I'm an 11th generation Quebecker (my ancestors first got here in 1640), I'm of mixed Scottish and French ancestry. I support Quebec independence, so do all my family, friends and most white collar workers, artists and intellectuals here. I voted Yes in the 95 referendum and would vote the same today. Just as my father, and his father before that, I will want my children to remember the history of their people, how they were conquered, brided with gifts, made to collaborate like whores, then kept as 2nd class citizens, told they were inferior, threatened with assimilation, told they would never make it on their own, that their democratic cause was illegal, threatened with partition, that their votes were drowned with fast-tracked immigration, corrupted sponshoship scandals, etc, etc, Each generation having its story of disdain. For anyone who knows a little history, it should understood that although it has its differences, the Quebec independence movement is a true one, it follows the same collective will that drove the Irish, Americans or Indus to seek their own independence. I also support Scottish independence and would support the idea of Quebec giving honorary citizenship to every Tibetan in solidarity of their cause, which seems to be even more hopeless than ours is according to federalists here.

Um...not quite the same thing. Quebec is hardly oppressed.

What exactly do they expect to gain by becoming sovereign? From what I can see their ideology is just as liberal as the rest of Canada. If you people all think alike anyway, and Quebec has proportional representation, what is the point leaving?

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Spare me. No area of the US is even remotely close to wanting to secede. We all know how good we have it here.

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Québec have nothein g to gain t o separate fro m Canada. long tim e bevor Charles deGaulle he come to Québec an d want to begin séparatiste movemnt.
Lester Pearson make him leavfe Canada. when Trudeau are primeministre, René Lévesque he are leader i n Québec. he an d Jean Marchand want to be indépendant wit h the U.S. so Lévesque and Marchand they, go to UnitedStates to make accord with Président Reagan.Pierre Trudeau dont want séparatiste so in référendum vote h e lead Québec against parti Québécois.
this are bi g mistake for Canada to séparatiste. Trudeau he are good leader becuase he save Canada.

In response to Sadistic-Savior's post... "Quebec is hardly oppressed". True its people are not openly oppressed like in the past, but they were, for a long time, in all sorts of way, not all physical. People remember. As an American you should know, the little guy fighting against the odds for his freedom merits respect. What if 30 years before the American revolution, the British suddenly became real nice guys? Would Washington, Jefferson and the others have forgotten about independence? Would they have said, we have all we need for a comfortable life, we're represented, let bygons be bygons, lets stay British forever? There's more behind the drive for freedom than wanting to stop being oppressed and being represented. And no, Quebec is not as liberal as you might think, it's actually less and less liberal than Canada. People here are rising up against Muslim values, they fight in Afghanistan, have strong family values, support stronger control in immigration, are against affirmative action, etc. Quebeckers in general have respect for Americans, most of those who don't have been taught to think that way by Canadians. The Canadian elite has been telling us to look down on the US since they first got here. Remember who the Canadians are. They're the descendants of loyalists that fled the US because they did not support the Revolution. These guys were basically traitors and collaborators.
I should shut up and let me, my children and my grandchildren spent the rest of eternity with these guys? Their heart were never at the right place. I voted yes to independence and will do it again. God bless George Washington, and Michael Collins in Ireland, they had the heart at the right place.

For anyone who's interested in the future of North America...
The collective psyche of Quebeckers goes a long way in explaining why Canada is where it is now. Here's how it was brought to be. Notice the recurring pattern.

The British came and militarily conquered and subjugated us living here. The French king abandoned us to our fate, most of the higher classes and administrators fled, leaving the Church as sole local administrative body over the people. Some of us wanted to fight the British, but most were kept in obedience by the priests, who collaborated with the British in exchange for maintaining their status. They were too many of us for them to deport us like they deported the Acadians. Outnumbered in a remote, hard to access land, the British army played it safe. It toned down any unnecessary oppression, bringing in fresh administrators.

Then 20 years later the American revolution came. Having thrown the British out of the 13 colonies, the Americans sent expeditions north to finish the job in the last remaining english-controlled land, the "Province of Quebec". Some Quebeckers saw the Americans as liberators and joined ranks with them to throw the British out of their land. Others were told to fight with the British by their priests who were afraid that American republican values were contrary to the Church and traditions of the Monarchy, they were told that their language and faith was protected by the British, that it wasn't a liberation but an invasion. In exchange, the British gave privileges to collaborators, and killed off as traitors those fighting for their freedom with the Americans. Those Quebeckers who collaborated helped fight off the Americans and in a way kept this land for the British, not knowing that they would soon pay the price for it. The war ended and throves of loyalists, Americans who fought on the wrong side of the revolution and lost (traitors to the Revolution and its values), move into Quebec to stay British. These were the original English-Canadians, cowards and traitors back home technically. Then began the slow and steady process by which the original Quebeckers went from being the majority to being the minority, gradually drowned in British immigration.

About a third of the way through, the Rebellions of the 1830s came, again plotting collaborating loyalists against freedom-seekers. Again, one camp was punished while the other was thanked for loyalty. The ordinary Quebecker was then pushed back in obscurity as a 2nd class citizen for generations. The trouble started again when the Church got out of the picture. The fight for civil and collective rights brought back ideas of self-determination, which brought back fear of dissent and fresh threats and gifts to insure loyalty and collaboration. The same old pattern...

The underlying theme to this saga is fear, real and induced (for collaborative purposes). This fear lead to a watering down of key values (self-respect, pride, self-determination, solidarity) common in any society. The sweet and sour treatment a group of people receives over the years, brought by a pattern of gift/punishment responses to behavior (some of which contrary to human nature) has lead to a schizophrenic social mindset among modern-day Quebeckers.

This is why to this day, there are two types of Quebeckers, the collaborator and the rebel (freedom-seeker). The collaborator pursues the same sick tradition (first set by the priests) of being bought for staying faithful, like prostitutes, they are given money, investments, high-ranking government jobs (Prime Ministers...), apparent rights (even though rights are to be taken, not given). etc. in exchange for continued loyalty. The other Quebecker, the freedom-seeker, wants to break away from from this model, stop the cycle, stop acting like a prostitute or a primadona, go out on its own, do what the Americans did. [There's also a 3rd type that recently appeared, a kind of hybrid, these are in fact collaborators that pretend to be freedom-seekers as a tool to getting the "goods" from Ottawa.] Only the 2nd type of citizen is mature and healthy for the sake of Canada's and Quebec's future. It is highly unhealthy for Canada to pursue the model of buying Quebec loyalty, it's demeaning for both. Canada is no longer a British territory needing collaboration to fight off the US. This obsession against US independence has been transferred to one against Quebec independence. Canadians (and their Quebec collaborators) are loyalists at heart, they feel that they "have" to fight "rebellion", without thinking, even when divorce appears to be the only healthy and mature thing to do.

But they aren't now.

And they have full representation.

And their ideology is the same as the rest of Canada.

So what do they gain by seceding?


Not if the fight itself has no merit. Fighting for the sake of fighting is pointless.



If Grandma had balls, she'd be grandpa.

We are not discussing hypotheticals. We are discussing Quebec's current situation.



Yeah, probably. The whole point of our revolution was that we were taxed but not represented. Quebec has representation. The situations are therefore not analogous.


Yeah right. Gimme a break.


If you aren't being oppressed, yeah, you should. Stop living in the past. The Canadians alive now never oppressed you.

To be honest your justifications sounds unbelievably petty and trivial to me. It is demeaning to other people in the world who are really oppressed.

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After reading your post, I can sympathize now with why my hubby considers it a slur when someone calls him French Canadian...Becau

For ya'll being the supposed 'minoirty', and despite the fact that you are claiming to be 'suppressed'...Why is it that the regions outside of Quebec are forced to learn French in grade school in order to 'conform' to 'Quebecker' preference to that language?

There's not a place one can go in Canada, that they do not end up seeing YOUR language preference slapped all over everthing...Despite the fact that in general the rest of the Canadaian territories are not French speaking?

When are you going to get it in your heads, that ya'll are ALL Canadians. And your side puts down the sword and start acting like a Canadian citizen versus what you're preaching here?

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I would rather dwell in the dim fog of superstition than in air rarified to nothing but the air pump of unbelief; in which the panting breast expires, vainly and convulsively gasping for breath. -Richter

Thanks for your thoughts, and trying to destroy my opinion point by point, no offense but I guess it's pointless trying to explain a cause to someone who seems to take for granted what their ancestors fought for. Maybe you'll understand what I was talking about in 2108 when Hispanics will have made you a minority in your own house. Congress and some States have already started talking about defending the english-language, US heritage and identity... you'll see soon enough where this leads and get to respect it. Anyways like you said I got representation, there are 2 established pro-independence parties here (federal & provincial) I vote for and support. Representation in government is one thing, representation as a people on the world stage is another. You need both.

With the impending demise of the US from global warming which is bound to turn our current high yielding farms into worthless deserts, Quebec is set to cash in big as the next Agricultural Center of the Western Hemisphere.

You frogs should start buying up land while it's cheap, start cutting down the endless sea of pine trees and brace yourself for some mild weather in the near future.