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.