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Quebeckers have a mental Bloc

I have always believed that the majority of the separatist support in Quebec is a mile wide and inch deep. The support for separatist parties is like a strike vote done by people who really don’t want to go on strike, but want strength at the negotiation table. However sooner or later the other side calls you on it and I think this is what is happening in the ROC. Quebecers are starting to realize the bluff is no longer working and aren’t sure what to do. When faced with the real costs both finically and socially of separating the rose coloured goggles won’t be working. I have no doubt the “Elite” will salivate at the thought of their own country, but the average joe is going to look at their wallet and the rest of the world and say “No thanks”
 
I'm just pissed at the thought that the PQ were not that long ago on the knife's edge of going the way of smallpox and have since made a recovery.  I get so friggin tired of hearing their bleats.  >:(
 
jollyjacktar said:
I'm just pissed at the thought that the PQ were not that long ago on the knife's edge of going the way of smallpox and have since made a recovery.  I get so friggin tired of hearing their bleats.  >:(


I think you are expressing the (solid majority) Canadian view.

I know many here are tired of this topic, but here is more, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail - if you just read the highlighted bits from Prof. Tom Flanagan you will get the main, political, point:

My emphasis added
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/elections/wearily-quebec-and-canada-could-soon-drag-themselves-back-into-the-ring-but-do-we-care/article4513853/
Wearily, Quebec and Canada could soon drag themselves back into the ring. But do we care?

JOHN IBBITSON
The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Aug. 31 2012

If the Parti Quebecois comes to power after Tuesday’s vote, Ottawa and Quebec will once again confront each other over Canada’s future.

Neither side will ever have been so weak.

The Conservative government has little purchase in French Canada.

The sovereigntist cause is at its lowest ebb.

And this is a very different country from 1995, when last a referendum was held. Since then, more than 3.7 million people have immigrated to Canada, nearly all of them from developing countries. What do they care about the solitudes? Who is Louis Riel to them?

“Because of immigration, the people do not have the same knowledge that this country was founded by the two great nations,” said Senator Jean-Claude Rivest, who was a key adviser to Quebec premier Robert Bourassa in the 1970s.

For Stephen Harper, the challenge might not only lie in containing a separatist government. The challenge might also lie in getting the rest of the country to care.

If the latest polls hold, PQ Leader Pauline Marois is on the cusp of forming a minority government, with either Francois Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec or Jean Charest’s Liberals becoming the official opposition.

If so, then the two parties could defeat the sovereigntist government at any time, forcing an election or bringing the official opposition to power.

Even if Ms. Marois were able to hang on, she would have to contend with the hardline faction within her own party, which would push for a referendum because many of them are old and running out of time.

Yet support for sovereignty is extremely weak. A CROP poll published Friday reported that only 28 per cent of Quebeckers would vote yes if a referendum were held today.

The constitutional and jurisdictional tussles that once dominated the Quebec-Canada agenda have been buried, along with the long-dead confidence among Quebeckers that the state could transform their society for the better.

“The sense of grievance and the need for government action have changed dramatically,” said George Anderson, a former public servant who was a key adviser to both the Trudeau and Chrétien governments on Quebec.

“Today, it’s more business as usual.”

Nonetheless, Ms. Marois would demand new powers for Quebec over employment insurance, language, culture, communications and immigration, for starters.

She would know that Mr. Harper has a weak hand, with only five Quebec MPs and little support in the province. So what to do?

For Mr. Anderson, the first step would be to recruit more Quebeckers into the government and perhaps even into cabinet, through Senate appointments.

Mr. Harper would just say no to the PQ’s most provocative demands. But Tom Flanagan, Mr. Harper’s former chief adviser, believes there might also be an opportunity to make deals, so long as any such deals were made available to other provinces.

Mr. Flanagan, now a political scientist at the University of Calgary, has this advice for his old boss: “You don’t have to reject everything the PQ suggests. They might have ideas that fit into your own agenda, and if they do, it would be worthwhile to pursue them.”

If Quebec wants to take control of Employment Insurance, Alberta and Ontario might welcome similar powers, if constitutional obstacles could be overcome.


But dealing with Quebec alienation from Canada as expressed, once again, through a separatist government would only be the half of it. The other half is dealing with the alienation of the rest of Canada from Quebec.

“The Quebec identity trends away from identity with Canada, and that of Canada away from Quebec,” Mr. Anderson observed.

An Ipsos Reid poll published in June reported that 49 per cent of Canadians living outside Quebec “don’t really care” if Quebec separates from the country.

Whatever else he does, Mr. Rivest believes Mr. Harper must continue to promote the bilingual nature of Canada.

Appointing unilingual anglophones to senior positions – which Mr. Harper did recently to both the Supreme Court and the office of auditor general – does not help the cause, he said.

Mr. Rivest remains convinced that Quebeckers “share the values of all other Canadians. But they want to stay Quebeckers within Canada. And this is why the separatist movement is so weak.”

As for Canada outside Quebec: “If the people can accept that this country is a bilingual and bicultural one, I have no fear for the country.”

The question that a PQ victory might unintentionally provoke is whether Canadians outside Quebec still hold to that belief.

The answer to John Ibbittson's headline question, "...do we care?" is a pretty resounding "No," if we, here on Army.ca are a fair sample of Canadians. I'm repeating myself, but just as Senator Jean-Claude Rivest says that "Quebeckers “share the values of all other Canadians. But they want to stay Quebeckers within Canada," so do Canadians understand that Quebec shoud not and is not going anywhere, thus any Quebec premier, of any political stripe, is "negotiating" from a position of weakness and, worse for her or him, "negotiating" with someone (Stephen Harper) who isn't interested.

But, to Prof Flanagan's point: this is an opportunity for Harper to do something that I believe should be done and that I also think Prime Minister Harper wants to do: further decentralize the Canadian federation.1

__________
1. See here
 
Another nonissue to distract the electorate. Let's bring up abortion and gun control while we are at it. I remember when parties had financial policies and took stands on issues that actually mattered in the real world.

Governments generally don't touch hot button issues legislatively. 95% of what they do is collecting and allocating financial resources. Talk less about the 5% of the job and more about the 95%. Catering to single issue crackpots is getting on my nerves and giving special interest carte blanche to make financial policy that is not in our best interest
 
Nemo888 said:
Another nonissue to distract the electorate. Let's bring up abortion and gun control while we are at it. I remember when parties had financial policies and took stands on issues that actually mattered in the real world.

Governments generally don't touch hot button issues legislatively. 95% of what they do is collecting and allocating financial resources. Talk less about the 5% of the job and more about the 95%. Catering to single issue crackpots is getting on my nerves and giving special interest carte blanche to make financial policy that is not in our best interest


But the arguments between Canada, represented by Prime Minister Harper's government, and Quebec are economic and social: it is both the (failing? failed?) Quebec Inc model vs. (increasingly) "free market" Canada and e.g. the gun registry and "tough on crime" sentencing guidelines. Shifting EI, for example, to all the provinces (even through an "arms length" (from the feds) multi-province agency for those provinces who do not want to manage EI on their own) might "toss a bone" to Quebec and releive the national government of an often controversial programme.

In my personal opinion (worth exactly what you're paying for it) Quebec (and other provinces) are wrong on the long gun registry: it is an unnecessary, unjustifiable intrusion into the privacy of too many innocent Canadians, but Quebec, especially, might have a better vision of retributive justice, especially for young offenders - an idea need not be wrong just because it is from Quebec. But, (still just my opinion) Quebec Inc is a dumb idea - based too much on social policy and not enough on fiscal policy and we, Canadians in BC, AB, SK and NL, especially, are paying for Quebec's social experiments - and, therefore, since we are paying the freight, we ought to have in say in them.
 
Except that we are going bankrupt. Spending our grandchildren's future.

Remember when the Army had it's own bank a few years ago. Imagine if it still existed and the mortgage interest and profits went into DND's or the GOC's budget.  Mortgage interest is almost my largest monthly outlay.  You could raise taxes by merely getting your mortgage with such a bank. It could be one of the largest tax hikes in the history of Canada and I wouldn't even notice. The only difference to me would be slightly better interest rates on my mortgage. You could also turn student loans into tax generating annuities. Health Care AND new jets, no need to choose.

Something like that is what's needed. Bold new thinking to solve our actual problems. The current system is broken.
 
I think the disillusionment with the ROC of Quebec and its ongoing multi-faceted social experiment (outright separation, sovereignty association, whatever is next...) is close to passing a point-of-no-return, wherein many Canadians may actually be willing to accept "taking a (n economic) hit to stop what, fairly or not, they see as one of the longest games of political extortion in the developed world.  The time may come where "rest  of" Canadians accept what would be a notable, but certainly temporally finite reduction in quality of lifestyle, as did West Germans regarding unification, to force Quebecers' hand on the issue, and see Quebec truly move out on its own.

I'm not saying it would be the best thing for a "whole" Canada (as in the integrity of the Federation), but I think that ROC'ers are getting close to hitting their (multiple regions, BC, AB, prairies, Toronto/905, Rest-of-Ontario, NL and the other Maritimes) respective limits of tolerance. Red Square kids with smart phones, drinking Starbucks that alone total for more than the tuition raise they oppose, enjoying "post-increase" tuition that is still significantly less than any other province in Canada just reinforces the sentiment of not only individuals but a society that is «pas mal gâtée» (rather spoiled).  People criticize Mr. Harper's appointment of functionaries in some cases who are unilingual anglophone, but the question is, is that entirely wrong? Must all senior functionaries be perfectly bilingual? Would not that in itself give regionally-unfair preference to Quebec? I also question the "black-and-whiteness" of the 'uningual' characterization -- what was the functionary's OSLO score? I bet there were at least some As or Bs in their profile, so 'unilingual' is an inappropriate qualification.  I say that as a «tête carrée, originaire de Toronto», who while fully bilingual due to personal choice and appreciation of the French language, and pursuit of high school studies prior to entry into the CF, personally believe that Quebecrs have certainly not been disadvantaged by the Nation's OL policy.

The issue will be how does the situation become resolved, if ever?  The number of Canadians who are not only "amenable to", but actually think it may very well be time to call Quebec's bluff (understanding that there are some, likely very few, Quebecers who actually would want to go through with "cold, hard" separation) and say, "Right then!  Off you go!" and let Quebec figure out how it will pay for a population-proportioned "fair share"  of Canadian debt.  Heck, give Quebec three frigates and 20 CF-18s and share of other
CF and GoC assets that cost more than a wee bit'o'cash, and see how long the honeymoon of a «Quebec libre» lasts.

Would the rest of Canadian's quality of life take a hit for a while? Yes, but there is, in my opinion, a growing share of out society that is willing to consider the possibility, and that is something that the «pur laine» and the young "Red Square" crowd would do well to consider in earnest.

My :2c:

Regards
G2G
 
Good2Golf said:
I think the disillusionment with the ROC of Quebec and its ongoing multi-faceted social experiment (outright separation, sovereignty association, whatever is next...) is close to passing a point-of-no-return, wherein many Canadians may actually be willing to accept "taking a (n economic) hit to stop what, fairly or not, they see as one of the longest games of political extortion in the developed world.  The time may come where "rest  of" Canadians accept what would be a notable, but certainly temporally finite reduction in quality of lifestyle, as did West Germans regarding unification, to force Quebecers' hand on the issue, and see Quebec truly move out on its own.

I'm not saying it would be the best thing for a "whole" Canada (as in the integrity of the Federation), but I think that ROC'ers are getting close to hitting their (multiple regions, BC, AB, prairies, Toronto/905, Rest-of-Ontario, NL and the other Maritimes) respective limits of tolerance. Red Square kids with smart phones, drinking Starbucks that alone total for more than the tuition raise they oppose, enjoying "post-increase" tuition that is still significantly less than any other province in Canada just reinforces the sentiment of not only individuals but a society that is «pas mal gâtée» (rather spoiled).  People criticize Mr. Harper's appointment of functionaries in some cases who are unilingual anglophone, but the question is, is that entirely wrong? Must all senior functionaries be perfectly bilingual? Would not that in itself give regionally-unfair preference to Quebec? I also question the "black-and-whiteness" of the 'uningual' characterization -- what was the functionary's OSLO score? I bet there were at least some As or Bs in their profile, so 'unilingual' is an inappropriate qualification.  I say that as a «tête carrée, originaire de Toronto», who while fully bilingual due to personal choice and appreciation of the French language, and pursuit of high school studies prior to entry into the CF, personally believe that Quebecrs have certainly not been disadvantaged by the Nation's OL policy.

The issue will be how does the situation become resolved, if ever?  The number of Canadians who are not only "amenable to", but actually think it may very well be time to call Quebec's bluff (understanding that there are some, likely very few, Quebecers who actually would want to go through with "cold, hard" separation) and say, "Right then!  Off you go!" and let Quebec figure out how it will pay for a population-proportioned "fair share"  of Canadian debt.  Heck, give Quebec three frigates and 20 CF-18s and share of other
CF and GoC assets that cost more than a wee bit'o'cash, and see how long the honeymoon of a «Quebec libre» lasts.

Would the rest of Canadian's quality of life take a hit for a while? Yes, but there is, in my opinion, a growing share of out society that is willing to consider the possibility, and that is something that the «pur laine» and the young "Red Square" crowd would do well to consider in earnest.

My :2c:

Regards
G2G



Heck.  We could really kit out the Reserves across the ROC with all that equipment from 5e GBMC.  CF Budget would save BILLIONS in publications, two thirds of the paper used to translate English into French would be put to better use. Translation services and Post-Translation corrections would be done away with.  The list of non-military (government and private business) savings would be just as enormous.  We could probably see savings enough that we could write off their debt.
 
I believe Quebec has received gifts of a quarter of a TRILLION dollars in equalization dollars since 1957 from the ROC.

What does the ROC have to show for these gifts?
 
Journalist (and Army.ca member) David Akin offers these thoughts, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Sun News Network:

(My emphasis added.)
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2012/09/20120903-160546.html
DEBT, NOT SEPARATISTS, THE THREAT FROM QUEBEC

DAVID AKIN | PARLIAMENTARY BUREAU CHIEF

OTTAWA -- Quebecers go to the polls Tuesday and the odds seem good, at least after the ballots are all counted, the separatist Parti Quebecois will hold power and Pauline Marois will become the province's first female premier.

Does that mean the rest of Canada ought to be worried about a new "separatist threat"? No.

Marois knows perfectly well that fewer than one in three Quebecers even want a referendum to begin with and that just 28% would vote "yes" to separation from Canada.

Now, a new government in Quebec City could, certainly, ask for some new arrangements with Ottawa. Both Marois and Francois Legault, the leader of the surprisingly popular Coalition Avenir du Quebec (CAQ), think the fiscal arrangement between Canada and Quebec should be changed.

They may find, to their surprise, that Prime Minister Stephen Harper also believes that Ottawa ought to do more to get out of the way of the provinces and he'd be perfectly prepared to let Quebec have more responsibilities - and pay more of their own share - in certain key areas.

But this is not a separatist threat. This is the same tug-of-war between Ottawa and the provinces we've seen throughout Canada's history.

No, the big threat to Canada emanating these days from Quebec is its inability to pay its own way.

As colleague John Robson noted on these pages at the beginning of the election campaign, Quebec has always been a net beneficiary of the federal government's equalization program every year since its inception in 1957. It is the only province yet to record at least one year without being a "have-not."

In 2011 inflation-adjusted dollars, Quebec has received $146 billion more in equalization than it has contributed.

As Robson noted, "This year alone, Quebec will take $7.4 billion from equalization while paying in just $2.9 billion. The $4.5 billion it gets free and clear certainly helps the provincial government spend $62.5 billion a year to buy votes with things like subsidized daycare and tuition. Without it, the deficit of debt-ridden Quebec would more than double."

This has become a bit of sore point with others in the federation. Danielle Smith of Alberta's Wildrose Party said during Alberta's spring provincial election that Albertans were scratching their heads why their wealth helps pay for daycare and university that's cheaper elsewhere than in their own province. Smith, of course, lost to Progressive Conservative Alison Redford but the frustration Smith articulated with Quebec's profligacy should not be ignored.

Marois has no plan to deal with this imbalance. Indeed, she would spend more and subsidize more in the mistaken belief that increasing taxes on the wealthy would pay for it all. Legault and incumbent Liberal Party of Quebec Premier Jean Charest have, to their credit, put more focus on improving the economic vitality of Quebec.

Canada has been immeasurably enriched by Quebec in non-monetary ways. It is the province that has given Canada five prime ministers, its first astronaut, inventors, deep thinkers, authors, dancers, entrepreneurs, filmmakers, singers and, of course, dozens upon dozens of the greatest hockey players to ever lace up skates. Quebec has added to Canada's wealth with poutine, tourtiere, Perce Rock and the splendour of the Saguenay.

But for all that, the government in the National Assembly in Quebec City has, over five decades, been a blight on Canada's national balance sheet.

Let the premier who will be elected Tuesday begin to address that imbalance.


I think David Akin has it just about right.
 
And an economic one as well.

Central bankers everywhere have bet the house on virtually zero interest rates, and everyone makes plans accordingly. What happens when the bond hawks come out and start demanding more (much more) to continue purchase government debt? Greece and Spain are facing that now (Germany's central bank will no longer even accept Greek bonds as collateral), and we ahve see the United States and Ontario get credit dowwngrades bacause of their excessive debts.

When your economic recovery plan does not include allowances of ever escalating interest payments, or the fallout of your government giving bondholders a "haircut" (Greece delivered a 60% haircut to the holders of Greek government bonds), then your economy will be dragged down rapidly. In the case of sub polities like Quebec (or Ontario or California for that matter), this could create a huge amount of turbulance in the national economy, further devastating the local economy and hampering any possible economic recovery for everyone.
 
I think John Ibbittson has it about right in this column which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

My ]emphasis
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/harper-offered-powerful-chance-to-smother-sovereigntist-dream-in-quebec/article4519537/
Harper offered powerful chance to smother sovereigntist dream in Quebec

JOHN IBBITSON
The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Sep. 04 2012

We are not going to be dragged back to 1995. The Parti Québécois’ victory Tuesday night is not the overture to a third referendum on sovereignty. There won’t be endless and fruitless debates, failed conferences, court challenges and other agonies.

Stephen Harper has been offered a powerful opportunity to smother the feeble sovereigntist flame. A Conservative government with little political stake in Quebec can convert that apparent weakness to strength, overturning the stale unity debates that have plagued this country for decades through what could be called a strategy of non-engagement.

If Stephen Harper plays his cards well, he could marginalize the sovereigntist movement in Quebec in a way it has not been since the 1960s,” said Brian Lee Crowley, head of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an Ottawa think tank.

Of course, if Mr. Harper plays his cards badly, he could provoke a separatist rebellion. The coming months will offer a powerful test of the Prime Minister’s political skills.

In previous tussles between Ottawa and the separatists, both sides had a personal political stake. Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney and Jean Chrétien were Quebeckers, with a good chunk of their caucuses from Quebec.

But this federal government was elected by Westerners with the support of Ontario suburbs, including a large contingent of the four million immigrants who have come to this country in the past two decades.

Mr. Harper has no mandate from them to appease. Neither is it in his nature.


Although about one-third of Quebeckers voted to elect a bound-to-be-unstable PQ minority government, polls show historically low levels of support for sovereignty.

That chronically weak support for a Quebec state is why Mr. Harper paid little attention to the sovereigntist threat while the Charest Liberals were in power. Now that the PQ is in, he must pay attention. But that doesn’t mean he has to play their game.

Ms. Marois will demand new powers for Quebec over employment insurance, culture and communications, immigration and foreign policy, and who knows what else. The Conservatives, in response, will politely but firmly reject every demand. No negotiations. No accommodation. The federal focus will be on jobs, trade and eliminating the deficit – and nothing else. That, simply, is what a strategy of non-engagement entails.

Because their own governments were rooted in Quebec, previous prime ministers could not risk such a strategy. Because his government is rooted entirely outside it, Mr. Harper can risk no other. The national mood outside Quebec is powerfully opposed to being dragged back to the constitutional and cultural strife of the unquiet past. Mr. Harper will be guided by that mood.

The PQ no doubt hopes that a strategy of non-engagement will anger Quebeckers. And if Mr. Harper seems arrogant or insensitive to Quebeckers’ needs, he could damage his party’s and the nation’s prospects.

The risk of such a strategy “is that it strengthens the hand of a PQ government that says Ottawa’s not listening, which helps stir the pot for a referendum,” observed Gerald Baier, a political scientist at University of British Columbia who specializes in Canadian federalism. “The potential reward is that it … confirms the reality that a lot of people in Quebec don’t care about the sovereignty issue as much as they used to.”

If so, the sovereigntist cause could be dealt a blow from which it never recovers: an ironic and Pyrrhic outcome from Tuesday’s victory.


Separatism will not be defeated in Quebec; for the rest of my lifetime and all of yours there will be separatists ~ at a guess 20% of Franco Quebecers, mostly young, are always separatists.

But a "strategy of non-engagement" can, and in my opinion, should work to all of Canada's benefit, including Quebec's.

Quebec needs "adult leadership;" Mme. Marois is unlikely to offer it; but, eventually, it must come.
 
I think we should take every young francophone child and place them in the care of nice (christian) english families spread out across the country.  That should just about do it.  ::)
 
W-G said:
I think we should take every young francophone child and place them in the care of nice (christian) english families spread out across the country.  That should just about do it.  ::)

And I think you need to give your head a shake.....right after you read up on the dominant religion in Quebec......

::) twit
 
W-G said:
I think we should take every young francophone child and place them in the care of nice (christian) english families spread out across the country.  That should just about do it.  ::)
A variation on this theme has been tried elsewhere, with less-than-ideal-and-palatable results ....  ::)
 
GAP said:
And I think you need to give your head a shake.....right after you read up on the dominant religion in Quebec......

::) twit
Sorry my mistake, I should have been more clear.  By christians I meant protestant christians, not catholics...

I should stop trying to make fun at the expense of the countless amount of suffering those Natives went through. 

I thought there was a point...  something about working in the past...(how many seat do Natives have in Parliament?) anyway.
 
W-G said:
I think we should take every young francophone child and place them in the care of nice (christian) english families spread out across the country.  That should just about do it.  ::)

W-G said:
Sorry my mistake, I should have been more clear.  By christians I meant protestant christians, not catholics...

I should stop trying to make fun at the expense of the countless amount of suffering those Natives went through. 

I thought there was a point...  something about working in the past...(how many seat do Natives have in Parliament?) anyway.

Good morning  welcome to the site and thank you for in such a short time identifying yourself as a potential problem child and making it easier for the D/S.

Ok consider this your one freebie, next asinine post will introduce you to the warning system and quickly.

STAFF
 
E.R. Campbell said:
I think John Ibbittson has it about right in this column which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

My ]emphasis
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/harper-offered-powerful-chance-to-smother-sovereigntist-dream-in-quebec/article4519537/

Separatism will not be defeated in Quebec; for the rest of my lifetime and all of yours there will be separatists ~ at a guess 20% of Franco Quebecers, mostly young, are always separatists.

But a "strategy of non-engagement" can, and in my opinion, should work to all of Canada's benefit, including Quebec's.

Quebec needs "adult leadership;" Mme. Marois is unlikely to offer it; but, eventually, it must come.

I beg to differ. It is my belief that immigration is the Panacea to our problems in that case. Fact is most immigrants are indifferent to the debate. My hope is to see the PQ and other separatist formations gradually pushed out of large population centers by the growing allophone population that is both apathetic to the sovereignty question and quite hostile to the PQ underhanded xenophobia.

IMHO, a lot of this emanates from two causes:

-The PQ made the (gross) miscalculation that francophones coming to Quebec (regardless of their origins) would share common values and, as such, would easily espouse their nationalist cause.
-Realizing that they were wrong, some elements in the party started pushing for an assimilationist policy to try and "smother" the values of immigrants coming to Quebec and thus make them adopt the culture and mindset of separatists.

The recent statements by Mrs Marois and some of her staff in the 2012 campaign have shown a new development. Realizing that assimilation is not as successful as they hoped, they are playing on the long standing fear of many Quebeckers that they will eventually be swallowed by the masses of anglos immigrants surrounding them and as such must opt to separate before it's too late.

Methinks that this last move shows desperation on their part. A day will come when the immigrant population will reach a critical mass and start to demand an end to the old debates. Maybe, then can we move on and start being full participants in this great political project of ours.
 
I would agree Inky IF Quebec was getting a good share of immigrants; they are not. They lag the other provinces in new permanent (immigrant) residents, temporary (immigrant) workers and students.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/statistics/facts2011-summary/02.asp
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/statistics/facts2011-summary/04.asp
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/statistics/facts2011-summary/06.asp

As in pretty much everything related to economic growth and productivity Quebec is failing.
 
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