Anglos for independence launches
Anglophone sovereignists of Quebec, unite.
A Nova Scotia-born anglophone Parti Québécois member has launched a pro-sovereignty group — Anglophones for Quebec Independence.
Describing itself as a “non-partisan group,” AQI unveiled its plan to promote separation on Friday at the headquarters of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal, a nationalist group.
English-speaking Quebecers have traditionally shunned the sovereignist movement, but AQI founder Jennifer Drouin noted that some anglophones have long favoured Quebec independence.
She listed several prominent anglophone sovereignists, from English, Scottish and Irish rebels in the 1837-38 rebellion to anglophone PQ cabinet ministers and candidates.
The group is made up of “some three dozen people” who “are proud to be sovereignists, and we are not afraid to say that in the next referendum, we will vote Yes,” Drouin said.
Asked to explain why the vast majority of Quebec anglophones are federalists, Drouin said: “There’s a general assumption when one grows up as an anglophone not to really investigate the (sovereignty) question fully.”
She said she became “more fluent and conversant in Québécois language, culture and history” while studying at French universities. “Once you do that, a whole new world opens up and you realize that there are all these legitimate reasons why anglophones should become sovereignists.”
As a country, Quebec would make “better choices” in spending tax dollars currently sent to Ottawa — by investing more in education and health, for example, she said. And it would be able to reject projects such as Energy East, a proposed pipeline that has raised environmental concerns in Quebec, she added.
To anglophones who worry that their rights would be at risk in a sovereign Quebec, Drouin pointed to sovereignist leaders who have promised to guarantee rights for the English-speaking minority.
“Moreover, we have to remember that a referendum is the beginning of what would probably be a negotiating period and we can expect that English Canada will want to protect the rights of anglophones living in Quebec,” she added.
She said “anglophones in Quebec (currently) have much greater access to services in their language than francophones outside Quebec do.”
Drouin said her group’s website will distribute information in English about sovereignty, including a video of the English version of the victory speech that former Premier Jacques Parizeau pre-recorded in case the Yes side won the 1995 referendum.
“Our website will continue to grow and we hope it will become a place where people will go to find answers to the questions: Why independence? and What’s in it for anglophones?”
It will also organize events in English about sovereignty and act as a “truth squad” to correct inaccurate stories about Quebec, “especially those that fall into the same tired, old trap of presenting Quebecers as racist and xenophobic.”
Drouin said she has been a member of the PQ since 1998 and moved to Quebec in 2001. She founded a sovereignist group at McGill University while she was a student there between 2002 and 2005.
She lives in Quebec but is an associate English professor at the University of Alabama. The university’s website says Drouin is on a “research leave in Montreal.”
Asked about the fact that several AQI members were not born in Quebec, Drouin said: “We are all citizens of Quebec and that gives us every right to be part of public political discourse in Quebec.”
A Léger Marketing poll conducted in August and September found that 10 per cent of nonfrancophones would have voted Yes in a sovereignty referendum, compared to 47 per cent of francophones.
In the run-up to the 1995 sovereignty referendum, a poll found that 86 per cent of anglophones would vote No. Surveys at the time found that up to half said they would consider leaving if the province were to split from Canada.
Our website will continue to grow and we hope it will become a place where people will go to find answers.