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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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 Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2010 11:16 am Post subject: |
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| Arthur Dent wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| Arthur, thanks for the comment. How have things changed in Montreal since then? Have Anglo Canadians been returning? |
Ironically in this case, I haven't been back there for 20 years. 
My family left there one by two.
Many of my friends also left, but some are still there. |
I left in 2000, and I visited in 2004. That was the last time. I did find there was too much separatist propaganda that made anglophones uncomfortable from 1995-2000. However, Lucien Bouchard saw that the economist, Parizeau, ignored the fact that there were huge budgetary and debt problems, and Bouchard made cuts and tried to encourage investment. He backtracked from calling a referendum. I believe it was because he felt it wasn't economically feasible at that time.
An appreciable percentage of French Quebecois, "les pures laines",
began losing their enthusiasm for the Parti Quebecois and Liberals and ADQ members made inroads in certain areas. The vote for the ADQ was a protest vote, maybe, though people were hoping the ADQ would do something to deserve the votes they got; they didn't and were hit hard, but the PQ has not recovered politically.
The Bloc Quebecois still has a lot of representation and is a formidable group. Yet, the Tories did make gains. Let's say the Bloc Quebecois lost a little ground, but not a lot of ground. Quebecois want to keep the Bloc Quebecois to protect French Quebecois autonomy, I am guessing. A vote for the Bloc Quebecois isn't necessarily a vote against Canada based on the polls in Quebec regarding Canada and separation.
The fact that the Bloc Quebecois hasn't lost a lot of ground (it was still significant), just some ground, doesn't mean they have the same exact ideological support that they would want. We can't dismiss the Bloc's strength, but they can't dismiss their significant enough losses.
Many in Quebec, as a poster said, don't want to risk too much by separating. Canada would lose out and so would Quebec. Canada is a great country and does its best to have a good relationship with all provinces and various parties show respect towards French Canadian culture as its part of the heritage. We should and can keep on working this out. |
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Paddycakes
Joined: 05 May 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 4:35 am Post subject: |
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| Canada would lose out and so would Quebec. Canada is a great country and does its best to have a good relationship with all provinces and various parties show respect towards French Canadian culture as its part of the heritage. |
Sounds like somebody's been taking those historical vignette clips literally, tabernac.
I think it was Lenin who said that "when one nation oppresses another, then it itself cannot be free..." |
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The Happy Warrior
Joined: 10 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 5:17 am Post subject: |
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| Paddycakes wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Canada would lose out and so would Quebec. Canada is a great country and does its best to have a good relationship with all provinces and various parties show respect towards French Canadian culture as its part of the heritage. |
Sounds like somebody's been taking those historical vignette clips literally, tabernac.
I think it was Lenin who said that "when one nation oppresses another, then it itself cannot be free..." |
When you quote Lenin, do you mean to suggest that Canada is oppressing Quebec to some degree? And if so, to what degree? |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 12:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| When you quote Lenin, do you mean to suggest that Canada is oppressing Quebec to some degree? And if so, to what degree? |
I can probably sum up the Marxist analysis as follows: In mid-20th Century Quebec, the French largely functioned as the proletariat, either working for the anglo elite in American-owned enterprises, or toiling away in the agrarian countryside. A parochial ideology, combining elements of nationalism and clericalism(Vichy would be an adequate reference point here) was employed to keep the French beholden to their colonial masters. Some sort of working-class uprising was neccessary to throw of these shackles off neo-colonialism.
Suffice to say that this is a somewhat dated analysis, since French Quebeckers are probably not as "proletariatized" or "ruralized" as they used to be, and clericalism has all but vanished from the political landscape. The Parti Quebecois, an indepenence-minded outfit which has run Quebec on and off for the past 35 years, WAS fairly pro-labour and moderately socialist in its early days, but now seems to have descended into a more parochial form of immigrant-baiting nationalism, somewhat along the lines of Pim Fortuyn.
If you want an original Marxist source, I recommend the book The White Niggers Of North America, written in 1968. It's an incindiery polemic, by a guy who was a member of the FLQ(basically a bunch of Black Panther wannabes in Quebec). Whether you accept the writer's conclusions or not, it'll give you a good idea of the New Left analysis of Quebec-Canada relations.
More recent, and less Marxist, but no less polemical, is The Black Book Of English Canada, by Norman Lester. It was written partly as a response to the federally sponsored "historical vignettes" that Paddycakes references in his post. The focus in this book is more cultural than economic, and the basic gist of it seems to be "Anglos like to talk about how we're all a bunch of reactionary fascists over here, but they're just as bad if not worse, and anyway Quebec fascism was promoted by the anglos themselves to keep the French down".
link
link |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 12:16 pm Post subject: |
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Oh, and here is a translation of the FLQ manifesto, from 1970. It was read out on the radio as demanded by the FLQ, after they had kidnapped a couple of bigwigs in their one moment of pseudo-glory.
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We, and more and more Quebeckers too, have had it with a government of *beep*-footers who perform a hundred and one tricks to charm the American millionaires, begging them to come and invest in Quebec, the Beautiful Province, where thousands of square miles of forests full of game and of lakes full of fish are the exclusive property of these all-powerful lords of the twentieth century. We are sick of a government in the hands of a hypocrite like Bourassa who depends on Brinks armoured trucks, an authentic symbol of the foreign occupation of Quebec, to keep the poor Quebec "natives" fearful of that poverty and unemployment to which we are so accustomed.
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Excellent summary OTOH. |
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goreality
Joined: 09 Jul 2009
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| Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2010 7:18 am Post subject: |
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| Block Quebecois is simply a lobbyist party. Mordecai Richler had them all sorted out years ago back when the FLQ was at its peak. I don't remember exactly, but it was either Bush or Clinton who said 'we enjoy having ONE neighbor to the north.' |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2010 7:45 am Post subject: |
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| goreality wrote: |
| Block Quebecois is simply a lobbyist party. Mordecai Richler had them all sorted out years ago back when the FLQ was at its peak. |
Richeler had the Bloc Quebecois sorted out "back when the FLQ was at its peak"? The FLQ pretty much ceased to exist after about 1970, but the BQ wasn't even founded until 1991. |
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Paddycakes
Joined: 05 May 2003
Location: Seoul
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