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Originally Posted by Charlatan
Feelgood, you are right. There are hard-core separatists that want nothing short of separation -- they want the country of Quebec outside Canada.
In the separatist movement, I believe they are in the minority (even if they are half of the movement it isn't enough to carry the vote). The rest are those who want special status but don't necessarily want to separate. It's one of the reasons why the last referendum question was so convoluted. If the question has simply asked, "Do you want Quebec to separate from Canada to form its own country?" the numbers wouldn't have been near the 49% they had last time.
So what I am saying is that close to 66% (at least) of Quebecers do not fall into the hardcore separatist camp. The rest whine no more or less than say Albertans about not getting what they want from the Feds.
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Charlatan you are most likely correct.
Also, another reason it was so close last time was because people were upset/unhappy. Do not forget we had a Quebecois PM who did thinigs his own way and felt that he knew what was best for the people of Quebec.
(maybe it is better Quebec to not have a Canadian PM from Quebec. The last time this reall was the case was Lester B Pearson in the 60's. I am purposly omitting JC's 9 months and KC's 4 months. Harper's 10 and counting may be forgotten as well we will have to wait and see. Imagine Stephane Dion becomes PM next, it has already been a crazy run of PMs from Quebec.)
So you have a percentage of quebec that are called Nationalists and then you have those that are labelled Soft Nationalists.
The Soft Nationalists don't necessarily want out of Canada but they are of the opinion that they are no being recognized properly. It some cases, like back in 1995 it led to the thought that - well if Canada can't give Quebecers waht they need then maybe we should try to get more power and do it ourselves.
I believe that some of these Soft Nationalists just want to be recognized and have the government decentralize certain powers so that Quebec (and other provinces of course) can take more control of certain issues on its own.
What Harper is doing may appease these people. It may also take away alot of the effectiveness of the Nationalists arguments that Qyuebec is better without Canada. The answer to them from the Soft Nationalists may now be - hey, but we have everything (or most) we want and we can still benefit from being part of Canada.
I think that this is not such a bad idea. Even if it is just semantics, it took us a long time to figure out the rigth set and order of words. Let's see how it all plays out.
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Originally Posted by feelgood
Anybody remember that the federal deficit back in the 90s? What did Quebec say about it? "Canada does not work"
Now we have a surplus, and what do they say? "Canada does not work"
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As an aside - A surplus is just as much a sign of governtment mismanagement as a deficit it is just the consequences that are better.