Quebec's Constitutional Demands?

BUSTED!
Yesterday I tried to show some balance and played devil's advocate in regards to changes in Canada's Parliamentary makeup to somehow satisfy Quebec's minority position.
I touched on the possibility of amending Canada's constitution and opined that perhaps Quebec would be more amenable to compromise in light of the province's deteriorating demographic position, perhaps ready to accept the old saw that half a loaf of bread is better than none.

I didn't expect commenters to agree with me but what I didn't expect was to be the beneficiary of a double whammy. An article in Le Devoir  proved my hopeful scenario to be hopelessly naive and unrealistic.  

I came across this piece written by Claude Morin, the old Pekist minster (and RCMP informant)  and his take on what a constitutional  accord would require in order to satisfy Quebec's basic demands. I thought it would be of interest to readers and so here's a translation. I'll save my comments until after you've read it.

TAKING THE NDP AT ITS WORD

"Through the  media we have learned that Jack Layton and Thomas Mulcair had delivered a speech with a "nationalist flavor" at the meeting of General Council of the NDP-Quebec in Montreal last Saturday. They announced that they would recognize as valid, the results of a referendum win with a margin of 50% + 1 and in general, would be ready to defend the interests of Quebec against the rest of Canada.

Excellent arrangements, but a little lacking. So I thought to present a memorandum containing a list of reforms, that when implemented, would contribute greatly to what is called the "cultural and linguistic security of Quebecers." It will be interesting to know fairly quickly if they support all these reforms, or only some of them and, if so, why they would reject this or that. Here is the list:

The Constitution, Basic Law of Canada should:

• Formally recognize the Quebec nation (nothing cosmetic, Quebec would be regarded not as a province, but as the homeland of a people); 

• State that this recognition is meant to foster a new more constructive Quebec-Canada relationship; 

• It would prescribe, that in the case of dispute, the division of jurisdictional powers between Ottawa and Quebec and the allocation of fiscal resources be shared; 

• Confirm the power of Quebec over its economic, social and cultural activities; 

• Confirm that Quebec is master of its own affairs in areas that it already enjoys under the current constitution (it should go without saying, but would be better to confirm); 

• Assert that the territory of Quebec is inviolate, and it is for Quebecers to determine their own future and their policies on citizenship and immigration; 

• Clarify that this control extends to the realm of language (where Quebec's jurisdictions have been unilaterally reduced by the federal government and other provinces during the constitutional repatriation of 1982); 

• Stipulate that Quebec would define the application of federal powers and spending in areas under its jurisdiction (with the right to compensation if Quebec opts out of new national programs); 

• Confer on Quebec in its fields of competence, the right to represent itself abroad, as well as to speak and engage in its own name, in some international forums, and have its own representation in international sporting competitions; 

• Provide for the participation of Quebec in appointing Quebec members of the Supreme Court and Senate; 

• Ensure, finally, that once enshrined in the Constitution these new provisions would be modified only with the consent of the National Assembly of Quebec."

Claude Morin - Former Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs of Quebec- LINK {FR}

Listen

Read phonetically

.....sigh

Actually what I think what Mr. Morin is describing is Sovereignty-Association.

About the only thing that Mr. Morin wants Quebec to maintain in its relationship with Canada is EQUALIZATION PAYMENTS! 

I am reminded of the fictional character "The Black Knight"in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. As the Black knight battles to defend a bridge, he is hacked up, piecemeal by King Arthur. As he continues to lose limb after limb, his bravado increases. Watch the clip on YouTube.

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At any rate, it seems to me that Mr. Morin remains as deluded as the Black Knight and that his position is just as ridiculous. As Quebec's demographic and economic position decreases, its demands increase!

What the PQ couldn't win after thirty-five years of militancy and two referendums, Mr. Morin expects Ottawa to give away for free. ...argh!....

Bruins/Canucks- A Matchup Made in Heaven!

There were a lot of Quebeckers pulling for the Tampa Bay Lightening to go to the Stanley Cup Finals instead of the hated Boston Bruins, but reality tells us that this is the best matchup that we could have realistically expected going into the playoffs.

There's a big Quebec French connection in Tampa Bay, including the coach and two of its biggest stars.
But a Tampa Bay/Canucks would have been disastrous for the league with interest in the States in the toilet.

Canadian versus American, 
West coast versus East coast 
Yuppie versus blue collar,  

A match that's got something for every fan!

Of course we wanted our Canadiens to do well, but no realistic Montreal hockey fan could have reasonably believed that the Canadiens had the goods to carry them to the finals. The loss of Markov, Pacioretty and Georges due to injury was too much of a handicap.

That being said  Canadiens seem to have a bright future. After watching the entire playoffs so far, I remain convinced that Carey Price is the most valuable goaltender in the NHL. Not one goalie looked as sharp as him and all had serious lapses and terrible giveaway goals, especially Luongo and Thomas who ironically face off against each other for the cup.

Given their druthers, I bet both coach Claude Julien and Alain Vigneault would rather have Price in nets over what they've got.

Now that  Tamps Bay is out of the way, there is no excuse for Quebeckers not to root for Van City.

As for the Quebec connection, there's four Montrealers on the Canucks team, Alexandre Bolduc , Maxim Lapierre,  Alexandre Burrows and even one Anglo-Montrealer in the bunch Roberto Luongo!

I don't think there's another NHL team with four Montrealers!

Can it be that all of Canada is behind the Canucks?

YES!!!
YES!!!
YES!!!

Is Quebec's Demand For More Seats is Parliament Jusitified?

Mr. Harper's decision to re-jig the number of House of Commons seats to better reflect the shifting Canadian demographic reality isn't going over very well in Quebec, as one can imagine.

Now that Mr. Harper has his majority in hand, he can fulfill his promise of adding thirty more seats to Parliament, at will. Those seats are destined to go to parts west of the Ottawa river, into urban centers in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver with Quebec left out because it's population is not growing in proportion. Mr. Harper, mindful of the anger that these thirty new non-Quebec seats will unleash has been rumoured to be contemplating adding a seat or two in Quebec to dissipate this anger.

Notwithstanding, whether Quebec gets one, two or no new seats, its position will be weakened and so it is easy to understand that this turn of events has engendered howls of anger by Quebec politicians.

It's somewhat ironic that the defunct Charlottetown Accord, the constitutional reform package that was rejected in a nationwide referendum in 1992, would have provided Quebec a minimum of 25% of the Parliamentary seats. The proposition lost by a 55% to 45% margin with Quebeckers rejecting the accord as well, by a margin of 57% to 43%. Had the Quebec voters voted in favour of the package, by a 63% to 37% margin, the accord would have carried. I dare say that if the package was re-submitted today, given Quebec's deteriorating demographic position, it would likely have the required support in Quebec.

The additional seats that Mr. Harper is now proposing will result in Quebec's share of the Parliamentary seats falling to 23% .

Now in complaining about Mr. Harper's seat proposal, Quebec politicians have offered a lot of rage, but not many convincing arguments supporting its position.

"If the net result of adding one or two members has the effect of lowering the political weight of Quebec below the 24 per cent, it is not acceptable," said Bernard Drainville, Opposition spokesman for intergovernmental affairs. ...

"We cannot accept that Quebec would be more marginalized within Canada," he said. "Maintaining the current political weight is really a bare minimum."- Bernard Drainville, PQ member of the National Assembly

Pierre Moreau, Quebec's intergovernmental minister said that the federal government must look beyond simple mathematical logic.
"We object that our effective representation in federal institutions is reduced. It must not go down."
In 2007, 2009 and 2010, the National Assembly passed three motions to urge Ottawa not to weaken Quebec's representation in the Commons. LINK 

Not very convincing.......

The real issue was best summed up by political scientist Claude Denis of the University of Ottawa.

"It is certain that the demographic weight of Quebec in Canada is shrinking and so it's normal in a perspective of representation, the weight of Quebec in the House of Commons will go down too.....

 The question is: if we don't treat Quebec as a nation, where will it stop?"

And that is the crux of the argument. 
There are those on the Anglo side who will argue that for Quebec, it's tough noogies, the majority should always rule and when it comes to democracy, that's the way it is. These are likely the same people who would argue that 50%+1 is not enough for Quebec to declare sovereignty.
Democracy, like all political issues is always a case of perspective.

I would suggest that if the shoe was on the other foot, with Canada being 75% French, Anglos would demand special constitutional guarantees to protect their historic rights in the face of a dominating large French majority. Again, a question of perspective.

I'm somewhat disappointed by Quebec politicians who have made almost no lucid arguments as to why Quebec's Parliamentary weight should be maintained in the face of shrinking demographics. It is as if they are painfully out of arguments. Too bad.

Let this Anglo make a case for Quebec....

Pretend you play on a baseball team and after each game the team votes on where to go for the traditional post-game meal. There are but three out of the thirteen players on the team who are Francophone, the rest Anglos.
The three Francophones always vote to go to Lafleurs for steamies and poutine, while all the Anglos always vote for MacDonalds. Because the majority rules, each week the team heads out for a Big  Mac.
After a year of going to MacDonalds exclusively, the francophones complain;

"What kind of democracy is this if we never get our choice? After all, we represent 23% of the team, so is it unreasonable to go to Lafleurs at least once every four or five outings?.....We're supposed to be a team, which respects each of its members equally. What kind of respect is this?

And so majority rule is fine, if you're in the majority. Not so fine if you're in the minority.

The Americans have recognized this principle by dividing seats in its House of Representatives by strict demographic apportionment, while dividing the seats in the Senate asymmetrically, giving each State equal status, regardless of sizes.

If we wish to remain a family made up of two founding nations, respectful of each other, we are going to have to find a way to recognize Quebec's minority position and respect its right to meaningful representation.

Most of us accept the wisdom of providing minority investors in public corporation special rights and considerations in the face of large voting blocks.
It is no less fair that we apply the principles of  'minority shareholder rights' to our Parliamentary system.

The most logical reform is to maintain the principle of demographic representation in the House of Commons but reform the Senate in a meaningful way. Senate Seats could be distributed asymmetrically with Quebec given a larger than proportional share, (perhaps 30%?)  Members would be elected and  run under party colours. This would finally address the  problem of an undemocratic upper house. In the event that the Senate vetoes a Bill sent up from the lower House, that veto can be over-ridden by another simple vote in the House.
Not perfect, but better that what we have.

The question remains- Are we as a nation mature enough to make the compromises necessary to insure fair political representation in consideration of the disproportionate weight of our founding nations?

I may be wrong, but I firmly believe that Canadians are mature enough to understand complicated political issues and are not averse to making necessary compromises for the greater good. 

The reason Charlottetown  failed was because Quebec set the negative tone by signaling its disapproval beforehand. Canadians who knew that Quebec would reject the accord in advance were inclined to do the same. 
If Quebeckers were to signal their real desire to compromise and take a political deal that would give them more power, but not all they desired, Canadians would likely climb aboard.

NPD- Quebec Voters Get a Case of 'Buyer's Remorse'

It hasn't taken long for a serious case of 'buyer's remorse' to set in among many of those Quebeckers who voted for Jack Layton and then were shocked at the number of NDP boobs they elected.

It's safe to say that nobody, even those who voted for the NDP in Quebec, ever expected what happened, to actually happen.

And so the morning after the federal election, Quebeckers woke up and found themselves full of regret, like a debauchee in bed with a complete stranger after a drunken night of revelry, someone who looks over across the pillow and groans shamefully at the pig they bought home.

While 'Smiling Jack' and 'Uncle Tom' try to paint the newly elected placeholders as ready, willing and able to serve, they cannot hide the fact that these merry men and women are neophytes and political zeros, a group that has as much chance of making a political impact as your dog or cat.

No matter, the truth is that while in opposition, sitting across a majority government in the House of Commons doesn't require much smarts or experience. The job consists mainly of frowning and shaking ones head side to side when the government speaks while nodding up and down happily, when Smiling Jack or Uncle Tom offers up those Ndp pearls of wisdom.
In other words-  bobbleheads.

The  Quebec Press and the the self-proclaimed intellectuals have been making mincemeat out of the public for electing these bobbleheads, but what the election actually proved, is that voters really do vote for the party and that the local candidate is not even an afterthought.

Quebeckers, both English and French were caught in the great Ndp swindle when they awoke to find that those who they elected were woefully under-qualified and equally unprepared.
Voters in the largely Anglo riding of NDG in Montreal were as shocked as voters in Berthier-Maskinongé  when they discovered that they elected a unilingual candidate who  couldn't communicate with most people in the riding! It's been suggested, rather tongue in cheek, that the French only speaking member for NDG swap ridings with the English only representative of Berthier-Maskinongé, the height of absurdity!

These Layton bobbleheads will serve as a four year humiliation and the Quebec press is in no mind to be generous about it.
For twenty years, the Bloc Quebecois benefited from a docile and somewhat fawning press. Quebec journos are mostly sovereignists and as such gave Gilles Duceppe and his minions a free pass.

Like the intellectuals, the Press is convinced that Layton perpetrated a fraud on Quebec voters and so, if the Ndp think they'll get the same gentle treatment as the Bloc, they are sadly mistaken.

In the press corps, Layton is now actually more hated than Harper and they are already out for his hide. They've already tripped him up and caught him in a blunder in which he was forced to do a quick 180° reversal over his position on the 50%+1 referendum question. Link

The whole question was an amateur trap that Layton fell into stupidly, something an experienced handler like the Prime Minister, would have dealt with expeditiously.
Instead of responding to the referendum question, Layton could have turned the whole thing around by declaring that it isn't his policy to respond to hypothetical questions, but telling the Press as well, that if Madame Marois were to publicly commit to a referendum in the next potential PQ government, he'd be happy to respond. CHECKMATE!

Mr Layton, like Gilles Duceppe has been accustomed to an accommodating press his whole career. As a leader of a small opposition party there wasn't much sense beating him up, it wouldn't be sporting or well-received.

But everything's changed. Layton, Mulcair and the bobbleheads are now fair game and a vengeful Press is out for blood. The aw shucks, "Smiling Jack" persona that got him elected will not work on these hardened and spiteful journalists who are determined to expose the Ndp as a fraud.

Layton has reacted by ramping up his support of Quebec nationalism, hoping to appease these journalists who are pursuing him as relentlessly as dogs on an English fox hunt. Link
Such appeasement will not work.

If  Layton doesn't learn how to stare down the beast, he will be toast by Christmas.

French versus English - Volume 28

Billionaire labels separatists 'fascists'

"One of the world's richest financial advisers has bowed out of the Action democratique du Quebec's annual convention after describing the sovereignty movement as 'fascist.'

Stephen Jarislowsky says he doesn't want to involve the party in a debate it hasn't sought or disrupt the conference to be held this weekend in Trois-Rivieres.

Jarislowsky withdrew after he was quoted in a Montreal newspaper as saying that the separatist movement is perhaps not like Nazism, but it is 'fascist.'" Read the rest of the story

French public school dumps English lessons-Too hard for students.
 A French primary school in  Laval, Le Sentier, has dropped it's English program claiming that it's too hard on students.
"Based on our analysis results, several students were in a situation of failure or in the process of failing. To devote more hours to learn English, we must cut time devoted to the other subjects, thus requiring more student effort. A pupil in trouble at the primary school level will also be a student in trouble at the secondary level and may jeopardize his graduation." "explained a spokesman for the Commission scolaire de Laval. 
Most parents are not amused and are considering action, including a petition to have the program returned to class. Said one mother, "By abolishing a program in place for 25 years, we lose our edge, it ceases to be a model school," LINK{FR}

In an unrelated but equally interesting education story, Lucien Francoeur, a veteran educator had some choice words to describe the modern Quebecois students;
"Students who come from elsewhere have mastered three languages​​: their mother tongue, they all learn English and also the French that they have learned with traditional methods. Le Québécois "ethnics" use  one English word in  four (fun, top, chill), but cannot not have a conversation in English and write their mother tongue phonetically. When I form a study group it is often the ethnic student that supports the quality of French because they speak it better than native Québécois." OUCH!  LINK

Anglo News Editor draws ire over Duceppe/Osama article
The editor of a small English local newspaper got into trouble after writing about his joy over the defeat of the Bloc Quebecois.

 "Seeing the Bloc Québécois virtually wiped off the political map was almost as much fun as listening to President Barrack Obama describe Osama bin Laden’s death at the hands of the US Navy Seals."

 The small article in a newspaper of minuscule readership made a big splash in the French press which collectively decided that the editor, David Goldberg had drawn an unfair comparison between Mr. Duceppe and the head of the terrorist network.
Gilles Rhéaume, the noted separatist militant and head honcho of an organization he himself created to combat alleged Quebec bashing  (Ligue Québécoise contre la francophobie canadienne) has made a complaint to the Quebec Press Council on the basis that Mr. Goldberg's remarks were mean. The article has been pulled from the newspapers' website and the editor wrote an apology (sort of) the following week.
Read the story about Mr. Rhéaume HERE{FR}
Read the original article HERE

New SSJB branch created to fight English cottagers

SSJB spokesman Roger Kemp- English cottagers a menace!

The Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste proudly announced the opening of a regional branch in the Mauricie District district of Quebec, an area that remains one of Quebec's most unilingually French regions in the province.

According to Roger Kemp, president and spokesman for the regional branch of the Movement, Trois-Rivières and the Mauricie are not immune to the consequences of the invasion of English.

"More and more voices being raised that as the situation of French in Montreal deteriorates, it is becoming more difficult to respond to clients in some local shops in the metropolis. This situation is spreading and we are feeling the effects in the Mauricie," he says. He mentioned as an example the fact that an employee of a local company from the region, may be obliged to speak English when dealing with a small unilingual anglophone businss from Montreal. Even worse, a municipal employee in the region may be obliged   to speak in English to a new owner of a cottage who does not speak French.
Really? .......Oh, the inhumanity!!!!
 Mr. Kemp added an ominous warning that if the trend continues Trois-Rivières and all of Québec are in danger of becoming English! LINK{FR}

Outgoing Habs GM unloads on language.

Pierre Bovin the outgoing general manager of the Montreal Canadiens unburdened himself in a frank and revealing interview with Montreal Gazette writer Dave Stubbs,

"Pierre Boivin, the outgoing president of the Montreal Canadiens, has some advice for the federal New Democratic Party.
He didn't put it that way. But the NDP, which proposes to require that all judges of the Supreme Court of Canada be bilingual, should take note of something Boivin said in his interview with Dave Stubbs of The Gazette, published on Wednesday.
While English is the working language in the front offices and dressing rooms of the National Hockey League, the general manager and the coach of the Canadiens must be able to explain themselves to the team's fans in French as well.
This bilingualism requirement means the Canadiens "are severely competitively disadvantaged," Boivin said. read the rest of the Montreal Gazette article

And for a weekend laugh........

Sign = " HERE we do business in French"

FAILQC.com, always good for a smile!