Does Partition Make Sense for Sovereigntists?

There's little doubt that most Francophone Quebecers abhor the idea of partition and when it comes to militant sovereigntists, just the mention of the word is enough to get their mouths frothing in rage.

I don't know if many readers recall a letter campaign back in 1998 directed at Westmounters by a nationalist group, in which some dire threats were made against the town for even thinking about partition.

The letter was all the more frightening because it was distributed by a militant group that included Rhéal Mathieu a member of the FLQ in the sixties, who served nine years for terrorist activities and who again was convicted in 2000 in relation to the bombing of the Second Cup Coffee shop. In a piece on vigile.net, he gives an account of that operation. Link{Fr}
I've gone ahead and translated the threatening diatribe, since I've wasn't able to find an English version online.
It may well be the first translation of the document. I've posted the French original online and you can read it by clicking under the image below.

THOUGHTS ON CANADIAN UNITY

See the original document in French

ON THE OCCASION OF THE CELEBRATION OF VICTORIA DAY

On May 5, 1997, the City of Westmount adopted a resolution on Canadian unity proposed by militants and described by the media as 'partitionist.' Mayor Peter Trent himself has repeatedly stated that these unity resolutions, in and of themselves, are partitionist. This resolution is actually a 'Sword of Damocles' hanging over your head. This letter is intended to make you aware of the immediate and long-term consequences of adoption of such a resolution.

In effect, you must now consider what you will do when Quebec becomes a sovereign state. You should think carefully before acting, because if your city is considering partition, it is likely that your life will become a Hell. Your situation may be similar to that of the American hostages in the embassy in Tehran, or at best, to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

In the very real world, what would life in a partitionist regime be like? You should be aware that should Westmount decide on the partition, the situation would be entirely different from that of Northern Ireland where there are airports and seaports. Westmount is an enclave within the city of Montreal, compared to Northern Ireland which is on a peninsula. Londonderry, Belfast and Newcastle are seaports, a stone's throw from England.

The strategic position of Westmount looks much more like that of West Berlin under Soviet blockade than that of Northern Ireland. With one exception, however, because in Westmount you could not even attempt to move across the wall, because you are surrounded by Québec!

If you tried to partition, refusing to pay your taxes to the government of Quebec, it is foreseeable that the worst of disasters could befall you and your families. You could run out of drinking water, fuel, electricity and in short, all the amenities you need to ensure your daily survival. A political hailstorm on the city.

Is not, the first responsibility of a municipal government to provide the population basic services, such as protection against fire, water supply, traffic management, and disposal of waste water? The constitution is outside municipal jurisdiction. By adopting such a resolution, your municipality does a disservice to your best interests. It puts you in a rather untenable position.

After any attempt to partition, it is clear that collaborative arrangements with the city of Montreal on the protection against fire, the water supply, waste management, sewage and traffic would fail. Westmount Square could go up in smoke and no firefighter from Montreal would come to the rescue.

From where does the water that your firefighters need come from? Westmount does not even have potable water of its own. Why would the city of Montreal or the Quebec government provide drinking water, filtered and disinfected, to people who want to extract a piece of territory? As citizens, you would be forced to collect rain water for your household needs.

With regard to traffic management, the situation would be unbearable. To prevent smuggling as in Kahnawake, Quebec would have to establish a security cordon with  several customs stations mounted at key locations in Montreal and forcing citizens who wished to enter or leave to lose several hours a day in order to present themselves to Quebec Customs officers.

If we consider the issue of domestic waste management, what would happen? Within two weeks, Westmount would become a dump, because the government would refuse a Canadian city, in this case Westmount, to export its waste to Quebec.

Today, do you think you would easily find a buyer for your home if Keith Henderson, Tyler and Galganov continue to say, in agreement with your local council, they will partition Westmount, build a wall around it to isolate it from the city of Montreal? Do not let these racist idiots speak for you!

You know the motto of Quebec: "I remember." Well! We remind you that today is the 35th anniversary of Operation mailboxes in Westmount, led by the Front de Liberation du Quebec, May 17, 1963: 10 bombs, five explosions, an officer of the Canadian Army seriously injured.

Today, in Westmount, Quebec patriots came to your house to your mailbox, with an olive branch in hand, not with dynamite. As in Northern Ireland, we want peace. We took our pen to appeal to your reason.
- We demand that the Mayor Peter Trent declare that the City of Westmount is not partitionist.

 -We demand that the citizens of the city of Westmount appear before the City Council and adopt a resolution confirming that they agree to submit to any democratic decision of the Quebec people.

If the council persists in its anti-democratic path, legal action to boycott the city of Westmount could be undertaken in the coming months. These actions would be aimed at teaching Westmounters what everyday life would be in an partitionist enclave. Obviously, in addition to the disadvantages that would befall everyone, one would expect that the market value of your residential and commercial buildings in Westmount would be greatly affected.

We do not want that to happen. Rather, we hope to receive a positive response to this call, otherwise you and we, will live with the consequences.                                        National Liberation Movement of Quebec

I'm not going to critique the letter, readers are welcome to do so, suffice to say that I reproduced it here as an extreme example of how seriously sovereigntists consider the partition threat.

But I'd like to present a different scenario today, one where maybe, just maybe, sovereigntists could possibily consider the idea of partition viable.

Here goes;
Let us for the sake of argument consider a PQ majority victory in an election sometime next year, followed by an unsuccessful referendum which again, for the sake of argument, was lost 55% to 45% margin.

Nobody can dispute that this third kick at the can will be devastating. It would be unthinkable for Pauline Marois (like Parizeau before her) to give a speech promising another referendum.

The referendum would cool the ardor of that younger generation of militants that never had a chance to vote for independence. For the older generation of sovereigntists, it would signal the end of their dream.

So where to go from there?
With the vote for independence going backwards, coupled with the demographics of immigration that sees another 40,000 federalists entering Quebec each year, even the most ardent of sovereigntists would be demoralized.

As the old saying goes, Half a loaf is better than none.


At that point the only way to achieve sovereignty would be partition.
Allow the island of Montreal to become Canada's eleventh (then tenth) province and remove all those anglos and Ethnics from voting in a new referendum, which I have no doubt will pass.

Quebec minus Montreal would be painful but would return Quebec to what sovereigntists dream it should be.
Eliminating English altogether in Quebec would force new immigrants to adopt French.

Those Francophone Montrealers who wished to remain in Quebec would merely have to move to Laval and vice versa for federalist Quebecers who wished to remain in Canada.

It's a rather neat solution, don't you think?

By the way, all those threats above......hogwash.
It cuts both ways.
It would be in everyone's interest to cooperate.