Quebec Sovereignty Movement
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Separation is mainly predicated on the idea that Québécois are culturally distinct from the rest of Canada, and that our values would be better represented independently. We mostly speak French, and the rest of Canada is predominantly anglo (my New Brunswick Acadian mother in law would have me point out New Brunswick is officially bilingual and has many Francophones). Separatists would argue that there are substantively deeper differences, but having lived abroad in several countries over a decade and returned, any differences seem to me razor thin. We have vastly more in common than separates us. Breaking from Canada to underline these minor differences would come at a tremendous cost.
But creating a movement around identity is easy. So every now and again separatist ideas gather steam. We'll pay through the nose for a Québécois Nation and be no better off for it.
[0] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jacques_Parizeau [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_respecting_the_laicity_of_...
Unfortunately, I suspect that the renewed separatist movement is making a lot of people rethink potential futures in Quebec.
For example, my wife and I would easily meet the requirements to immigrate to Quebec. We have francophone family in Montreal, we speak French (one of us natively), and we have valuable professional skills. We would have no objections to sending our kids to francophone schools. And Montreal is one of my favorite cities on the planet, despite the horrible traffic and interminable road construction.
But looking at law 66, there's a certain cruelty to the details. As I understand it, new arrivals will be forbidden from receiving any government services in a language other than French after 6 months. Montreal's respected English-speaking universities will apparently be placed under strict language rules, with the obvious intention of weakening them. And there's talk, once again, about separation from Canada.
An independent Québec without Canadian human rights guarantees, and with ever more desperate extensions to law 66, would likely weaken the robust international economy of Montreal. I suspect that even some bilingual professionals would start thinking about moving to Toronto?
How about those Curfews and other insane covid responses?
>But looking at law 66, there's a certain cruelty to the details. As I understand it, new arrivals will be forbidden from receiving any government services in a language other than French after 6 months. Montreal's respected English-speaking universities will apparently be placed under strict language rules, with the obvious intention of weakening them. And there's talk, once again, about separation from Canada.
So lets say I go to Northsec in Montreal, awesome experience. Since I cannot prove I went to an english school. I would only be served in french if I ended up in hospital. Parles pas francais.
So what? I just die in the hospital? I've been to a quebec hospital before. I waited 16 hours in the waiting room because I didnt speak french.
Obviously I'm not going to Montreal anymore. Northsec is awesome but guess not anymore.
>An independent Québec without Canadian human rights guarantees, and with ever more desperate extensions to law 66, would likely weaken the robust international economy of Montreal. I suspect that even some bilingual professionals would start thinking about moving to Toronto?
What you are seeing as a negative the quebec separatists see as a positive.
The rest of Canada goes to great lengths to provide bilingual support.
It's awful to see English being systematically demonized in Canada.
Yes, it’s part of Canada now. But maintaining its independent French identity was a fundamental part of the bargain of that union.
First, a correction: Discussion around the web suggests that this won't affect McGill much.
The text of the new law is available here: http://m.assnat.qc.ca/fr/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/...
One interesting part is that government offices are generally forbidden to provide English versions of written texts in most situations. There are quite a few exceptions, including tourism, communicating with foreign governments, dealing with First Nations, etc. The most important of these is a health, public security and "natural justice" exception:
> «22.3. Un organisme de l’Administration peut déroger au paragraphe 1° de l’article 13.2 en utilisant, en plus du français, une autre langue lorsqu’il écrit, dans les cas suivants:
> 1° lorsque la santé, la sécurité publique ou les principes de justice naturelle l’exigent;
When dealing with new arrivals to Quebec, government offices may provide written materials in other languages for the first six months. After that, apparently all communications must be solely in French?
Quebec actually has a system for helping immigrants learn French and adapt to life in Quebec. For example, see https://www.quebec.ca/education/apprendre-le-francais/cours-.... From what I've heard, it's not great, but it's better than what's available in some countries. But cutting off all access to bilingual written materials after 6 months (which is my understanding of this text) is obviously going to make it harder to help people assimilate.
One of the industries that will be hardest-hit by this law is Montreal's software industry: https://www.lapresse.ca/affaires/chroniques/2022-06-15/proje...
> Selon le regroupement d’entreprises technos, la nouvelle loi 96 « impose un délai irréaliste, car les nouveaux arrivants doivent jongler avec de multiples défis reliés à leur intégration au sein d’une nouvelle culture et à un changement de vie professionnelle »
Basically: You can't move house, start a demanding new job, adapt to a new culture and reach a high level of French in 6 months. This puts Quebec software companies in a tough place, in terms of recruitment. Probably they'll end up recruiting in other locations.
It all feels like the history is repeating itself.
However the drumbeats of separatism are banging again [1], so might be relevant considering what happened to the Montreal economy the last times these idiots were allowed to lead by their inferiority complex.
Background: Native Montrealer, proud Canadian-Italian whose ancestors built the city, and have watched it decay over the past 40 years due to paternalistic and policies and a system of government that prioritizes the opinions of the "Les régions" over Montreal (it's like if voters in the Georgia countryside fully dictated how Atlanta operates)
What Quebec nationalism has resulted in:
-Literal language police (see: pastagate [2] - this stupidity had been doubled down on)
-Codification of racism and suppression that also increases the burden on businesses (see: Bill 21 and Bill 96) [3,4]
-Blatant disregard for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the "notwithstanding clause") [5]
-Montreal was the most diverse, vibrant city in Canada, truly a global capital - this movement handed that directly to Toronto
-Montreal was the financial and tech capital of Canada - this movement handed that directly to Toronto
[1] https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/mobile/video?clipId=1831353
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastagate
[3] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/what-bill-21-means-f...
[4] https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/language-law-bill-96-adopted-pro...
[5] https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/mobile/what-is-the-notwithstandi...
Those discriminations for sure helping the independence movement.
They only took down the cross in the National Assembly after backlash and calls of hypocrisy. Originally Legault wanted it to stay up. That alone says to me how BS the whole thing is.
But that stuff really is "history and culture" rather than "public endorsement of religion."
People in my home country would never tolerate foreign Christians coming in and demanding that the state stop celebrating Eid or changing place names. People are entitled to their heritage, and shouldn’t have to erase it to accommodate newcomers.
We had a Christmas tree every year growing up in America as immigrants from a Muslim country. When I visit Tokyo in December, which is in a non-Christian country, there are Christmas trees in all the malls. Christmas trees are the archetypal examples of religious symbols that have turned into cultural symbols.
> there is also "history and culture" in Confederate monuments and places named after them.
Please, lean into this.
The use of saint names is unavoidable, a reminder of how the Church used to control everything. It would be a powerful statement of actual secularism if some schools were renamed, even some streets. But most people don't care, they just stopped going to mass and kicked the priests out of schools, job done. Secularism is now code for xenophobia.
[3] exclusively targets non-Christian symbols and came after a campaign of primarily non-city folk freaking out because immigrants are different - most infamously Herouxville where the town published a manifesto warning immigrants against "stoning and burning women. It included, too, an explanation of the importance of Christmas trees." [1]. The Catholic symbology remains in the officialdom - see the giant cross that sits atop Montreal, and the crosses that were never removed from the public schools, or many provincial offices. Not to mention it's OK to wear a crucifix.
[4] goes way beyond education. Montreal is a functionally bilingual city and those of us from here speak "franglais", a mix of the two and have no issue switching. This new law massively restricts access to: education, medicare, legal services, to name a few in the official language of your choice. It even gives powers to the language police to, for example, raid a law or medical office, get access to confidential documents to ensure you are only being served in French [2]. I live in a nation with 2 official languages in a city where the majority of people are bilingual and happy to serve in either language- and Quebec just effectively made one of those languages illegal. How is this is not discrimination?
Georgia-Atlanta is an analogy. The rural areas are 99% white, unilingual francophone - a group who genuinely believe bilingualism and multiculturalism is a problem - Montreal's two key, unique strengths and defining characteristics. If we had representation by population, these would be non-issues but because the rural areas are heavily weighted, the ruling CAQ has a supermajority after winning only 37% of the vote.[3]
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/herouxville-quebec-r...
[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-96-explained-1....
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Quebec_general_election
A distinct cultural group seeking to avoid cultural or linguistic change created by an influx of outsiders isn’t “racism.” It’s a human right for distinct ethnocultural groups to seek political autonomy on that basis: https://unpo.org/article/4957. Quebec is by its very nature a province for French speaking descendants of French immigrants to Canada. Québécois are perfectly entitled to say it should stay that way. It’s alien to modern Anglo notions of multiculturalism, but that doesn’t make it “racism.”
Or do you have another explanation for the population , capital, and cultural flight that occurred over the 80s 90s that we have never recovered from?
That’s not what’s happening in Quebec. It’s not like rural Quebecois are welcoming of Anglo Canadians either. They simply oppose multiculturalism, just like China or Japan or France itself.
Bill 96 is a direct violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, so you're right it's not racist, just a denial of my guaranteed rights as a Canadian Citizen. Ignoring First Nations, of course, many of whom speak neither French nor English. If you do count them, then Bill 96 can also be considered racist
[1] https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/two-thirds-of-qu...
[2] https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-coroner-feels-joyce-echaq...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/world/canada/canada-herou...
The current movement is a continuity of the work that was started 50-70 years ago to get religious symbols out of public institutions, and in that sense, it's coherent.
There's a strong undercurrent of anti-Islamic and racial purity thinking in lots of the CAQ and PQ messaging. Frankly it's shocking how racist many of the policies are.
Meanwhile industry in general is being squeezed by lack of staff and the CAQ keep the flow of migrants to a trickle with painful bureaucracy. "Nous embauchons!"
If people are fine with less consumption and are willing to trade it for the sake of what they see as a better society.. Why not?
That's like looking at hippy community out in the forests. And then bitching at them that they'll have very serious economic consequences.
And really, people are not keen to give up quality if life to exclude immigrants, they've been suckered into believing immigrants are a burden on the state and are DESTROYING OUR CULTURE BY CAUSING MULTICULTURALISM. Yes, multiculturalism, the recognition that people of various cultures can benefit from that mixing ideas, is a curse word for the right-separatists. As if a few North African restaurants and a couple of mosques will cause Québécois culture to disintegrate.
Quebec has been next to the USA and anglophone Canada for it's entire existence and every American or Ontarian concept has been molded to suit, but has never replaced a local tradition unless the local wanted it to.
US is stark example how over-the-top money shovelled into healthcare may give abysmal results if culture is lacking.
Migrants may be a burden. Denmark recently published a detailed origin-based statistics if migrants are, materially, a positive or negative.
Nobody counts few restaurants as multiculturalism. And once you have significant number of outsiders... Various tensions come up. For example how Russians act in the light of Ukraine-Russia war in ex-USSR. Over here, we also had interesting issues in dealing with pandemics based on ethnicity.
In Quebec, a few restaurants with foreign sounding names is enough to trigger the anti-multicultural police. God forbid they should have menu items with arabic or Chinese names.
The immigrants do all the shit jobs with low pay. But without them critical services wouldn't happen. I don't call that an immigrant problem. If you count building schools for their children a burden then yes, growth is a burden. Rich people snort cocaine like hoovers but no one counts them as part of the drug problem, but the entire Haitian ethnic group gets called drug dealers.
In normal countries with social safety net (assuming Canada is one of them), those who do „shit jobs with low pay“, end up receiving from the state more than they pay in taxes.
> proud Canadian-Italian
Why are you proud of your nationalities? Seems weird in the face of the rest of your comment.
I.e., "I'm on your side, so I mean this with love..."
My National ideals, and those of the majority from Montreal, are multilingualism and multiculturalism. Runs against the ideals of the ROQ (Rest Of Quebec) and it's disheartening to see my city suffocate under rules written up by people and for people who are not actually from the city
Those are Anglo-influenced globalist ideals. The Francophone world is decidedly not multicultural. It’s proud of French history and culture and dedicated to protecting it.
London or Toronto are like the Android ecosystem. An eclectic if often inelegant free for all. Paris and Montreal are like iOS: carefully curated and strongly opinionated.
But today's Montreal is the result of heavy-handed, paternalistic social engineering driven by an external government over the past 40 years... And is a shell of its former self. One that is going to be further hollowed unless these laws are reversed.
Québec should not separate because the Sûreté du Québec (Provincial Police) are voyous (bums).
Personally I would not want to live in a land where I could not call the Rocky Mountains mine.
I lived three years in Alberta. I skied at Fortress, Sunshine, hills so long they cross provinces. The mountains are magnificent, awe-inspiring.
I now live in the Maritimes. Stan Rogers' Mary Ellen Carter is one of the greatest songs ever written :o)
Pro :
- Only one level of corruption instead of two to keep in check.
- A (sometime too zealous) protection of the language.
Against :
- Less international political weight
- Companies forced to to business in french by law might gtfo since it incur costs
- Weak military power (would we stay in NATO?)
Globally :
Our roads are already crap. Healthcare is free but your experience in quality of service might vary. We already selling our natural resources like there is no tomorrow and we store nuclear waste here too.
What's the situation now?
I also think that the language would suffer because Canada is able to convince all American companies to translate everything because the other 30 million wallets are worth it. I highly suspect you would get the France version if they demanded only French products which, for those that don't know, would be perceived as more of a personal affront than American English being pushed onto the UK. At best, they would continue to get the Canadian version. In which case, what exactly was achieved?
The 2 level of corruption that I refer too is probably just the sponsorship scandal that left me a bitter taste of how my federal tax dollars were spent.
For the language though, I am not sure. Even Air Canada got fined a few times because they did not respect bilingualism.
One thing which wasn't mentioned is how unique Quebec's position is geographically. There are few regions which are as surrounded by another dominant language. I think just this phenomenon puts pressure on conserving the French language.
I also believe that this makes us stick out like a sore thumb in North America. I will regularly see comment sections riddled with ill informed negative comments about Quebec.
Another thing to keep in mind is that in our history, English colonial forces tried to assimilate French people on a few occasions (search for "Durham Report" as an example). I do believe that a lot of trauma has been passed on through generations.
Finally, I believe the Federal government doesn't do enough for French speakers inside and outside Quebec. As a result, the separatist movement gives a voice to French people who feel unheard. This just results in political and cultural tensions.
While we debate this issue, the people who benefit the least are indigenous people. Their case is politicized on both sides and legislations rarely benefit them.
[1] https://youtu.be/Fl7lOundk4Y [2] https://youtu.be/nnF46gRSPig
So what's going on? If you go back 75 years. Quebec due to the language barrier has economic isolation. This makes them quite poor. Quebec has traditionally been very poor compared to the rest of the continent. To 'help', on average Quebec receives 40-75 billion more than they pay in taxes.
More importantly, lets say Quebec separates. Quebec is so screwed. They will be short so much money they effectively would be immediately forced to close all of their schools including post-secondary. AND immediately close all public healthcare. That's how much money Quebec would have to raise in taxes just to break even after losing Canada. Then they have to go further. What you think you dont need a military? Quebec has no trade agreements or alliances. They basically have to more than double their tax burden. I wonder if the people of Quebec feel like they are heavily undertaxed?
Actually they wouldn’t. There is no way in hell that the US allows a foreign power to attack Quebec. That area is too strategically sensitive to the US.
The level of transfer payment is closer to 10b than 75b..
What sort of BS do you believe in the ROC??
I do understand legault has said he's not separatist. Actions > words. Quebec Liberals have been quite vocal that the CAQ are separatists. As an objective ontario person I say the CAQ are separatist. Let's not even bring up Trudeau and western alienation.
In terms of Bloc representation. They have what 50% of the seats in Quebec. Sure sounds like representation to me. Though yes I do agree separatism is quite low, but that seems to have far more to do with the reality that Quebec becomes poor.
>The level of transfer payment is closer to 10b than 75b..
If you're looking solely at 'equalization payments' it's around $13 billion. That's not the only money going to Quebec.
Canada Health Transfer is another $10B to Quebec.
Canada social transfer is another $3B to quebec.
There's $26 billion in straight up $ transfers.
Now you also have to look at other federal expenditures. Quebec pays X$/year in taxes but the fed pays for lots of things within Quebec. CBSA, Military, etc. The lowest it has ever been is about $20billion in net difference. That is to say, Canadians paying Quebec $20 billion on top of that $26 billion.
Canadians have been giving Quebec a ton of money for decades and it's also getting worse. Though the table that I use hasn't been updated because of covid. So I don't know what this years' data looks like.
Fundamentally Quebec is basically incapable of separating.
Outside of equalization, that federal money comes from our taxes. Besides, if Quebec is so much poorer that the ROC it is because of inequalities that is the impetus for seperatist to begin with.
You sound like the beating husband that rejoice because the beaten wife can't afford to leave.
I'm not a liberal and I'm not from Quebec. In fact I would venture to guess the Quebec Liberals are the antithesis of my politics but I agree with their assessment. Actions speak louder than words. CAQ are separatists.
>Outside of equalization, that federal money comes from our taxes. Besides, if Quebec is so much poorer that the ROC it is because of inequalities that is the impetus for seperatist to begin with.
Lets break it down. Quebecois give Canada say $140 billion in taxes and then receive back $200 billion in some manner.
The day Quebec separates there is such a huge deficit that public healthcare and education entirely shuts down. It's not even a matter of taking on the debt, Quebec would not be able to take on that debt without some currency backing. This isn't practical. You would have instant massive layoffs and riots destroying the new country. Lets say though that we just fast forward through the immediate consequences. Quebec's income taxes rise to about 45% in lowest bracket. Probably about 65% in higher brackets.
You get to year 1 of the new quebec nation, you've printed new currency because you cant join Euro like france and the Franc probably isnt an option. You certainly cant keep the CAD. You could go USD but much easier to just go new digital currency.
How much business is lost though? How many companies pull out of Quebec? Quite a few right? So you still have an even bigger deficit.
Quebec can't leave Canada. Quebec can't see the West leave Canada neither. Quebec should be best friends with Alberta. Energy East should be top most priority for Quebec.
But then you say Inequalities are the impetus. Totally. We can look at the 1950s and see what it was You are surrounded by people who dont speak french. This inequality is a huge problem. It left Quebec very poor.
>You sound like the beating husband that rejoice because the beaten wife can't afford to leave.
Woah, wait a second. You feel Canada, the people who have given Quebec a trillion $ of free money over decades is the equivalent of a domestic violence husband?
That's extremely offensive to me. It's literally the opposite. It is Quebec who is 'beating' the rest of Canada. SNC Lavalin? Quebec. Trudeau and Western alienation... Quebec's fault. Energy East cancellation? Quebec. Banning muslims from the province... from their jobs... that's only Quebec. Covid curfews, Quebec. Must speak french to get treatment in a hospital, quebec.
https://www.narcity.com/every-canadian-province-agrees-that-...
This is the opposite, Canada isn't the husband,Canada is the beaten wife.
What? Quebec is east of Ontario, so the entire west of Canada is still connected to Ontario by land. Only lightly populated, economically minuscule (but gorgeous) eastern provinces would be cut off.
> For this reason, the Governor of Alberta at the time had planned to cede to the US had the referendum been a success.
Premiere of Alberta. Albertans threaten this regularly when one or another of their extractive projects doesn’t get approved.
Nova Scotia
New Brunswick
Prince Edward Island
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=hWy-t0lnzSMC&lpg=PA35&o...
I'm certainly misremembering details, and can't afford to spend any more time on it now, but I distinctly recall some high level official (premier, governor, chairman, whatever) revealed in an interview many years after the fact they had seriously planed on cessation had the yes side won.
Ex-Albertan here: this is false, there has never been a plan to "cede to the US". It would be extremely politically distasteful in Alberta to cede to the USA, such a plan would be political suicide.
There have definitely been fringe movements for Albertan Separatism though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_separatism
> Governor
Premier. Premier leads the party that is elected to govern the Province.
In 1990 the premier of Nova Scotia said that Atlantic Canada would have "no choice" but to join the US (<http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-05-03/news/900205075...>) if Quebec were to leave. Saskatchewan in both 1980 and 1995 evaluated the possibility of also seceding, and/or seeking US statehood (<http://web.archive.org/web/20140829140952/http://www.thestar...>), on the event of a "Yes" vote in the Quebec referendum those years, in part because "Atlantic Canada would be 'an island'". It would only have been prudent for some or all of the other provincial governments to have made similar plans in secret.
>It would be extremely politically distasteful in Alberta to cede to the USA, such a plan would be political suicide.
Are you so sure about that, after the last few years of Alberta/Trudeau 2.0 conflicts fueling the longstanding sense of Western alienation? Remember, Re Secession lays out a legal path for secession.
Independence, and a union of the 3 prairie provinces into a separate nation? There's a slim possibility. A state in the US? No way.