[quote]m_mackenz wrote:
Green party all the way.[/quote]
Hell ya! I’m also throwing my vote their way. Conservatives will win in my riding anyway…
the libs have handed Quebec to the separatists, and they’ll vote in the next 2-3 years to succeed, and good luck to them. This country has been held for too long to Quebec’s viewpoint, particularly the foreign policy, which is shaped by Quebec’s concerns, first and foremost. I have nothing against Quebec, let them go, we’ll work out trade agreements, etc., and the country will be better for it.
How anyone can continue to vote liberal with the daily release of sleaze, graft and corruption centred in Quebec is beyond me. How can one defend their selling of judicial appoitnments to lawyers in Quebec, let alone the outright fraud perpetrated with taxpayers money…?
JPBear,
Best of luck with the rest of your pregnancy.
Your son is lucky to have a mother as clear-headed and informed as you.
He’ll go far.
You and yours would be welcome in my corner of the USA anytime!!!
JeffR
Funny thing, I have long supported Reform/Canadian Alliance (God I miss Preston Manning). Last election however, I voted Liberal for the first time ever. Partly because I was disillusioned over the whole PC - Alliance merger and partly due to my local candidate.
My local candidate was/is Ralph Goodale, who as most of you know, is the federal finance minister. I voted for him:
A)because it might help Saskatchewan to have him as finance minister
B)I have met him several times and he seems like a helluva nice guy.
C)There was no way in hell he was going to lose in my overly Liberal supporting riding.
I have since decided that none of these were really valid reasons to vote for him and I will probably be voting Conservative in the upcoming election.
[quote]hedo wrote:
Cream wrote:
Did you catch the second paragraph? “We can still call it Canada, at least for a couple years. And who knows, like news of Mark Twain’s demise, my cheeky pessimism may be greatly exaggerated. Our northern neighbor’s polyglot populace of beer drinkers, peaceniks, Mounties and socialists may yet dump their crooked politicians and craft a new, more robust deal with Quebecois separatists.”
It’s meant to be “cheeky”.
Thank you Cream!
Although Austin Bay is a strategist by nature and a colleague of James Dunnigan, an even better known strategist. This article was written to be hunmorous. Kind of taking things to the extreme.
But you never know…
[/quote]
Except yawn the article was boring and not humerous in the slightest degree. He does come off as a twit as there is nothing new or original in his article.
QC has been threatening to separate a day after they joined Canada. Besides, everyone knows that they never will - it would be economic suicide - and they know it.
[quote]JeffR wrote:
JPBear,
Best of luck with the rest of your pregnancy.
Your son is lucky to have a mother as clear-headed and informed as you.
He’ll go far.
You and yours would be welcome in my corner of the USA anytime!!!
JeffR[/quote]
Jeffy - go find your own canadian woman!! JPBear is mine.
[quote]Orbitalboner wrote:
m_mackenz wrote:
Green party all the way.
Hell ya! I’m also throwing my vote their way. Conservatives will win in my riding anyway… [/quote]
I have to say, I’m voting Green, as well.
I just can’t vote Liberal or Conservative or NDP - they all make me sick. All the money they stole, the continued screwing over of the taxpayers…I just can’t support them.
Maybe if they realize that they’re losing voters to a different party, they might have to change for the better. (Okay, total optimist, here).
I’m also mad that we’re going to have another election. For what? Oh, yeah, for a different political party to step in and steal more money. Great, I love paying for elections.
You guys up north are having a regular little constitutional crisis on your hands, what with the current government refusing to hold new elections after its no-confidence vote. Interesting happenings up there – including the return of the “Free Quebec” block…
And yet BB, most of the people in Ontario would continue vote to keep the liberals in power.
I’m not exagerating when I say the liberals ran a criminal organization in Quebec with graft and corruption commonplace.
The liberals have managed over the years to identify their policies as “Canadian”; while any (or most) suggestions of conservative platforms are derided as racist, sexist, mean spirited, or would result in the dismantling of healthcare, a treasured Canadian institution (for all the wrong reasons). It can be quite frustrating. People up here don’t give their government the same critical analysis many reserve for corporations - the nanny state will protect them.
Well, now they’re learning that the government views the people as cows to be milked so the libs can continue to control the country. It’s undemocratic, in the best tradition of Zimbabwe.
redwing –
From what I can tell, there is an implicit agreement going on – the Liberal Party bribes the Quebecois with money from the western provinces, which are conservative anyway. In return, the Quebecois don’t raise too much ruckus about leaving, and keep the Liberals in power.
If my understanding is correct, if you removed Quebec, the Liberals would lose, because the politics of the remaining citizenry would be balanced much further to the right.
But now it seems there are problems with the whole thing. Very interesting to see how this develops.
[quote]en7i7y wrote:
QC has been threatening to separate a day after they joined Canada.[/quote]
Were forced to join…
Really? I’ve yet to see a serious economic assesment that doesn’t show an independent Quebec as being more properous than if we stay in Canada.
You’re just brandishing the old boogeyman stories invented to “scare” Quebec into voting no at each referendum. The usual argument being that the remaining provinces would stop doing business with an indepedent Quebec in retaliation for leaving.
I’m sure Albertan ranchers will close down their ranch rather than sell us their beef; or that Ontario workers will prefer unemployement lines rather than selling goods to QC.
Right now, we’re paying out more cash to Ottawa than we’re getting back in services or perequation payments. Just by stopping those pay outs to Ottawa, we get a net plus.
Pookie:
I don’t see the “no” voters as “cowards” rather I see the “yes” voters as fucking morons who don’t realize how much they would suffer if quebec could no longer rely on the billions of dollars they receive in transfer payments.
Actually, the only two provinces that pay more to the federal government than they receive are Alberta and Ontario. It is factually incorrect to state that Quebec gives more to Ottawa than it receives. I knew someone from Quebec and he told me that until he left the province he thought that was opposite. I’m sorry Pookie you’re way off, and this can be proven mathematically. Also the CEO of the Bank of Montreal has gone on record as saying that Quebec’s separation would be an unparalleled economic disaster for Canada and Quebec.
Oh I cannot believe that we have Liberals at T-Nation. The Conservative Party is Testosterone. If you want the governemnt to raise your kids for you, tell you what not to eat and put socialized band-aids on all your booboos, vote Liberal. If you want to be in charge of your own life and keep the money you earn then vote Conservative. I would have thought that T-men would have been unanimously for self-reliance.
I have this fantasy where I move to Australia, it’s kind of like the Man to Canada’s woman.
Oh, and Quebec separation will never happen. The Clarity Act made damn sure of that.
[quote]der Koning wrote:
Pookie:
I don’t see the “no” voters as “cowards” rather I see the “yes” voters as fucking morons who don’t realize how much they would suffer if quebec could no longer rely on the billions of dollars they receive in transfer payments.[/quote]
Well, then, you should be happy to see those fucking morons leave and let you keep all those billions for yourselves.
Those retarded arguments where Quebec is always the poor cousin that needs Canada’s generosity to survive are really stupid. If it’s so costly for you to support us, why don’t you support separation and be rid of that money pit?
[quote]Grork wrote:
Oh, and Quebec separation will never happen. The Clarity Act made damn sure of that. [/quote]
Yeah right. The canadian supreme court, when questioned about the Clarity Act in 1998 “emphasized that the rest of Canada would have a political obligation to negotiate Quebec’s separation if a clear majority of that province’s population voted in favour of it.”
Hopefully, we’ll get to test it within a few years.
a.) pookie, I’m on your side. If I was Quebecois I’d vote yes. I generally think that good fences make good neighbours. Plus we could be rid of the ridiculous money pit that is official bilingualism.
b.) The next time there is a Referendum, the question will be “do you want to seperate from Canada.” and the result will have to be 66%. The reason the seperatists have never tried running that question before is because they know they wouldn’t work. Quebecers aren’t confident enough to have an out-an-out seperation sans goodies from Ottawa. And so long as Ottawa makes it clear that some sovreignity-association baloney is not going to fly, there won’t be independence.
Anyways, I’d be worried more about le vivre de la France libre, since they’re set to throw their sovreignity away on May 29. . .
Cheers
[quote]Rock&Roll wrote:
Actually, the only two provinces that pay more to the federal government than they receive are Alberta and Ontario. It is factually incorrect to state that Quebec gives more to Ottawa than it receives. I knew someone from Quebec and he told me that until he left the province he thought that was opposite. I’m sorry Pookie you’re way off, and this can be proven mathematically. Also the CEO of the Bank of Montreal has gone on record as saying that Quebec’s separation would be an unparalleled economic disaster for Canada and Quebec. [/quote]
There’s a lot more than simply the transfer payments. Some amounts alloted for health care and education have been held back by Ottawa these past year because QC wouldn’t accept the imposed policies by Ottawa.
Jean Charest’s first meeting with the provincial PMs and Paul Martin dealt with the health care payments; it was seen as a major victory for QC to simply get back our fair share. Do a little search on “les bourses du mill?naire” for more info on the problems in the education side.
Many also seem to forget that Statistics Canada conveniently revised the transfer payment formula in 1999. That revision has meant a reduction of payments for Quebec in the amount of 3.3 billions since 1999…
Add to that the billions in surplus accumulated by Ottawa (not just QC money, but from all of Canada) in the neighborhood of 10 billions last year and going on 12 billions this year (of which roughly 1/5 is from Quebec) and it is simply ridiculous to think we’d be poorer as an independent nation.
As for your CEO, Banks like stability, it’s better for business. Separation would cause a period of economic instability as everything slowly adjusts to the new order. So of course, many CEOs will support the status quo. That CEO wants what is good for his bank, not for the people.
You can’t have it both ways. All those arguments on how Quebec needs Canada to stay afloat economically don’t hold water. And if they did, then Canada should be glad to see Quebec leave and take all it’s poor welfare recipient with it.
BB,
Yes, there has certainly been a lot of drama up here. According to the Liberals, a motion passed by the House of Commons recommending that the governing party resign is not a confidence issue. Even the pundits and the political science professors don’t really know what to think of this. The budget vote next week will be recognized as a confidence vote, but since the house is so evenly split with the NDP and two independent MPs supporting the Liberals, all eyes are on the third independent MP who is dying of cancer while trying to decide which way his constituents want him to vote. So far he thinks it’s about a 50-50 split. For a brief moment in time this one lowly independent has become the most powerful person in the country.
As for Quebec, I am not personally attached to them. They may as well live in a different country their values and culture are so vastly different than mine. Socially they are ultra left wing, they have harsh language laws that do not even allow Quebec parents to choose to have their children educated in English, and what else can I say, they?re French.
But seriously, what I believe Quebecers want is reasonable constitutional change that will shift the balance of power away from the federal government and towards the provinces. If applied equally this would be good news for the entire country. Ottawa is power hungry and the have-not provinces have grown very accustomed to their equalization payments. At the same time, even Newfoundland, the biggest have-not of them all, just fought for its own made in Newfoundland agreement with the federal government to keep its offshore oil revenues. One size does not fit all in this country. Steven Harper’s Conservatives believe in a smaller federal government and decentralization of power. This is why I believe a Conservative government could keep most of the country happy including Quebec.
Quebecers did not want to be bribed; they are more outraged at the sponsorship scandal than the provinces that financed it. What they want is a reasonable level of autonomy, just like the western provinces and the eastern provinces do.
pookie,
As a separatist, would you expect Quebec to take its share of the national debt if it were to leave?
On the same note, would you expect Quebec to take its share of our federal intuitions that it has paid into but are not physically located in Quebec, like our federal judicial institutions?
Try and imagine the expense involved as a new country tries to quickly establish a brand-new monetary system. And would you still expect your corporations to use Canadian stock exchanges?
What about all of your workers who have paid into employment insurance (I believe you guys do pay into this). Would Quebec the country pick up the program seamlessly?
Wouldn’t Quebec need to negotiate some formula to extract the “Quebec” value from all these institutions? And why would these two new countries, Canada and Quebec, cooperate on the details of extraction? Which international body would have the jurisdiction to judge their disputes?
Logistically, I just can’t picture how it would take place, as simple as “separate and form our own country” may sound. Do Quebecers have idea as to how this would work?