“Viva Le Resistance.”
If you were the chinks, and you wanted to invade the US, would you align yourselves with the Marxist Separtist terroist cell based in Quebec that borders Maine, New Hampshire Vermont and New York?
Mostly undefended border I might add.
Turd Castro also from Quebec. What a coincidence.
The Future of Québec Independence
By John Parisella
April 29, 2014
Reading Time: 3 minutes
On April 7, 2014, Québec voters chose to elect a majority Liberal government, and handed the pro-independence Parti Québécois (PQ) its worst defeat ever. Since then, speculation has surfaced about the future of the Québec independence movement.
In his first post-election press conference, Québec’s new premier, Philippe Couillard, struck a positive note when he was asked whether the idea of Québec independence (separation) was over. An ardent federalist, Premier Couillard astutely responded that you could not kill an idea. And he’s right both in fact and in tone.
The dream of an independent Québec has its origins in history, from the early settlers who followed Québec’s founder, Samuel de Champlain, to the British Conquest of 1760—where the struggle for survival and identity became the central theme within French Canada’s polity for the next two centuries, and beyond.
By the early 1960s, pro-independence political parties surfaced in Québec, in line with the progressive forces dominating the political debate of the day. The so-called “Quiet Revolution,” led by the progressive Liberal Party of Premier Jean Lesage, ushered in dramatic reforms in the economic, health, cultural, and educational sectors. With it came the rise of a democratic pro-independence movement that in 1968 merged into a political party—the Parti Québécois, led by former prominent Liberal minister René Lévesque.
The changes in the 1960s did not occur without turmoil and conflict. A clandestine and separatist organisation called the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) had also emerged and associated Québec’s struggle for independence with the liberation movements from colonialism on the African continent. After a series of isolated bombing incidents in Montreal, the FLQ kidnapped a British diplomat and assassinated a Québec cabinet minister in October 1970.
Both the Québec and federal governments of the day reacted swiftly and decisively to this act of terrorism by invoking the War Measures Act. The FLQ soon disappeared. The mainstream and democratic PQ party strongly dissociated itself from the use of terrorism or violence. Its reaction paid off, and by 1976, the PQ was elected to form the Québec government with Lévesque as Premier.
Since then, Québec has undergone three referenda on Quebec’s political status—two on the PQ option of political independence from Canada (1980, 1995) and one on a constitutional reform package negotiated by the federalist Liberal Party under then-Premier Robert Bourassa (1992). All three referenda ended with a victory for the “no” vote, and the debate between federalist and separatist forces continues to this day.
Outgoing PQ Premier Pauline Marois (the first women to be elected premier of Québec) resigned the night of her stunning defeat on April 7. This defeat marked the PQ’s fourth loss in a series of five elections since 2003. The last election results registered the PQ’s lowest level of voter support (25 percent) since its first election appearance in 1970 (23.5 percent). Already, the soul- searching has begun within the PQ about its future as it prepares for an eventual leadership contest.
In his press conference, Premier Couillard was careful not to speculate about the future of his main opposition party. We should not expect nor anticipate surrender from the pro-independence forces. The dream will continue to live on for an important portion of the population.