Quebec secession

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Ehran RE:Economic Consequences? 11/3/2004 1:12:33 PM

quebec holds a disproportionate number of seat in the house of commons. if the seats were properly divided up by population quebec would loose some seats but sadly it isn't going to happen. there is apparently some kind of "understanding" that quebec will retain x% of the seats in the house. changing this would make quebec hit the roof and it would also upset the ruling party dynamics that make the Liberals our de facto perpetual rulers. regarding separation it would also be quite the eye opening experience if any of our leaders were willing to stand up in public and clearly put forth some of the considerations about separating. most quebecois seem to harbour the delusion that they will retain all the bennies of being canadian and gain new goodies from being separate. the realities would be so ugly no one in their right mind would vote for it.

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Ehran RE:Ehran 11/3/2004 1:32:36 PM

we don't dislike individual americans who by and large are nice enough folks. collectively though you make us crazy. your gov't does things which are both pointless if often seems and rather harmful to us without any thought of the consequences. many of the protectionist measures are dubiously useful in the end. for instance there was a big kerfuffle some years ago about the canadians dominating the cedar shake business. this was eminently true by the way. the major reason this was the case was that the americans in washington and oregon had used us their supply of cedar. there was also the fact that the canadian cedar mills were appreciably more efficient than the mills south of the border. in any case the usg slapped on a rather hefty duty which reduced the amount of cedar shakes crossing the border. the price of cedar shakes went up in the US and the supply went down. the US home builder got stiffed was the net effect. the current and seemingly eternal softwood lumber hassle is another good example of US trade policy. they have placed a whacking tarrif on canadian softwood lumber coming across the border. the rationale for this is that we "subsidize" our forestry companies by not charging them enough to cut wood on public land. now of course if you ship raw logs across the line to be processed in an american sawmill there is no tariff. the trees are cut from the same plot of land but if they generate jobs for americans there is no tariff. the hypocrisy is staggering. not to mention their habbit of loosing at the nafta trade tribunals then immediately slapping a new one on to force us to go through the whole wretched process again. this is the kind of thing drives us nuts dealing with them.

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Godofgamblers lose-lose 2/10/2005 10:36:16 PM

as a canada watcher, it seems to me that quebec secession would be a lose-lose proposition. while the two sides haggled over details and legalities following a OUI majority, the canadian dollar would plummet and businesses would bail out of quebec. the native canadians would never agree to being part of quebec and there would be additional chaos as they took things into their own hands. the only workable scenario would be a slow devolving of powers, as is happening now. quebec has control over immigration and its own pension fund (la caisse de depot). it also has diplomatic representation abroad. maybe it will exist as a semi-independent entity one day and canada will be a sort of EU of provinces.

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verdunjp RE:lose-lose 2/11/2005 1:49:47 PM

I am a french canadian. I think that natives will stay in quebec in the case of a separation because actually, the Province of Quebec talk with them in a fairly manner. For example, the Province of Quebec and the Cris,(northern Quebec) had make an historic agreement called "La paix des braves". So, I think that every body can find in place in a separate Quebec. Also, 80% of the Quebec's economy is beetween the province and the Unites States. So the economical consequences from Canada would be not very important in the case of a separation. Also, it is clar that the constitution of canada do not talk about the possibilities to separate. But according to the internationnal law, every definate territory can separate from another. Quebec has is own borderies, so it can separates from Canada. For myself, i would prefer to stay in Canada. I think that overall, we share the sames values. JP

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Godofgamblers RE:lose-lose 2/11/2005 2:53:38 PM

i learnt french at the universite de montreal (a long time ago). the students seemed overwhelmingly in favor of separation. i guess young people are more radical. landry has little charisma and the leaders who are in line to replace him have little charisma too. i think that factor will work against separation. there is no rene levesque on the horizon, don't you agree? i liked parizeau. he was an intellectual but knew how to speak to the common man. if ottawa continues to devolve power to quebec, secession may become a non-issue. if the slogan "maitres chez nous" can be realized within the framework of federalism, why talk of separation...right? or would it still be a cultural issue for some ?

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verdunjp RE:lose-lose 2/13/2005 4:47:28 PM

I agree with you. If Federal governement stops to make intrusion in the field of competence of Quebec and let Quebec do what he wants to do in his field of competence(according to the constitution), there will be no separation. Otherwise, that question will not be resolve. JP

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Godofgamblers RE:lose-lose 2/13/2005 9:34:13 PM

verdunjp, tu habites a verdun, j'imagine. ca c'est un quartier a montreal, si je me rappelle bien. mais j'ai quitte mtl en 92, il y a 13 ans, donc peut-etre que je me trompe.

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verdunjp RE:lose-lose 2/14/2005 1:13:12 PM

I am from Quebec city. I use "verdunjp" because I have read a lot about the battle of Verdun (France 1916) and I have a lot of respect for those who fight there. JP

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