First of all welcome to this board BlackWidow! I'm quite new as well but I like this board. I agree with pretty much everything you say in your first post except maybe for this part:
Your whole mentality is, 'We're the real Canadians and the other Candians are all visitors and should leave'...It's people like you trying to draw the line between a culture ya'll should be sharing as Canadians...Rather then focusing on who hasn't got 'French blood' in them... OMG I could not have said that better, that IS in deed how they think and portray themselves.
I don't think this is accurate, in fact it's quite the opposite. Most Quebec nationalists don't fell canadian at all while the federalist ones for the most part feel Quebecois before Canadian. I live in Quebec and never heard anyone tell me Quebecois are the real Canadians.
Except for this part I agree with the imposed french upon english-canadians. About the french courses you guys have to do in order to graduate, I've heard from 3 friends who told me about it. It's basically word-drilling like this word means this one and so on. You never get to be perfectly bilingual, hardly a very basic knowledge of french, not good enough for good conversations. Pretty much like the english courses we have in Quebec schools. I asked a friend in Winnipeg, another one in Regina and another one in Newfoundland about it and they all told me the same thing. What's the use to force students to take language courses that won't make them functional in this second language? The answer is purely political. It's meant to show the world and Quebecois that Canada truly cares about its 2 founding peoples and that Quebec has no point wanting to secede.
Can you imagine how many laws and policies are made by Ottawa specifically to prevent Quebec independence? The clarity act, the Quebec nation motion and let's not forget the sponsorship scandal. All this time and money spent towards ONE province out of 10. You Canadians have to pay big money and have another language forced on you only for the sake of preventing Quebec independence! This is truly unfair to you because you represent 75% of this country and should be treated according to your population. You basically pay for a government (regardless of the party in power) that governs primarily to prevent ONE province from seceding.
On the other end, french-Quebecois are a majority within Quebec but a minority within Canada. Canada is theorically based on the 2 founding nations concept but this doesn’t apply in practice. Quebec is one province out of 10 when according to the founding nations theory it should be 1 out of 2. Most crucial decisions can be made amongst english provinces without needing Quebec’s approval. At least that’s what the Supreme Court stipulated in 1982. The constitution is the best example of this. Trudeau’s constitution act of 1982 didn’t need Quebec’s approval and to this day Quebec still hasn’t signed it. And don’t tell me it’s the seperatists’ fault because even strong federalist Premiers of Quebec like Bourassa and Charest refuse to sign it. The reason for this refusal is simple: we are not in the constitution. According to this document, the federal governement and the Supreme Court have the last word in everything and are above provincial laws, even cultural laws. Cultural laws have no real meaning in english-Canada because english is the international language and it’ll be a long time before it’s theathened. But in Quebec it’s essential for the survival of our language. We are a relatively small people in North America and we must make laws in order to protect our language if we don’t want to be assimilated. The problem with Canada is that the Supreme Court, as stipulated in the 82 constitution, can invalidate our language laws at will and it uses this power a lot. Bill 101, that brought linguistic peace in Quebec in the late 70’s and is recognized by almost everyone in Quebec (including federalists) as an essential law, has been consistently attacked by the Court and has suffered lots of weakening amendments over the years.
Overall, my point is that I’m in favor of Quebec Independence because I think we are each other’s problem. Canada would be more functional without Quebec because it would stop imposing bilingualism to its people who don’t care about the french language and most of all it would stop governing according to this question: If I do this, will this make Quebec want to seperate? Canada would be more united and it’d be easier that way to satisfy everyone. Quebec would also be more functional because it would have all the tools in its hands to promote its language and culture without having someone else’s constitution in the way. Canada and Quebec have always been strong democracies and there’s no doubt in my mind that it will continue after they split. The language minorities will be protected in both territories and I’m 100% sure that after the initial shock of seperation, both countries will develop strong commercial ties and will be better partners than they are now. After all, it would be in both countries’s interests to maintain good relations.
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03-02-2008, 07:52 AM
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