I would hope what actually happens is a much looser confederation where all provinces have much more autonomy than we currently have and federal jurisdiction is curtailed significantly for all of us. If the Senate bogs down CPC legislation after the next election I foresee a constitutional crisis which will be the undoing of confederation as we now know it.
I've always thought the federal government should take the approach that if Canada is divisible for the purposes of Quebecois self-determination, then Quebec is likewise divisible for regional self-determination. I suspect that the disproportionately Aboriginal population of northern Quebec (along with its significant hydroelectric infrastructure) and the more diverse area around Montreal might prefer to secede from Quebec and remain part of Canada.
1) They try to secede according to the terms of the Clarity Act which requires a successful referendum (in Québec, not Canada) and then a constitutional conference (yay!) with the other provinces and some representation (probably a lot) from First Nations inside and outside Québec. This ad hoc conference after months of posturing and bickering would start to negotiate what Québec takes with it and then it would have to be ratified at least by Parliament (with the Québec MPs? I forget) and maybe a national referendum (I forget.) A process, in other words, in which the rest of Canada gets some say. The more of Québec that stays behind, the more of its share of the debt we have to keep. Québec will surely want its existing borders including James Bay no matter what the aboriginals and allophones say. It might want Labrador, too. Would Québec inherit the Crown Indian Reserves within its borders or would it want the Canadian Crown to keep them under the Federal Indian Act?
2) Failing an agreement (or even without bothering to try to get one), Québec could unilaterally declare its independence just by a vote in its National Assembly and hope to see the result recognized as a state by the international community. This would be like the Southern Confederacy seceding from the U.S. in 1861. Canada would have to decide whether to go to war to drag them back in (as the Union did) or just face reality and let them go. How much they took with them would depend on how much of their existing land area they could exert sovereignty over and how much of it we wanted to contest by deploying the army to deal with the insurrection. We would have to try to protect allophones (and Anglophones who hadn't fled already) and honour Crown obligations to First Nations. Would the Québec village council confiscate federal assets like military bases (Valcartier and Bagotville) and weapons therein, harbours, Radio-Canada, government buildings in Hull, and the post office in Chicoutimi? Would we fight to get them back (or destroy them to deny them to Québec)?
Recognition by foreign countries of the new Republic of Québec would depend on if they thought the new government could collect taxes (to service its foreign debt) and secure its borders. In a unilateral secession that didn't lead immediately to civil war, Canada would insist that Québeckers continue to pay federal income tax and Québec would insist they not. Could the RCMP enter Québec to seize money or property from taxpayers in arrears with CRA? (Or from the Québec government itself?) Disputes like this is where breakups go sour very quickly and eventually shooting starts.
The Maritimes and Newfoundland would get gangrene and fall off like an arm with a tourniquet left tied too long. Either that or we invade New England so we can drive to Moncton without a cavity search at Quebec customs. Canada without Quebec would put an end once and for all to high-speed rail fantasies from Toronto to Quebec City, huh? Let’s make it higher-frequency to Cornwall and call it a day. Canada without a viable Atlantic port would be sort of weird. But perhaps it doesn’t matter. CN and CPKCS now reach salt water down the Mississippi River. They don’t need Montreal or Halifax.
You overlook the US and Alaska. Americans have to drive through Canada to get there by land or they go by sea and air. Totally doable. Don’t get wrapped up in problems that are not truly problems.
I was sort of kidding about driving to Moncton. Land traffic between Washington state and Alaska is much smaller relative to the American economy than land traffic between Ontario and the Maritimes is relative to the Canadian economy. Border nuisances for big trucks and freight trains could be a serious problem, especially since Halifax would be Canada’s only Atlantic port. It would depend on how friendly Quebec decided to be with the country it had just split in two, and how much tariff duty it wanted to apply (to replace lost equalization money) to goods passing through. What if it decides to go radical Green and refuses transit of petroleum, propane, and internal combustion cars, unless they are for sale in Quebec?
The Alaska situation is different. Americans have always known there is a foreign, but friendly, country (and a long drive) between CONUS and Alaska. Canada wouldn’t dare mess with Americans in transit except check for guns. You don’t know how friendly a newly independent foreign country is going to be until it has you over a barrel as your neighbour. Don’t be too optimistic.
Toronto could easily become a second Atlantic port. The Seaway is international and what we are currently powerless the US wouldn’t let anyone fool around with the Seaway. There is no reason to think Quebec would be hostile. They may actual open up as they will have to make their own way in the world. I visit France fairly regularly and I feel more comfortable there than Quebec. (Besides I can read French STOP signs :-)).
Is there still any there? Their oil companies can just buy the oil without the U.S. having to take on the welfare obligation. If the oil royalties were worth that much, Nfld wouldn’t need equalization money. The U.S. doesn’t want to annex Nigeria just because they have offshore oil.
What most people don’t really take into account is it will likely be three countries, not two.
Countries cutting in half don’t generally stay one country when there’s a big other country separating them. Pakistan and Bangladesh were originally one country, but they were bisected by India.
But let’s assume that it does not split into two and that we remain Ontario West plus Atlanta Canada.
It would be a country more beholden into the United States and with more sovereignty effectively ceded to the United States.
Economically, we are the mouse next to the elephant. Even if the elephant likes us, everything it does affects us and generally pretty negatively. It’s just that big. Those who think we will suddenly get deals in trade because we’ll be more friendly don’t get that the USA does what’s good for the USA. And using the greater leverage, you have over a weaker trading partner to extract a better deal from the United States is exactly what it will do. The United States doesn’t need us, we need it. And they know it.
Ontario would become more powerful within Canada because its proportion of the votes would be greater. Functionally, whoever wins Ontario in that world is the government. The rest is irrelevant.
Support for the Atlantic provinces might become more expensive given the separation.
All in all Canada would be a poorer country with less sovereignty and more concentration of power in Ontario. And we might even still be bilingual because of Newfoundland.
But we wouldn’t have to put up with Quebec separatists
Alberta would leave and the US would subsume it. 5 million barrels a day plus a plastics and chemical industry still means a lot for American security.
Why would the US do that? I mean, seriously, what’s in it for the USA when instead of doing that they can just dictate the terms on which Alberta will sell oil without having to deal with all the pesky people? They get what they want and Alberta can take what the. US feels like offering. It’s not like Alberta (or Canada) would have any other options or leverage.
And that’s before considering that the US is already spoiled with all their shale riches. Alberta had something the US needed BEFORE the shale revolution. Now? Not so much.
You're thinking the current state of the US being a net *exporter* of oil & gas is going to end? That the US is soon to run out of shale and as a result, Alberta will have leverage over the US?
Really?
What kind of timeline are you thinking this is going to happen in? Seriously, are you thinking within 10 years? Within 50? 100? 200?
Alberta is a major supplier of natural gas to the US and Alberta also supplies the heavier oils that the US requires for industry in a quantity that ensure supply consistency.
It should start with a citizens congress to decide on a constitution (no politicians allowed) and a total ditching of the BNA as the basis of any constitution. Nine fully equal Provinces and three territories represented equally in the Senate, but not in the House were members are based on population not history.
Maybe it means a serious look at the benefits of "sovereignty association" to the "rest of Canada" - which might be getting tired of the Quebec stranglehold over policy and constant carping.
Sovereignty-association means Quebec runs its own show but still collects equalization money and relies on the Canadian taxpayer for federally funded services including national defence (such as it is) and the Bank of Canada. Québeckers would pay taxes only to Québec and not to Canada. Sov-assoc is a fantasy Québec separatists use to sell the benefits of separation to Québeckers. It's not an outcome that Canada should accept as it's a terrible deal for us. It only makes sense if we think Québec is so precious that we would accept a rotten deal in order to keep her in the house. Like a wife you're irrationally in love with who wants to "see other people" and knows her besotted husband will still pay her room and board and car expenses. Does anyone in the ROC still think about Québec in such affectionate terms?
“Sovereignty association” is just another version of, or label for, the “kind” of cooperative legal and financial arrangements that we now have, in what is now called “confederation”.
It would simply be a “re-confederation” on different terms – ones that are more congruent with 21st century realities, and with the actual needs and capacities of its provincial and regional and (yes) municipal components.
Including in respect of wealth creation and distribution: with a closer matching of fiscal capacity with legal powers and social responsibilities.
And, most importantly, for present purposes, it would be one that would no longer (necessarily) pander so obsessively, and so obsequiously, to the “French fact”, and to that concentrated voting block that has so long been associated with the Liberal Party and “Laurentian” dominance”.
Because I suspect that the “ROC” no longer thinks of Quebec in the terms it once did, and is quite prepared to call Quebec’s “separatist” bluff.
Which might have happened in 1995, but did not.
Think of it: we might even get “free trade” in Canada.
I just have to say that you are the first person to put what I've been saying since Notley's resignation in AB into print - that Notley is the likely next leader of the federal NDP. I've been saying it for months and I keep repeating it. People tell me it would never happen - but I think they underestimate Notley's brand outside of AB and how decimated the liberals and NDP are likely to be in this next election. Change is afoot. I fully expect Notley to be part of that change following Singh's defeat.
Novel idea to me 'cuz I have tuned out and written off any No Democratic Party as a viable political party, but I can easily see sense in what you are saying re. Notley. I doubt her person will do much to improve No Democratic Party's fortunes, she is as tone-deaf as any NDP'er.
Having lived in Ab my whole life, I can tell you that Notley knows how to activate the union vote and use propaganda to her advantage. Tone deaf? Not completely - she did know how to run a tight campaign and the things to say to get elected the first time. People just wised up and wouldn’t elect her again after the damage she did to the economy in her first 4 years and the debt she ran up. I could see many disenfranchised liberals voting for her - she sadly has a way with words that I think people who don’t know her history can find compelling.
Yes, I have to agree with you. She is a goner in AB, but federally she may have some bounce effect for the No Democratic Party. Now she has enough of political history that newbies to her person can examine it before voting for her. Hopefully the No Democratic Party has damaged itself to the point that no matter who leads it the party will be irrelevant.
It'll be interesting to see how election of a Conservative government changes the political balance in Quebec. The current strength of the Bloc could simply reflect the fact that Quebec voters are disgusted with the Liberals, disillusioned with the NDP, and have never been particularly interested in the right wing approach of the Conservatives. However, they've got a viable protest party in the form of the Bloc, unlike center/left of center voters in the rest of Canada. The thermostatic response of Quebec politics could mean that they'll swing away from the sovereigntist/separatist nationalism of the Bloc (and even the CAQ) if the federal government reverts to control of a party with little dependence on Quebec's political power.
I’ve said the same. Just like the PQ are the default when quebecers can’t stand the other choices. It’s the devil we know. I don’t think the bloc could maintain any lead if a better candidate came along. My opinion.
We have been cursed to live in interesting times, that's for sure. Great article, I always appreciate learning more about Canadian parliamentary history through these kinds of analyses!
How this cannot be seen as a change agent election is beyond me. Trudeau is so universally disliked that PP's own inherent unlikability is actually making this a closer race than it should be.
..... PP's own inherent unlikability .... only to a smaller subset of voters. And is the perfect kind of acid to dissolve the teflon sliminess of Trudeau ( Troodas The Judas, so you be reminded who this miscreant actually is ) that the see-pee-see and MSM have for years and years been protect-coating the Troodas with.
At this point in JT's term the Conservatives could run a damp dish rag and it would poll at better numbers than PP is now. Ill hand it to him it was smart to let Scheer and O'toole run when JT was more popular. Wish it was O'toole running now though
I had a very senior deputy minister level civil servant in Alberta tell me "this country doesn't work with both Alberta and Quebec in it. They are too different and care about different things. One will have to leave Canada and Ontario will have to choose."
Which one would Ontario choose? The head says Alberta but the heart says Quebec. But that day is reckoning is coming, especially if the Russians push it via black ops.
I'll disagree right out of the gate. Pierre will win his landslide because of a national hatred of Trudeau. He doesn't have a concrete plan for anything. He is hot air and spin, and it's a hell of a lot harder to lead, than it is to whine and ask questions. Not to mention, he still doesn't have a security clearance which you can say is playing politics. We won't agree on that either Ignorance is not bliss. Choosing not to have information does not make him Prime Ministerial material IMHO. Again, he's going opt win a landslide, but I still detest him.
Singh and Trudeau are done.
To qualify as a federal party, you should have to run candidates in 6 provinces and 2 territories. Why do I suspect Pierre won't touch that one? It's long overdue. I'm tired of the blackmail and pandering to a province that has been given everything. We'll find out if Pierre has a backbone. I expect nothing.
For the last 30 years, I've been wishing we'd have a ROC leader strong enough to say, "go then," to Quebec. They might leave, but they probably wouldn't. And if they left and tried to rejoin again, it would be on terms (hopefully) more suitable to the ROC. It reality, however, their leaving would be costly in terms of bureaucracy and in other ways. We have far too many Quebec sympathizers in the ROC to make the break truly successful.
If the rationale of the Quebec electorate is to extract as much from the federal government as possible in jurisdictional control and no- strings funding then wouldn’t it make sense to keep the Bloc in the legislature when the CPC forms government? Particularly when the Conservatives don’t need ( but would like to have a little) Quebec. Maybe I’m missing something.
Mulroney got stuff done, unlike the pack of noodle suckers in office currently. Maybe it will be like the good old days, which were pre- and post- Trudos.
Mr. Heimpell, you present the Blanchet vs. Poilievre construct as a) somewhat of an historical anomaly and, b) much more importantly, something of a danger to Canada.
I offer two thoughts to your points. First, while the issue of Bloc vs. CPC is a bit of an historical anomaly in terms of the political parties in Parliament the issue of Quebec vs. ROC is absolutely a modern construct. Second, rather than this circumstance being a danger to Canada I contend that it is actually a beneficial matter to make clear that Quebec has chosen to disconnect from Canada in so many ways including legal forms that have been allowed, nay, encouraged by the current administration. Further, it will be to the benefit of ROC to formalize this separation of entities and to allow PQ to go it's own way and to allow ROC to choose it's own way forward.
Interesting article... BUT, Blanchett will have exactly 0.0 clout in the next government since the CPC will more than likely have an overwhelming majority. Sadly, the polls indicating an overwhelming majority CPC government, also mean we are likely saddled with the current fools for longer!
I'm francophone and I think Canada would be better without Quebec. It really doesn't have much to offer, but so much to take...
What would a post-quebec Canada look like? It's anyone's guess...
I would hope what actually happens is a much looser confederation where all provinces have much more autonomy than we currently have and federal jurisdiction is curtailed significantly for all of us. If the Senate bogs down CPC legislation after the next election I foresee a constitutional crisis which will be the undoing of confederation as we now know it.
This.
If it gets any looser we might as well just be ten different countries.
The EU model could possibly work
Careful what you wish for. The EU is crumbling under its own bureaucratic weight.
I've always thought the federal government should take the approach that if Canada is divisible for the purposes of Quebecois self-determination, then Quebec is likewise divisible for regional self-determination. I suspect that the disproportionately Aboriginal population of northern Quebec (along with its significant hydroelectric infrastructure) and the more diverse area around Montreal might prefer to secede from Quebec and remain part of Canada.
*Yugoslavia flashbacks.*
That's the big question....if they left, how much are they taking with them?
Two possibilities:
1) They try to secede according to the terms of the Clarity Act which requires a successful referendum (in Québec, not Canada) and then a constitutional conference (yay!) with the other provinces and some representation (probably a lot) from First Nations inside and outside Québec. This ad hoc conference after months of posturing and bickering would start to negotiate what Québec takes with it and then it would have to be ratified at least by Parliament (with the Québec MPs? I forget) and maybe a national referendum (I forget.) A process, in other words, in which the rest of Canada gets some say. The more of Québec that stays behind, the more of its share of the debt we have to keep. Québec will surely want its existing borders including James Bay no matter what the aboriginals and allophones say. It might want Labrador, too. Would Québec inherit the Crown Indian Reserves within its borders or would it want the Canadian Crown to keep them under the Federal Indian Act?
2) Failing an agreement (or even without bothering to try to get one), Québec could unilaterally declare its independence just by a vote in its National Assembly and hope to see the result recognized as a state by the international community. This would be like the Southern Confederacy seceding from the U.S. in 1861. Canada would have to decide whether to go to war to drag them back in (as the Union did) or just face reality and let them go. How much they took with them would depend on how much of their existing land area they could exert sovereignty over and how much of it we wanted to contest by deploying the army to deal with the insurrection. We would have to try to protect allophones (and Anglophones who hadn't fled already) and honour Crown obligations to First Nations. Would the Québec village council confiscate federal assets like military bases (Valcartier and Bagotville) and weapons therein, harbours, Radio-Canada, government buildings in Hull, and the post office in Chicoutimi? Would we fight to get them back (or destroy them to deny them to Québec)?
Recognition by foreign countries of the new Republic of Québec would depend on if they thought the new government could collect taxes (to service its foreign debt) and secure its borders. In a unilateral secession that didn't lead immediately to civil war, Canada would insist that Québeckers continue to pay federal income tax and Québec would insist they not. Could the RCMP enter Québec to seize money or property from taxpayers in arrears with CRA? (Or from the Québec government itself?) Disputes like this is where breakups go sour very quickly and eventually shooting starts.
Whatever we let them get away with.
The Maritimes and Newfoundland would get gangrene and fall off like an arm with a tourniquet left tied too long. Either that or we invade New England so we can drive to Moncton without a cavity search at Quebec customs. Canada without Quebec would put an end once and for all to high-speed rail fantasies from Toronto to Quebec City, huh? Let’s make it higher-frequency to Cornwall and call it a day. Canada without a viable Atlantic port would be sort of weird. But perhaps it doesn’t matter. CN and CPKCS now reach salt water down the Mississippi River. They don’t need Montreal or Halifax.
You overlook the US and Alaska. Americans have to drive through Canada to get there by land or they go by sea and air. Totally doable. Don’t get wrapped up in problems that are not truly problems.
I was sort of kidding about driving to Moncton. Land traffic between Washington state and Alaska is much smaller relative to the American economy than land traffic between Ontario and the Maritimes is relative to the Canadian economy. Border nuisances for big trucks and freight trains could be a serious problem, especially since Halifax would be Canada’s only Atlantic port. It would depend on how friendly Quebec decided to be with the country it had just split in two, and how much tariff duty it wanted to apply (to replace lost equalization money) to goods passing through. What if it decides to go radical Green and refuses transit of petroleum, propane, and internal combustion cars, unless they are for sale in Quebec?
The Alaska situation is different. Americans have always known there is a foreign, but friendly, country (and a long drive) between CONUS and Alaska. Canada wouldn’t dare mess with Americans in transit except check for guns. You don’t know how friendly a newly independent foreign country is going to be until it has you over a barrel as your neighbour. Don’t be too optimistic.
Toronto could easily become a second Atlantic port. The Seaway is international and what we are currently powerless the US wouldn’t let anyone fool around with the Seaway. There is no reason to think Quebec would be hostile. They may actual open up as they will have to make their own way in the world. I visit France fairly regularly and I feel more comfortable there than Quebec. (Besides I can read French STOP signs :-)).
It amazes me how many flights there are between Alaska and the contiguous states.
Newfoundland would probably be better off as part of the US.
But would the U.S. be better off with Nfld? Hard to see how.
They don’t want to give Puerto Rico statehood and even regret that they made them American citizens.
They might enjoy the offshore oil rights.
Is there still any there? Their oil companies can just buy the oil without the U.S. having to take on the welfare obligation. If the oil royalties were worth that much, Nfld wouldn’t need equalization money. The U.S. doesn’t want to annex Nigeria just because they have offshore oil.
I’m starting to wonder myself. But in spite of a rise in the bloc and PQ, I personally don’t see much, if any support for separation. Do you?
Nope. It's a game they play, but we never call their bluff. We should.
What most people don’t really take into account is it will likely be three countries, not two.
Countries cutting in half don’t generally stay one country when there’s a big other country separating them. Pakistan and Bangladesh were originally one country, but they were bisected by India.
But let’s assume that it does not split into two and that we remain Ontario West plus Atlanta Canada.
It would be a country more beholden into the United States and with more sovereignty effectively ceded to the United States.
Economically, we are the mouse next to the elephant. Even if the elephant likes us, everything it does affects us and generally pretty negatively. It’s just that big. Those who think we will suddenly get deals in trade because we’ll be more friendly don’t get that the USA does what’s good for the USA. And using the greater leverage, you have over a weaker trading partner to extract a better deal from the United States is exactly what it will do. The United States doesn’t need us, we need it. And they know it.
Ontario would become more powerful within Canada because its proportion of the votes would be greater. Functionally, whoever wins Ontario in that world is the government. The rest is irrelevant.
Support for the Atlantic provinces might become more expensive given the separation.
All in all Canada would be a poorer country with less sovereignty and more concentration of power in Ontario. And we might even still be bilingual because of Newfoundland.
But we wouldn’t have to put up with Quebec separatists
Alberta would leave and the US would subsume it. 5 million barrels a day plus a plastics and chemical industry still means a lot for American security.
Why would the US do that? I mean, seriously, what’s in it for the USA when instead of doing that they can just dictate the terms on which Alberta will sell oil without having to deal with all the pesky people? They get what they want and Alberta can take what the. US feels like offering. It’s not like Alberta (or Canada) would have any other options or leverage.
And that’s before considering that the US is already spoiled with all their shale riches. Alberta had something the US needed BEFORE the shale revolution. Now? Not so much.
Shale is a quickly depleted resource. As for markets, surely you don't think BC would stick around being part of Canada?
You're thinking the current state of the US being a net *exporter* of oil & gas is going to end? That the US is soon to run out of shale and as a result, Alberta will have leverage over the US?
Really?
What kind of timeline are you thinking this is going to happen in? Seriously, are you thinking within 10 years? Within 50? 100? 200?
Alberta is a major supplier of natural gas to the US and Alberta also supplies the heavier oils that the US requires for industry in a quantity that ensure supply consistency.
It should start with a citizens congress to decide on a constitution (no politicians allowed) and a total ditching of the BNA as the basis of any constitution. Nine fully equal Provinces and three territories represented equally in the Senate, but not in the House were members are based on population not history.
Well said. Cheers.
Maybe it means a serious look at the benefits of "sovereignty association" to the "rest of Canada" - which might be getting tired of the Quebec stranglehold over policy and constant carping.
Sovereignty-association means Quebec runs its own show but still collects equalization money and relies on the Canadian taxpayer for federally funded services including national defence (such as it is) and the Bank of Canada. Québeckers would pay taxes only to Québec and not to Canada. Sov-assoc is a fantasy Québec separatists use to sell the benefits of separation to Québeckers. It's not an outcome that Canada should accept as it's a terrible deal for us. It only makes sense if we think Québec is so precious that we would accept a rotten deal in order to keep her in the house. Like a wife you're irrationally in love with who wants to "see other people" and knows her besotted husband will still pay her room and board and car expenses. Does anyone in the ROC still think about Québec in such affectionate terms?
“Sovereignty association” is just another version of, or label for, the “kind” of cooperative legal and financial arrangements that we now have, in what is now called “confederation”.
It would simply be a “re-confederation” on different terms – ones that are more congruent with 21st century realities, and with the actual needs and capacities of its provincial and regional and (yes) municipal components.
Including in respect of wealth creation and distribution: with a closer matching of fiscal capacity with legal powers and social responsibilities.
And, most importantly, for present purposes, it would be one that would no longer (necessarily) pander so obsessively, and so obsequiously, to the “French fact”, and to that concentrated voting block that has so long been associated with the Liberal Party and “Laurentian” dominance”.
Because I suspect that the “ROC” no longer thinks of Quebec in the terms it once did, and is quite prepared to call Quebec’s “separatist” bluff.
Which might have happened in 1995, but did not.
Think of it: we might even get “free trade” in Canada.
I so wish it had happened in 1995.
No!
I just have to say that you are the first person to put what I've been saying since Notley's resignation in AB into print - that Notley is the likely next leader of the federal NDP. I've been saying it for months and I keep repeating it. People tell me it would never happen - but I think they underestimate Notley's brand outside of AB and how decimated the liberals and NDP are likely to be in this next election. Change is afoot. I fully expect Notley to be part of that change following Singh's defeat.
Novel idea to me 'cuz I have tuned out and written off any No Democratic Party as a viable political party, but I can easily see sense in what you are saying re. Notley. I doubt her person will do much to improve No Democratic Party's fortunes, she is as tone-deaf as any NDP'er.
Having lived in Ab my whole life, I can tell you that Notley knows how to activate the union vote and use propaganda to her advantage. Tone deaf? Not completely - she did know how to run a tight campaign and the things to say to get elected the first time. People just wised up and wouldn’t elect her again after the damage she did to the economy in her first 4 years and the debt she ran up. I could see many disenfranchised liberals voting for her - she sadly has a way with words that I think people who don’t know her history can find compelling.
Yes, I have to agree with you. She is a goner in AB, but federally she may have some bounce effect for the No Democratic Party. Now she has enough of political history that newbies to her person can examine it before voting for her. Hopefully the No Democratic Party has damaged itself to the point that no matter who leads it the party will be irrelevant.
It'll be interesting to see how election of a Conservative government changes the political balance in Quebec. The current strength of the Bloc could simply reflect the fact that Quebec voters are disgusted with the Liberals, disillusioned with the NDP, and have never been particularly interested in the right wing approach of the Conservatives. However, they've got a viable protest party in the form of the Bloc, unlike center/left of center voters in the rest of Canada. The thermostatic response of Quebec politics could mean that they'll swing away from the sovereigntist/separatist nationalism of the Bloc (and even the CAQ) if the federal government reverts to control of a party with little dependence on Quebec's political power.
Can you imagine it? A federal government with little (no) dependence on Quebec. Tra-la, the Wicked Witch is dead!
But with an overwhelming CPC majority, the BQ will be sound and fury signifying nothing.
I’ve said the same. Just like the PQ are the default when quebecers can’t stand the other choices. It’s the devil we know. I don’t think the bloc could maintain any lead if a better candidate came along. My opinion.
We have been cursed to live in interesting times, that's for sure. Great article, I always appreciate learning more about Canadian parliamentary history through these kinds of analyses!
How this cannot be seen as a change agent election is beyond me. Trudeau is so universally disliked that PP's own inherent unlikability is actually making this a closer race than it should be.
..... PP's own inherent unlikability .... only to a smaller subset of voters. And is the perfect kind of acid to dissolve the teflon sliminess of Trudeau ( Troodas The Judas, so you be reminded who this miscreant actually is ) that the see-pee-see and MSM have for years and years been protect-coating the Troodas with.
At this point in JT's term the Conservatives could run a damp dish rag and it would poll at better numbers than PP is now. Ill hand it to him it was smart to let Scheer and O'toole run when JT was more popular. Wish it was O'toole running now though
I had a very senior deputy minister level civil servant in Alberta tell me "this country doesn't work with both Alberta and Quebec in it. They are too different and care about different things. One will have to leave Canada and Ontario will have to choose."
Which one would Ontario choose? The head says Alberta but the heart says Quebec. But that day is reckoning is coming, especially if the Russians push it via black ops.
I'll disagree right out of the gate. Pierre will win his landslide because of a national hatred of Trudeau. He doesn't have a concrete plan for anything. He is hot air and spin, and it's a hell of a lot harder to lead, than it is to whine and ask questions. Not to mention, he still doesn't have a security clearance which you can say is playing politics. We won't agree on that either Ignorance is not bliss. Choosing not to have information does not make him Prime Ministerial material IMHO. Again, he's going opt win a landslide, but I still detest him.
Singh and Trudeau are done.
To qualify as a federal party, you should have to run candidates in 6 provinces and 2 territories. Why do I suspect Pierre won't touch that one? It's long overdue. I'm tired of the blackmail and pandering to a province that has been given everything. We'll find out if Pierre has a backbone. I expect nothing.
For the last 30 years, I've been wishing we'd have a ROC leader strong enough to say, "go then," to Quebec. They might leave, but they probably wouldn't. And if they left and tried to rejoin again, it would be on terms (hopefully) more suitable to the ROC. It reality, however, their leaving would be costly in terms of bureaucracy and in other ways. We have far too many Quebec sympathizers in the ROC to make the break truly successful.
If the rationale of the Quebec electorate is to extract as much from the federal government as possible in jurisdictional control and no- strings funding then wouldn’t it make sense to keep the Bloc in the legislature when the CPC forms government? Particularly when the Conservatives don’t need ( but would like to have a little) Quebec. Maybe I’m missing something.
As an Albertan, my heart wouldn't break seeing Quebec go its own way. If they want that, the ROC is probably better off without them.
Let's not give up just yet on Canada, people. I think we still have a whole lot of history to go through.
Mulroney got stuff done, unlike the pack of noodle suckers in office currently. Maybe it will be like the good old days, which were pre- and post- Trudos.
Mr. Heimpell, you present the Blanchet vs. Poilievre construct as a) somewhat of an historical anomaly and, b) much more importantly, something of a danger to Canada.
I offer two thoughts to your points. First, while the issue of Bloc vs. CPC is a bit of an historical anomaly in terms of the political parties in Parliament the issue of Quebec vs. ROC is absolutely a modern construct. Second, rather than this circumstance being a danger to Canada I contend that it is actually a beneficial matter to make clear that Quebec has chosen to disconnect from Canada in so many ways including legal forms that have been allowed, nay, encouraged by the current administration. Further, it will be to the benefit of ROC to formalize this separation of entities and to allow PQ to go it's own way and to allow ROC to choose it's own way forward.
Interesting article... BUT, Blanchett will have exactly 0.0 clout in the next government since the CPC will more than likely have an overwhelming majority. Sadly, the polls indicating an overwhelming majority CPC government, also mean we are likely saddled with the current fools for longer!