Time to become the 51st U.S. state, new party says
Do you want Donald Trump to be Quebec’s president?
If Hans Mercier prevails, that would happen. The leader of Parti 51, an authorized provincial party, wants Quebec to separate from Canada and become a “sovereign state member of the United States.”
“We tell people that you can’t judge a party by its leader,” Mercier said in an interview Tuesday, adding that his party has as many pro-Trump members as it has Trump haters.
“The current presidency is polarizing and may create a knee-jerk reaction (against the concept) but then we can discuss the project in a rational way and explain the American system — the checks and balances, the role of U.S. states, the limited power of the president,” he said.
He described Parti 51 as a unifying force, “the first party in the history of Quebec to have francophone sovereignists and anglophone federalists under the same banner.”
But don’t you have to be a sovereignist to back a party that wants to break away from Canada?
“Not necessarily. It depends on how you define federalist because the U.S. is also a federation and federalists who aren’t monarchists see a natural evolution (toward joining the U.S.),” said Mercier, a lawyer running in Beauce-Sud riding.
“When people ask me if I’m a federalist or a sovereignist, I say both,” Mercier added with a laugh.
The party’s website touts benefits of Americanizing Quebec — statehood would give us “a stronger dollar, a large and diverse market (and) a real role to play in international decisions.”
Mercier added that in a time of globalization the U.S. Constitution “is a perfect model for what is needed to reinforce states that are free and democratic and at the same time preserve the culture and specificity of member states.”
The party has published an extensive FAQ that answers many questions you might have. How would you protect French? Won’t there be more guns? What happens if Quebecers change their minds and want to leave the U.S.?
Mercier registered Parti 51 in 2016 but a party with the same name and idea made headlines decades ago. In the 1989 Quebec election, the party ran candidates in 11 ridings.
The party has four candidates and hopes to eventually line up 10 or more.
Mercier said he has recruited Bernie Gurberg, owner of the Dollar Cinema at Décarie Square, to run in west-end Montreal’s D’Arcy McGee riding. Gurberg ran for Montreal mayor in November, garnering 2,140 votes.
QUEBECERS TURN OUT
Seventy-one per cent — the turnout rate in Quebec’s last general election, in 2014 — may not sound high but it’s astronomical compared to Ontario’s showing.
There, 58 per cent voted in the June general election. And that was the highest rate since 1999. Ontario’s highest participation rate in this century was recorded in 1934 (74 per cent).
Both provinces have had six elections over the past two decades. In Quebec, the average turnout over that period: 71 per cent. In Ontario: 54.
Quebec’s recent low point came in 2008, when only 57 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots. That’s the year Jean Charest’s minority government called a snap election and won a majority.