Awhile back, I wrote that Gilles Duceppe started reviving separation in commemorate the anniversary of the failure of the Meech Lake Accord and that Pauline Marois was promoting a greener sovereign Quebec.
While I consider myself middle of the road these days where Quebec sovereignty is concerned, I still expressed a few concerns, like the cultural and ideological divisions between Montreal and everywhere else in Quebec; not between French and English.
Bloc Quebecois founder and former Parti-Quebecois premier of Quebec is saying Quebec (I assume he means Parti-Quebecois and Bloc Quebecois) needs new goals as he seems to think sovereignty is now pretty much a pipe-dream; it is not feasable according to Le Devoir:
le Québec doit embrasser un nouveau rêve, trouver «le tremplin de notre nouveau départ». Mais ce n’est pas la souveraineté: ce projet n’est pas une solution puisqu’il n’est pas réalisable.
What he is saying that while Quebec sovereignty isn’t feasable, Quebec should try to achieve a new goal. No kidding! Or we lose the raison d’etre of the Bloc Quebecois and Parti Quebecois.Bouchard took part in a debate Le Devoir organized to celebrate its’ 100th anniversary. Bouchard’s first appearance in public since he resigned from politics in 2001.
«À vue de nez, non. Pauline Marois ne veut pas faire de référendum. Elle sait que ce n’est pas le temps. Le monde n’en veut pas à court terme; ça veut dire plusieurs années», a-t-il dit en réponse aux questions des journalistes
He doesn’t think she has the will to pull it off and more importantly, doesn’t think the people of Quebec want a referendum. That is to be seen later on in the year as events commemorating the failure of the Meech Lake Accord.
He doesn’t seem to hold his former finance minister in that high regard neither. That’s ok, I don’t think too many do. My sovereignist friends don’t like her neither.
She is seen as the ‘bourgeois’; something a lot of Quebecers don’t like.
She was also a terrible finance minister under Bouchard.
However, I think Marois, if she were premier, and I seriously doubt that will ever happen as I think PQ insiders will have her replaced before that can happen (watch for Bernard Drainville, PQ’s latest star who took the Marie-Victorin riding in the last provincial election; my projection, of course), does want a referendum and so would many Quebecers, I think.
Bouchard was right about another thing though: The Parti-Quebecois has been taken in a direction of extremes; they seem to have been replacing the Action Democratique du Quebec with regards to cultural minorities. He found the people of the Parti-Quebecois he debated last night were “negative” over the issues concerning reasonable accommodation.
“I don’t like what I’m hearing from the Parti Québécois,” Mr. Bouchard said. “There is a cultural majority in Quebec and that is us. But there are other people around us, about 10 or 11 per cent that have different religions and we need to make the necessary accommodations when it is needed.”
Marois has spoken of legislating banning the burka or niqab.
P.Q. education critic, Pierre Curzi has spoken against Premier Charest’s wanting to change the school calendar so that religious schools can offer an extra day on week-ends to accommodate religious education along with following the prescribed curriculum. This proposed legislation was mainly to help the illegally run ultra-orthodox Jewish schools who were not teaching the prescribed curriculum.
It is true, Pauline Marois has even gone more wanker lately since the supreme court decision telling Quebec to re-draft Bill 104; the law plugging the loophole allowing children who did a portion of their English language education to attend English language public schools. Her reaction was quite manic. Ever since then, she has been regularly speaking of extending Bill 101 to CEGEPs and daycares. She goes on and on about the French language being in danger in Quebec. The question is, is anyone buying that?
Even Jacques Parizeau, who was considered to be a radical, has mellowed out. He no longer feels it’s a good idea to legislate restricting access to English language CEGEPs as Marois seems to want to propose.
With only about 12% of Anglos living in Montreal these days and even smaller percentages scattered across certain regions of Quebec, I’m not buying that and I suspect most aren’t buying that neither.
The extremism portrayed by Marois and the P.Q. these days doesn’t help their cause, if anything, it can further alienate people.
That he was and so much more. Agree with him or disagree with him, Levesque wasn’t this extremist with immigrants or Anglos. Of course he wanted to protect the French language. Bill 101 came from his era but I never recalled Levesque being as hateful as Marois or even as Jacques Parizeau was when he made that drunken speech following that hairline loss of the 1995 referendum.
I can also say something else about the Parti-Quebecois under Rene Levesque that it isn’t today: Right winged. A direction Bouchard, himself steered the party in. Certainly more to the right than it was back in Levesque’s day.
I seriously doubt Rene Levesque would have condoned Marois’s firing of doctors and nurses as well as closing hospitals.
The Parti-Quebecois has been gutted beyond recognition. Rene Levesque, I’m sure, would be turning over in his grave today. Agree with him or disagree with him; Levesque had integrity.
Bouchard is right about another thing. Quebecers need to concentrate on education, curbing that high drop out rate, dealing with underfunding of universities and subsidized electricity rates. Getting Quebec’s economy back on track and out of deficit.
Merci, Lucien, I’ve always tried to ask that question to die-hard sovereignists: how would sovereignty be economically feasible? How would a sovereign Quebec sustain itself? Quebec has been considered a have-not province for the longest time and thus dependant on federal transfer payments. To date, no one has been able to answer my question. If somebody does, please add their response to the comments section below this post.
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I must beg to differ re: your 12% Anglos living in Montreal. As a matter of fact – the MAJORITY of the 2 + million English speaking people in the Province – live in the greater Montreal area. Almost 1 million of that number fall under the Anglo pop. definition with the other 2 million + falling under the Allo pop. definition(of which I’m one) and that includes English from England, Scotland, Ireland, Americans etc…
A big problem has been that most people blindly accept the FALSE population stats that have been bandied about as fact since the PQ came to power.
Here’s an example to consider. In the mid sixties – the non Francophone population made up 40 – 45% of Quebec’s population, which at the time was around 7 million. The day after the PQ were elected – that percentage was immediately publicly reduced to 30% – even though that was an outright lie. Within 2 – 3 years – our politicos were spouting that Anglos made up as little as 8-9% of QC’s population!!! Today these numbers have – publicly been increased a little. But the TRUTH is .. and always has been that the MAJORITY of the greater Montreal area is non Francophone and that MAJORITY language is English! It happened to be where the English settled – with a few Anglo (God I hate that term) pockets in the rest of the Province.
They may be banding the number 12 or 12% as the English population of QC, but it most certainly is NOT the percentage of the English population of Montreal. If that were the case – then instead of 600,000 leaving the Province… 2 million would have had to leave. So please – take a look at the facts. Many thanks.
Another tidbit … Rene Levesque QUIT the Party because of its policy to ethnically cleanse those Anglo devils out of the Province. And yes it was because he had integrity. The sad part is the ones he left in power had/have none!