the bestest country in the world?" would be a clearer question from the standpoint of clarity, I believe.

DC: I see we called the right people. We hadn't thought of any of this.

JC: Well, we have a lot of experience dealing with the separatists. I remember during the 1980 referendum, I was talking to Claude Ryan, he was the leader of the Quebec Liberal Party at the time. That guy, you know, he was so pompous and aloof. When you were in his the presence, you felt you were in front of a bishop. You felt like you had to get on your knees and kiss his bague²...

DC: ?

Kiss his what?

JC: Anyway, what were we talking about?

DC: Maybe we should move on to a "clear majority". I have to admit, I'm not too clear on what you mean here. What do you consider a "clear majority", Mr Chretien?

JC: Oh, I don't know. That's something you establish after the referendum and it's usually 5% more than the result if the YES side wins. But personally, I think 75% is pretty clear if the question is clear. What do you think, Stéphane?

SD: Well, Justin Trudeau recently put the bar at 66%.

JC: Oh, Justin... he's always been weak on the separatists, not like his father. His father knew how to deal with separatists. A couple of kidnappings and you declare martial law, send in the army and start rounding up all the separatists. That's the way you do it.

DC: But didn't one of the hostages die?

JC: Yes, well, Trudeau was making a political point, you see... Look, if you want to make an omelet, you have to crack a few eggs, right? And if your omelet is national unity then you've got to crack a few separatist heads. Am I right, Stéphane?

SD: You're right, Boss! Are you familiar with the Shawinigan Handshake, Mr Cameron?

JC: Anyway, Laporte got a bridge named after him. He's a martyr for national unity now... almost a saint. People hardly even mention his mafia ties nowadays so we did him a big favor by hanging him out to dry like that.

DC: OK, well... Do you have any other advice for us?

SD: Have you compared Scottish nationalists to Nazis yet?

DC: Yes, we had some of our lackeys in the media take care of that.

JC: Good! Pepper spray?

I ❤ Franco

SD: Boss, I'm afraid we have to catch our plane to Madrid now.

JC: Oh, look at the time. I'm sorry David but we have to go help the Spaniards. I don't know why they need us when they had the great Generalissimo Franco. He was the master of national unity.

DC: Well, thank you both for your help. I think we now have a clearer understanding of what referendum clarity is thanks to you gentlemen...

1- Why the Clarity Act is anti-democratic

2- NB: bague is the French word for ring, pronounced like "bag"... (This is an actual Chrétien quote)

Weak cultures should die!

In their latest attempt at propaganda, the Anglo-supremacist Facebook group Put Canadian Flag Back In Quebec Assembly makes the point that other ethnic groups like the Chinese or Italians do not require government assistance in order to protect their culture or language. So, why do “French-Canadians” need this type of protection? The followers of this group provide us with an answer: It’s a weak culture that deserves to die and the government has no business in propping it up!

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Cultural protectionism

One obvious problem with this argument is that it can be applied to Canada as well. Canada, of course, also engages in cultural protectionism. Canadians have legislated to protect their culture and their cultural institutions; they have used public funds to subsidize artists and artistic endeavors in every domain of cultural activity.

The federal government of Canada has always seen a role for itself:

• in direct support to artists and artistic endeavors (via the Canada Council and other federally-funded granting programs such as book publishing).
• in the creation of national cultural institutions like the CBC, the National Arts Centre, and the Canada Council.
• in law and regulation (e.g., the Canadian content rules on radio, the cultural property export review law, the laws on ownership of newspapers and TV/radio).

In 1972 the CRTC introduced Radio Regulations which stipulated that commercial radio stations had to ensure that at least 30% of their broadcasted popular music selections were Canadian. The primary objective of these regulations was to encourage increased exposure of Canadian musical performers to Canadian audiences and to strengthen the Canadian music industry. These regulations had a direct impact on the availability of Canadian musical selections. The CRTC‘s Commercial Radio Policy, revised in 1998, increased the Canadian content to at least 35%. Basically, the Canadian government stepped into the cultural marketplace and regulated a place for Canadians.

The CBC's current funding is roughly $750 million annually and it's estimated that the Canadian government spends a total of $4.2 billion on culture. Why does Canada spend so much tax-payers' money on culture? Americans don't need to invest this kind of money and effort protecting and promoting their culture. Does Canada have a weak culture which would die without government support?

The fact is, with a thinly scattered population, Canada needs to overcome vast geographical distances. Sharing a common language with the Americans and living within easy reach of the border, Canadians could easily begin to identify more closely with their neighbors directly to the south of them than with people living thousands of miles away. Therefore, both transportation and telecommunications have been prioritized in order to provide Canadians with a sense of unity and identity, from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. Canadian cultural protectionism is in essence a form of Nation-building which is the process of constructing or structuring a national identity using the power of the state.

You would think that a nation that engages in its own cultural protectionism against a bigger, more dominant culture could understand Quebec's need to protect its culture from the overwhelming dominance of English on this continent. You would think that, but you would be wrong. Anglophones in Quebec and in Canada routinely go into hysterical convulsions whenever the application of Quebec's language laws seems frivolous. They hold up these incidents as proof that this protectionism is unnecessary, petty or oppressive. However, if we applied the same level of scrutiny to Canada's cultural protectionism, we could also find cases to make it all seem unnecessary, petty or oppressive.

For example, the CRTC recently cracked down on a number of porn channels for not showing enough Canadian content. Does anyone really care if 35% of their porn is made in Canada? Will the national identity of Canadians really be threatened if 35% of the people having sex on their screens aren't Canadian? See, it's not hard to do...

Conflicting visions of Quebec

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. Oh! So you think you're more special than Chinese-Canadians or Italian-Canadians, do you? No, it's not that... But let's be honest, Italian culture is not being created in Canada. Italian culture is a living, evolving culture in Italy, not in Canada. Immigrant communities are simply holding on to the culture of the old country and then trying to pass it down to the next generation like some kind of family heirloom. But despite these efforts, each generation usually becomes more and more assimilated into the dominant culture of the host country.

We are no more French immigrants than Brazilians are Portuguese immigrants. Our culture is a 400 year old French-speaking, North American culture. 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. The name of this culture and of the people who belong to it was for a long time Canadien but since that name was hijacked by another nation we decided to go with Québécois or Quebecers in English. But regardless of what we call ourselves, we are a distinct nation, not just an ethnic group in an Anglo dominated Canada.

According to Trudeau's vision, Canada is just that, a single nation-state with a multicultural mosaic of ethnic groups, each one making up a piece of the whole. What is meant to bind this mosaic together isn't very clear. You'll often hear nonsense like "shared values". In reality multicultural Canada does have a dominant culture. It's simply a local variation of American culture (which seems to need a lot of government protection). And this culture has a dominant language: English! Canadians feel that Quebercers should accept their place as a piece of this mosaic, in other words, accept to be just another ethnic group in their nation. The Canadian Flag group are essentially expressing their frustration at our refusal to go along with this vision.

The old French-Canadian nationalism of the days when Canada was seen as a "bi-national" country has largely been replaced by a Québécois nationalism which sees Quebec as a separate and distinct nation that is open and democratic. Unlike Canada, we cannot pretend that there is no dominant culture and language, we don't have that luxury. We have to manage our situation and go against the current. We have to put some effort into making a French-speaking society in North America viable. It is a collective effort. Many immigrants to Quebec have understood this and have joined us in building this nation. But until Quebec becomes an independent country, these two opposing visions of Quebec will always be a source of conflict and for an immigrant to join our side will be seen by some as a subversive act.

Quebec nationalists like myself obviously consider people like Amir Khadir and Maka Kotto as being far more Québécois than Jean Chrétien or Stéphane Dion. However, to the people of the Canadian Flag group, they are the worst kind of traitors because they have chosen the Québécois nation over the Canadian one.

Exhibit C:

Amir Khadir recently spoke about free education in front of a school which caused an uproar on the Canadian flag page. He was called everything from a traitor to a terrorist. Why a terrorist? Because he's from Iran. Racism is OK in Canada when it is directed at us and Mr Khadir is one of us by choice.

Foreign terrorist destroying Canada

Quebec and its Territory

Canada's annexation of the Sudetenland

The integrity of Québec's territory has never been a particular subject of debate, either here or in the rest of Canada. Until recently, it was accepted that if Quebecers were to democratically decide their accession to sovereignty, Québec would keep its present territory and would be recognized within its existing borders.

This assumption was buttressed by the cases of dozens of countries that have come into existence since the creation of the United Nations in 1945. 

Now, suddenly, a strange debate has erupted over carving up or dividing the territory of a sovereign Québec. Québec's borders would no longer be based on geography but rather on ethnic or linguistic considerations. This is what the “partitionists” are proposing. What first appeared a ludicrous idea, a sort of utopia of the desperate, has spread like wildfire, fed by misinformation and exaggeration. 

Yet the partitionists' claims have no basis in law or historical precedent. The idea that parts of Québec's territory could remain under the administration of the federal government or another province after Québec achieves sovereignty is contradicted both by international law and by recent history. 

We must resume a more level-headed discussion. Citizens of good will may sometimes allow themselves to be swept along unconsidered directions, inevitably without any possible positive outcome. There are excesses in which responsible men and women should not indulge and which they must not encourage. The debate on Québec's future must be conducted on the basis of reason, truth and fact. 

To be sure, one may defend or oppose sovereignty with passion and conviction, but it is vital that we continue to uphold the democratic values we all cherish. Whatever the result of the next referendum may be, Quebecers will continue to maintain civilized and cordial relations with each other and with their Canadian neighbours.

In response to the partitionists' arguments, the government of Québec must set the record straight and explain, on the basis of objective, internationally-recognized information, why it would be impossible to carve up Québec's territory.

As we shall see, the argument that if Canada is divisible so is Québec is without legal basis. Québec is a State with a distinct people, political institutions and a precise territory; it existed well before the creation of the Canadian federation, of which it is a member. Québec represents one of the two peoples who created this federation, the founding principles of which have, regrettably, been modified without Québec's agreement and despite Québec's formal opposition.

Jacques Brassard (Minister for Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs), 1997

A Sovereign Québec Will Keep Its Borders

Before Sovereignty

As long as Québec is part of Canada, its territory cannot be modified without the consent of the National Assembly. The Canadian constitution is very clear on this point: this guarantee was enshrined in the Constitutional Act of 1871 and has never been challenged since.

This guarantee would obviously continue to hold during the transition period following a “Yes” victory in a referendum, while the Québec government would seek to reach a partnership agreement with Canada. During this negotiation phase, Québec would still be part of Canada and the Canadian constitution would apply as before.

After Sovereignty

At the end of the transition period set by the National Assembly, when Québec would become sovereign, the Canadian constitution would cease to apply within Québec's territory. Québec's territorial integrity would then be guaranteed by well-established principles of international law.

According to these principles, Québec's borders as they were before it became sovereign would be the borders of the new state. The established rule in international law is uti possidetis juris, which basically means “You keep what you already have.”

This rule has been rigorously applied in all recent cases in which states have attained sovereignty. For example, when the republics of the former Soviet Union became sovereign states, they kept their territory; indeed, respect for established borders was one of the international community's main criteria for recognizing the new states.

In short, neither the other provinces nor the federal government could use the opportunity to reduce or modify Québec's territory without its consent.

Québec Is Indivisible

Could parts of Québec decide to remain in Canada?

There is no rule of international law that supports this possibility. The idea that, once Québec becomes sovereign, foreign enclaves could be created or parts of its territory could be attached to another country, against Québec's will, is contradicted by international law. This would be equivalent to modifying Québec's boundaries, which is entirely contrary to the rules that have been applied on numerous occasions in comparable situations.

Québec will become a country embracing all its citizens within its present territory or remain a province of Canada. There can be no in-between situation.

Would a municipality or group of municipalities have the right to remain in Canada?

This is totally impossible.

The partition resolutions passed by some municipalities have no legal force. Cities and towns are administrative entities that exist by the will of the National Assembly and the Québec government. They have no power to decide whether they want to be part of Québec or not. The Québec State exercises its sovereignty over the entirety of its territory. Québec's borders are geographical, not linguistic or ethnic.

The question of the rights of Aboriginal peoples

Given their recognized rights, could the aboriginal peoples of Québec decide to remain in Canada?

Aboriginal peoples have rights which are recognized by the international community and under international law.

All international legal texts agree that the rights of aboriginal peoples are exercised within sovereign states. The recognized rights of aboriginal peoples do not in any way call into question a country's territorial integrity, whether the case in question is Québec, Canada or any other State. According to experts on international law, whatever the exact scope of these rights, which are still being defined in various countries and by the United Nations, may be, they cannot be interpreted as including a right to sovereignty.

However, aboriginal peoples must be given an explicit guarantee that their existing rights will be entrenched in the constitution of a sovereign Québec and that these rights could not be modified without their consent. The bill on the future of Québec published before the October 1995 referendum contained a provision to this effect.

As far as Québec's northern regions are concerned, it should be recalled that those lands which were not already recognized as part of Québec under the Québec Act of 1774 were annexed to Québec by constitutional amendments in 1898 and 1912.

Moreover, Section 2.1 of the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement stipulates that “In consideration of the rights and benefits herein set forth in favour of the James Bay Crees and the Inuit of Québec, the James Bay Crees and the Inuit of Québec hereby cede, release, surrender and convey all their Native claims, rights, titles and interests, whatever they may be, in and to land in the Territory and in Québec, and Québec and Canada accept such surrender”. The Northeastern Québec Agreement contains a similar provision.

These agreements were approved by Acts of the federal Parliament and the Québec National Assembly. Consequently, Québec has full jurisdiction over northern Québec.

Opinions of Five International Experts

In 1991, a special commission of the National Assembly solicited the opinions of five international experts on issues related to Québec's accession to sovereignty. The opinion written by these experts, entitled The Territorial Integrity of Quebec in the Event of the Attainment of Sovereignty. These eminent jurists, who are experts on international law, unanimously agreed that:

• As long as Québec is part of Canada, the integrity of its territory is guaranteed by Canadian constitutional law;
• Québec's accession to sovereignty would immediately bring the principles of international law into play and would not lead to any change in Québec's borders;
• The Québec people could not base its claim to sovereignty on its right to self determination, but neither would it be prevented by law from achieving sovereignty. Accession to sovereignty is a de facto situation of which international law neither approves nor disapproves: it simply recognizes its existence;
• The extensive rights recognized to aboriginal peoples cannot be interpreted as including a right to sovereignty;
• The protection provided to the anglophone minority under international law has no territorial effect;
• Residents of Québec's border regions do not, as such, enjoy any special protection under international law.

The five experts

Thomas M. FRANCK, Becker Professor and Director of the Centre for International Studies at the New York University School of Law (United States);

Rosalyn HIGGINS, Q.C., Professor, London School of Economics (Great Britain), member of the United Nations Committee on Human Rights;

Alain PELLET, Associate Professor of public law at the Université de Paris X-Nanterre and the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (France), member of the United Nations International Law Commission;

Malcolm N. SHAW, Professor, Faculty of Law, Leicester University (Great Britain);

Christian TOMUSCHAT, Professor, Institute of International Law, University of Bonn (Germany), Chair of the United Nations International Law Commission.

This is an edited version of a statement by the Government of Québec made in 1997 on the question of partition.

Some call it democracy

The other day, at lunch, a rather silly colleague of mine seemed exasperated by all the anti-Harper talk she was hearing around the lunch table. She then declared "Well, if everyone hates Harper so much, why did he get a majority at the last election?". I had to point out that Harper barely got 40% of the vote which is in no way a majority. This left her rather baffled but she assured me that she would look it up and get back to me.

Get back to me she did. The next day, she announced that Stephen Harper had achieved the biggest majority in 20 years in 2011 with 166 seats. I explained to her that the Conservative vote went from 37.65% in 2008 to 39.62% in 2011. An increase of 1.96% which allowed the Conservatives to go from a 143 seat minority to a 166 seat majority. That 1.96% somehow represented 23 seats. Those must have been some very important people for their votes to carry so much weight.

What really happened is that a lot of Liberal voters defected to the NDP, therefore giving the victory to the Conservatives in many ridings even though over 60% of the electorate voted against them. This happened all over Ontario which allowed the Conservatives to pick up all those new seats. Democracy is generally understood as meaning "rule with the consent of the majority" but in this system it is "rule by the biggest minority" which is simply not democracy. I tried to explain to this woman how undemocratic this system was but her answer was to say "well, that's our system!". In reality, it's not our system at all. It's the system of our conquerors. It's the British system. It is imbued with their history and their archaic institutions which really have nothing to do with us.

One obvious clue that this system isn't ours is that our head of state is a foreign monarch. Not only is our head of state a throwback from an earlier age but it is a foreign throwback. The Queen of England is also the Queen of Canada and therefore the Queen of Quebec. This fact embarrasses and disgusts me to no end. I find it offensive that Quebec's MNAs are forced to take an oath of loyalty to the British monarch and that reciting this same oath is also the first act asked of new immigrants. It should be remembered that the Queen of England is also the head of the Church of England. I don't understand why there isn't more resistance to having to swear allegiance to this person. It's like swearing allegiance to the Pope when you aren't even Catholic.

 

How to end monarchy the French way!

I hate the Queen's face on our money and stamps. I find it idiotic that all this "Crown" nonsense infests our judicial system. It gets to the point where I sometimes feel like we are some kind of primitive tribe aping our colonial masters. But there it is, in Canada’s system of government, the power to govern is vested in the Crown but is entrusted to the government to use on behalf of the people. The Crown reminds the government of the day that the source of the power to govern rests elsewhere and that it is only given to them for a limited duration. In a democracy, the people are sovereign—they are the highest form of political authority. In this ridiculous system, which we inherited from the British, the Crown is sovereign.

Another obvious sign that this system is not ours is that it is a carbon copy of the Westminster system in Great Britain. We have an unelected Senate which is based on their House of Lords, a medieval relic from a time when land ownership was a major source of political power, and just as ownership of land moved from generation to generation so did the titles. Basically, it was a safeguard for the nobility. It allowed them to veto any foolish decisions made by the plebes in the house of commons. In Canada, an appointment to the Senate is usually a gift to a political crony. It's a complete waste of tax-payers' money. In fact, the only time we seem to hear about the Senate is when there are scandals.

Since our head of state is more of a figurehead who does not exercise direct power, the real power to govern lies with the Prime Minister. This, in fact, merges the executive with the legislative branches of government, thereby removing important checks and balances. The Prime Minister, therefore, becomes all powerful, particularly if he/she has a majority of seats which is often achieved without the support of the majority of voters. The main undemocratic and even dictatorial feature of the Canadian federal system is the unilateral power of the Prime Minister:

1. To appoint the Governor General of Canada (through whom the PM technically exercises most of his/her powers, some of which are listed below)
2. To appoint Senators to the Canadian Senate
3. To appoint Supreme Court justices and other federal justices
4. To appoint all members of the Cabinet
5. To appoint the entire board of the Bank of Canada
6. To appoint the heads of the military, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and other government agencies
7. To appoint CEO's and Chairs of crown corporations such as CBC
8. To dissolve Parliament and choose the time of the next federal election (within a 5 year limit)
9. To run for re-election indefinitely (no term limits)
10. To remove Members of Parliament (MPs) from the ruling party's caucus
11. To deny any MP the right to participate in parliamentary debate or run for re-election
12. To dismiss individuals or groups of representatives from serving in Parliament
13. To ratify treaties
14. To declare war

So, we have a system that gives far too much power to a single person but it gets worse. You can't even directly vote for or against this person unless you live in their ridding. You can only vote for your local representative who will most likely just sit in the House of Commons like some potted plant and vote the way they're told to. Basically it's a package deal. Who you want as your local representative, the party you'd like to see control Parliament and the chief executive cannot be chosen separately.

Most people choose based on the leader of each party and usually it is a vote against the person they hate most. You see, we have a first-past-the-post system. You don't need the support of the majority to win. You just need more than the next guy. The media will tell you which candidates have a chance of winning and which don't. You don't want to waste your vote on someone who can't win and you don't want THAT guy to win so you'll just have to hold your nose and vote for the other guy who you're told has got a shot but does not really represent you on many issues.

Of course it doesn't need to be this way. There is a very simple and effective way to make sure that the person elected has the consent of the majority. It's called Alternative voting or Instant runoff voting. Here's a nice and clear explanation of how it works:

This system eliminates the need for strategic voting. You can vote your conscience first and vote strategic second, if you want. The person who wins in this system has the support of 50% + 1 and you can't argue with that (unless you are Justin Trudeau or Stéphane Dion). In other words, you can vote for the candidate or party that represents you the most without the fear of handing the victory to the party you hate most.

In the end, my biggest problem with this system is that I am not the subject of a monarch and I never will be.  I am a citizen of a republic. It's a republic with a meaningful democracy, not a mockery of it. It's a republic that is free and diverse. It's a republic that proudly asserts its difference in an ocean of homogeneity. It's a republic that does not exist yet but one that must exist. Of course, I'm talking about la République du Québec.