08.01.2012 10:56 AM

“Canada has become a risk for Quebec”

Right on cue.  I didn’t know Marois was going to say this, but I certainly anticipated it in my Sun column, filed this morning and out on Sunday:

“Two: global, national and sub-national economies will continue to slide.  Unemployment will go up, growth will go down. In Quebec – where Stephen Harper is the most detested Prime Minister in generations – the PQ will do what it has done many times in the past: it will blame far-away anglophone Ottawa for Quebec’s economic woes.”

Here we go.

17 Comments

  1. Michael says:

    “We will choose liberty” Really?

    Maybe I do not understand the Quebecois, but is Marois really saying they are oppressed? She may not like the arrangement of confederation but last time I checked everyone in Quebec had liberty. They were free to say and do whatever they wanted.

    • Tiger says:

      Quebec doesn’t have liberty.

      But the people standing in the way of liberty have historically been from the Parti Quebecois.

      If Quebeckers were actually to choose liberty, it’d be by ending the careers of all those PQ politicians.

  2. WDM says:

    It will a very interesting campaign. Is the CAQ a sustainable force in QC politics? Their fall from grace since officially forming makes me wonder if they will be. For the good of the province, hopefully they are, if only to shake loose the notion of QC elections simply being a battle between Federalists and Sovereigntists.

  3. Dan says:

    Separatism is boring. Most young people — Quebec and otherwise — agree. If the Parti Quebecois wins, it will be because people disagreed with Charest or just got sick of him. Which means that, if the PQ wins, they’d be pretty stupid to hold another referendum. They’ll lose the referendum*, and then they’ll lose the government.

    *Unless Harper keeps jabbing a thumb in Quebec’s eye (see: reinstating old symbols of the British Monarchy, dismantling the gun registry without putting something better in place, crapping on the official bilingualism in Canada’s constitution…). Which a lot of his base actually *wants* him to do.

    • Tiger says:

      1. Restoring the Royal titles of the Navy and Air Force had support of a thumping majority of Canadians; it was only opposed 46-41 in Quebec.
      2. If they want a gun registry in Quebec, property and civil rights are clearly in provincial jurisdiction.
      3. Where bilingualism is required, it’s provided. Per the constitution.

      • Dan says:

        1. One straw
        2. One straw
        3. One straw

        Just keep an eye on the camel’s back.

      • james Smith says:

        Yawn!
        Let me know how life is in the ROYAL Sovereign Dominion of Mimico or Western Whitemud or Creaky old Waterloo Row or whatever rock you live under where the vistas are limited to the end of your nose.
        Read a book,
        Hey! you don’t even have to read it you can have someone show you the pictures!
        How about this one:
        Peter Davison’s The Complete Works of George Orwell

    • Bill MacLeod says:

      …crapping on the official bilingualism in Canada’s constitution…

      Wouldn’t you say the most blatant “crapping” on official bilingualism takes place in Quebec, by the hand of the provincial government?

  4. Robert Jago says:

    Since I’ve been in Quebec, I’ve not heard a single person talk about sovereignty or even about Canada. When people complain, it’s about the decline of the French language in Montreal and about Alberta. Not Canada – Alberta. If you want to win this election for the PQ, get Harper out there forcing Alberta’s pipeline through BC. That’ll show people who’s in charge of this country. It’s certainly not something I believe, but it’s something that every single person I’ve met here believes (anglophones and francophones). I’ll bet you good money that when Marois is campaigning, Alberta’s going to be the punching bag.

    As for the CAQ, it’s now 8pm on day one of the election and there are signs up for the Liberals, the PQ, Quebec Solidaire – and not a peep from the CAQ. Maybe that says something about their ground operation, or maybe someone already tore it down because this is an immigrant neighbourhood and the CAQ wants to stop, er “cap” immigration.

  5. Bil H says:

    the last referendum there was a huge outpouring from the rest of Canada that obviously swayed a very close vote.

    i question if they’ll get that outpouring this time.

    i also question if in this day and age quebecers are serious at all about their own nation.

    the answer to both questions is probably no.

    • Darren says:

      I doubt there’d be an upswell outside of Quebec, not anymore. People are tired of separation being used as a threat to get more power or more money. What you may start to see is a growing push outside of Quebec to define what obligations a separate Quebec must agree to before it can leave Canada.

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