Quebec its own nation: ‘A win for everyone?’
Re: Quebec can be a nation, says PM, May 19; PM takes a knee to Quebec ‘nation’, Rex Murphy, May 22; and Bill 96’s political gambit, Conrad Black, May 22
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a master of “confirmation bias” — forming a belief and then selectively searching for, or creating, data to support it. However, in dubbing Quebec a “nation,” he may have got it right if one accepts the H.L. Mencken (among others) definition of “a people who share a common misconception as to their origins and a common antipathy towards their neighbours.”
Donald Mckay, Calgary So the prime minister supports Quebec’s intention to unilaterally change the Constitution to declare itself a nation.
This is excellent news for two reasons. First, Quebec will want to be a proud and self-sufficient nation so there will be no need to provide it with any further equalization payments.
Second, Quebecers will no longer be able to elect their 78 members to the House of Commons nor hold 24 seats in the Senate, thereby saving Canadian taxpayers millions of dollars annually.
And, Mr. Trudeau will still be the prime minister of Ontario and the Maritimes.
A win for everyone! Rex Murphy asks who is leading Canada these days, and the answer is “the courts.” Quebec’s Bill 96 is but a cancerous outgrowth from an equally malignant Bill 22 (Official Language Act), which a lower court in Quebec recently attempted to excise with only partial success. If the courts neuter Bill 96, however, is there anyone in Ottawa who will force Quebec to adhere to the law? And, if Quebec need not follow the law, why should anyone else? Perhaps it is time for the rest of Canada to invoke the Clarity Act to secede from the Dominion and to invite the island of Montreal to join them. Patrick Cowan, Toronto Canada has grown and evolved since Confederation, but is not necessarily sacrosanct as it is now constituted. It is now past time for a devolution to begin with the establishment of an independent Quebec. The litany of schemes (as outlined by Conrad Black and others) and intransigence engaged in by Quebec to coerce and manipulate the rest of Canada in its own self-interest is corrosive and detrimental to overall Canadian cohesion and unity. Any appeasement is never enough. An independent Quebec would relieve the never-ending tension on both sides, to everyone’s benefit. The relief from decades worth of aggravation and irritation from this saga would be akin to the relief we all have, after four years, of not having Donald Trump in your face every day.
A separation like this would be hardly unique. In the 20th century alone, Norway separated from Sweden, the Irish Republic from the U.K., the Czech Republic from Slovakia, and a host of new nations evolved from the devolution of Yugoslavia, French West and Equatorial Africa, Italian East Africa, the Union of South Africa, Rhodesia, French Indochina, and of course the USSR. As to the physical separation of Atlantic Canada from Ontario and the West, we already have the example of Alaska separated from the lower 48 contiguous states. I believe we all want a better Canada, and surely Quebec wants a better Quebec. The solution is at hand.