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peppermint_tea

Being a Québecois, I am divided on this issue. To heavily summarize :

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.

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As someone who grew up on the Ontario-Quebec border in Northern Ontario, to highlight why this is absurd you just need to realize that roads and healthcare are a provincial thing. Quebec is already responsible for funding those things. Furthermore, Quebec receives equalization payments from the rest of Canada because they run such a deficit. If they cut themselves off, things would only get worse. The two levels of corruption doesn't make sense, Quebec would obviously set up its own provinces.

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?

For the roads, I know it is totally on our own. This is why I put it in the "global" section... As soon as you get in Ontario, roads gets better. Healthcare was also in the global section. I know about péréquation and that Québec is a net receiver too. The "global" section is just sad state of affairs with no pro/cons separatism points.

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.

To your last point, are most American shows aired in Quebec translated into Quebecois French? I’m from Ontario and had no idea, I always assumed they watched the France version. That’s very fascinating!

Actually, media is probably the only thing that wouldn't change because there are explicit English and French channels and the French channels probably pay for the translations themselves. I meant for all the signage of products like nutrition labels and product descriptions. It would be like saying "aluminum foil" instead of "aluminium foil" which is literally nothing. Except, these people separated for the explicit reason to product "aluminium foil". Right now, companies redesign their entire packaging for Canada as a whole to include both official languages (as it is a requirement) and the marginal price of doing the Canadian French translation is minuscule. If Quebec separated, I think they would either receive the Canadian version or the French (from France) version. In either case, the only thing they've done is removed themselves from having any influence on their language. The other possibility is I suppose companies would get around to the Quebec version (if required) after Hungary and Israel. I'm not sure separatists understand what that would mean.

At the time of the referendum, at least, I recall that Quebec was a net recipient of federal funds, i.e. was not economically self-sufficient. I always assumed that played a role in the way the vote went: people expecting the Quebec economy to nosedive on independence.

What's the situation now?

If they ever are not net recipients the formula gets changed so they are.

more specifically : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments_in_Canad...

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