Politics: Canada/Quebec: Harper supports Quebec 'nation' w-i-t-h-i-n a united Canada, not separate nation
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper supports Quebec as the territorial homeland of the ethnographic entity of les Québecois, une nation, a nation within a united Canada. Like the Acadians in New Brunswick, a national-minority third of that province's population. Like the Metis in Manitoba. Like the Jews in Montreal and other cities and towns of Canada who avoid assimiliation, while others of that ethnicity choose instead to assimilate rather completely. Like the Ukrainians. But, most of all, of course, like the First Nations populations which have a certain historical priority even in Quebec where an extreme Quebecois nationalist set seems to resent the true First Nations. We could go on with these details of the Canadian sociographic profile.
I disagree with Harper in saying Quebec cannot separate (of course, that is an advocatory "cannot," as what can or cannot is simply what will have happened). If the Quebecois really want to take the other people of Quebec captive out of Canada and into an ethnically-driven enclave-state where the pure race Parizeau-style constitutes a supergroup based on consanguinity (samness of blood, same genetic pool, pure laine), plus the French language spoken thru the nose Quebecois-style (not as in France, not as in Haiti, not as in Congo), plus of course the province's historical-cultural background that implicates old-stock francophones, anglophones, and allophones thruout 5 centuries with all the province's continuities and discontinuities: if all that, then let them make up their minds that they can, and go.
The problem is that they can't make up their minds to go, because many pure-blood Quebecois simply don't want to separate from Canada. The incessant phoney belly-aching of a certain segment of the Quebecois political and cultural elites
keeps the province in a constant state of heartbreak and the rest of the country in a constant constitutional headache. Let Quebec sign the Constitution as is, or go. Or not. But why not? That's what the Bloc Quebecois (federally) and the Parti Quebecois (provinically) would like to provoke: a Canada with a permanent constitutional migraine, which finally results in exhaustion to the extent Canada says to Quebec: Go. But just as the BQ/PQ ideologues haven't persuaded the Quebecois to split and take the province with them as a priorietary possession of territory based on bloodlines, neither have they yet succeeded in provoking Canada to give them the boot. This is exactly what Gilles Duceppe wants. He raises S&M to the level of a political ideology. Many people in Quebec vote his BQ into the federal parliament, where he has functioned to his peak moment of separatist nationalism.
North America > Canada > Quebec:
There is no separate Quebec, no separate nation of Québecois. There is a distinct nation of Quebecois, not continguous with the jurisdiction of the Canadian political entity of the province of Quebec. If they (the Quebecois) want it (the territory of Canada's Quebec) so damn bad, then let them get with their program, make their political decisions and proceed to do what them want, do it one way or another. But this interminable whine from the Duceppistes .... Is that really what Quebec is about?
-- Politicarp
Further Research:
Harper to comment on Quebec's status, by Tenile Bonoguore (Nov22,2k6)
PM says Quebec 'nation in Canada'
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