Ignatieff and the quebec nation

WARNING THIS IS A POLITICAL POSTING.

Quebec as a nation?

I am amazed at how quickly people have started jumping all over Michael Ignatieff recent incredibly stupid decision to try and force a resolution at the Liberal convention in Montreal to study some way of recognizing Quebec in the constitution. Rightly so I feel.

I was watching CPAC(which thanks to some new knowledge I can now listen to without the translators. Thank god for SAP technology) tonight and they had two guests, one was Jeffrey Simpson (I had no idea he could speak French so well) and William Johnston.

Jeffrey Simpson repeated mostly his argument in Saturday’s Globe and Mail that only someone who wasn’t in country during Meech and Charlottetown could come up with such a stupid suggestion as Ignatieff’s idea of recognizing the Quebec nation. William Johsnton was also talking about how silly Ignatieff’s position is. Johnston brought up two points which I thought were worth mentioning here.

As he mentions clearly in his book on Stephen Harper, the supreme court has already ruled on what would happen in the case of a successful referendum. There would have to be a constitutional amendment in order for Quebec to leave to country. This means that all the provinces would have to come to some sort of agreement on how we would move forward. There is no pretending anymore (after the supreme court reference) that Quebec can unilaterally separate from Canada. After all we live in a democracy under the rule of law. Quebec cannot unilaterally declare independence. The constitution would still apply and Quebeckers are subject the constitution as are all Canadian provinces and territories.

The second point he made, and this I didn’t know before, is that no right to secession exists under international law. Apparently Quebec hired a group of experts from the UK,US Germany and France who said as much in a report published in 1992. There was some sort of tenuous right to secession in cases of formerly colonized countries but outside of those cases, no such right exists. Quebec as a rough approximation of the French Canadian community, has language rights, education rights, the province of Quebec has many other rights guaranteed under the constitution as well and so has no right under international law to secede.

Now Quebec separatists wrongly assume that every nation must have a state. This is simply not true. Such a position creates divisions and really Canada can stand to have a strong Quebec.

The funny thing is that the Liberals are reeling from sponsorship scandal in Quebec still to this day. One of the few places the Liberals can gain in the next election is in Quebec. I think it might be the only area of the country where they can gain seats. The sense of opportunism about these appeals only makes them that much worse.

The 1995 referendum was an extremely close call because no one actually stood up for Canada during that campaign.

The Liberal party seems to be attempting to buy the allegiance of Quebeckers by putting a few symbolic words in the constitution. The general thinking of many in the Liberal party and many who were in government, is that they need to purchase the allegiance of Quebec. This kind of thinking is what led to the sponsorship program in the first place.

The idea that instead of articulating a coherent defense of Quebec and it’s place in Canada, they simply throw money at the people of Quebec. It’s an incoherent plan, it wastes money and ultimately leads to resentment. I think that was a big lesson of the sponsorship scandal, Quebec liberals were literally trying to buy the votes of the people of Quebec.

Now on another note, I think if it came down to it. I’m thinking more and more that if Bob Rae wins the liberal leadership, it wouldn’t take too much for me to vote for him and his (new) party.

Still here

Well I haven't posted much recently, but life continues pretty normally here in Ottawa.

I spent some time with some old friends while I was in Regina, and then this weekend, I managed to get a hold of someone i hadn't heard from in a few years. My friend was an exchange student a few years ago, who I lost tough with and through the magic of MSN I did manage to get a hold of him again.

Other than that life continues at a normal pace. I'm in the process of applying to do my MA. I'm really hoping that something comes from that.

I've been playing quite a bit of Simcity this weekend. It's such a fun game, especially now that I have a large enough region that my cities grow like magic.

I also have managed to start my research project for my class at Carleton. It should prove to be quite interesting. It's on the promotion of the Olympics in Calgary in 1988 and Montreal in 1976(well Calgary for sure, maybe some Montreal stuff too)

That reminds me; I saw something funny on TV today . Does anyone remember that really weird 'B' movie with David Duchovny called Evolution? Well it was on TV today. I've always wondered whether that movie wasn't just a big product placement by Head & Shoulders.
(For those who haven't seen it, H&S is the thing that kills the aliens in the movie, and at the end of the movie there's an actual H&S commercial)

Anyways that movie sucked, but made me laugh(mostly at how bad it is).

Out on the prairies again

I'm not too sure when i'll be out here on the Saskatchewan plains again. I'm not spending christmas here, and it looks like my mom is determined to move out of the city within the next year.

Not that there's been much to come back to, to be honest. The great majority of people that I hung out with in highschool left the city, and the ones that are still in town i've grown apart from. It's also interesting to see how the city has changed in 6 years. I find it quite different from the days I remember it. Whether that's my perspective that has changed or the city itself has changed.

It amazing the little things that you notice when you return to a place you haven't been in a while. I guess a lot of small things add up over time.

It is also a reflection of the new place that you've been. I find Regina a fairly dull and gray city, but only in comparison with a much greener city like Ottawa. I'm sure Regina has always been a dull gray city, especially in the fall light and the dust of spring, I jsut never noticed it as much before.



Oh I also want to say that I enjoyed watching RDI this morning and seeing the Quebec perspective on things. I also got to watch CBC News SUnday for the first time in a while and I have to say I appreciate them looking into harder issues than the regular news. I also like the political commentary (of course) as well.

Those are my thoughts for the day. I'm reading an interesting book right now too, called stumbling into happiness, it's quite good.

So i've been thinking about what books I should buy. I'm thinking in part that I should start reading some classics, and get a more fundamental sense of what western civilization is and where it comes from. These would be both political and philosophical classics.

I feel as thought I need a better grounding for some of my discussions about modern topics and I think it would help to read some of the authors in their own words.

That list remains to be developed though, and so I have a few books here I've been thinking of getting soon.

Heart Matters by Adrienne Clarkson [given that i'm such a fan of her husband I suppose it makes sense to get her book]
Right Side Up by Paul Wells [I like his blog, and i'm curious what he has to say]
Sorry I don't speak French by Graham Fraser should be an interesting read. Language politics interest me especially living in ottawa as a fluently (relatively speaking) bilingual anglophone

French Kiss by Chantal Hebert. I like what she says most of the time on CBC's the national so her book should be interesting.

The world is Flat by Thomas friedman. I like his stuff usually, though I find it extrremely oversimplified. I have been waiting for a long time for this to come out in paperback. Hopefully it won;t be too much longer

Stumbling on happiness by Daniel Gilbert just plain looks interesting..

Thats the list for now. No surprise it's moslty non fiction with a strong emphasis on Canadian politics for the moment. I haven't seen a book on international affairs that looks promising for a while now. Maybe I just own all the good ones?

Thanks be given

Well i had a fun thanksgiving weekend. The two brothers were up, one was my brother the other my girlfriend's younger brother.

It was interesting to see the two of them meet actually, not much was said between them but it was interesting nonetheless.

I cooked a whole chicken for the first time and I have to say it turned out pretty well. Now that that's over I guess it's time to get back to work. Not looking forward to it, the day after long weekends are always busy at the bank, and we're short one person and we'll be short 2 people later in the week, this will guarentee a busy week for me.

I must have read Ayn rand's book Atlas Shrugged about 4 or 5 times. Now I find it interesting that i enjoy her books so much because I am deeply opposed to her views on almost anything. I do however find that the sense that her characters are outsiders misunderstood by the world does appeal to my sense of self and some of my own struggles in my childhood.

I find however through reading her writing as well as starting to follow more conservatives blogs and just through changes in my own thinking I am becoming more conservative over time. Though I would consider myself a moderate in almost eveyr way, I find that the conservatives (in general and the political party) are becoming more appealing.

It also helps that i find a lot of the progressives that i know and a lot that i have read are barking up the wrong tree and are just as vitriolic and stupid as the religious right in the US. On many many issues I find myself disagreeing in fundamental ways with the NDP and many on the left.

Now this does not mean that I am going to embrace the religion of the right, ie 'the free market will solve everything' nor will I ever believe that cutting taxes is the solution to every problem, btu I do find my political stances moderating.

Now I have always been a moderate in most ways, I think in terms of economics I was on the radical side of things, if you finished my post on intellectual property rights, I have moved from the position of abolishing them, to trying to find some sort of accomodation of property rights within a more humane and just system. In the end though I may end up being in favour of abolishing them. (Some radicals call the enforcement of these rights tantamount to criminalizing sharing)

ANyways thats my two cents for the moment.

The latest member of our family

Welcome to our family de-humidifier I hope you help with our windows being covered in water and that you don't break down for many years...

Been busy

So I haven't really kept up my pledge to post more often. I am still trying to get my life organize and settling into a routine. There's alos been a few curveballs at work, with one person leaving and the hunt for a new person beginning.

Things are going alright around here, i'm definately enjoying playing badminton twice a week. i'm really happy i made that commitment and my Spanish lessons are going well so far.

I feel that there's so much for me to learn in Spanish (which i guess is true), I am slowly feeling like i'm beginning to stop thinking about the grammar all the time and i'm beginning to think about what it is I am trying to express.

I'm wondering whether I should take French classes too next semester. I really need to improve my French grammar skills.

Thats what i'm thinking about these days..