Quebec is headed for independence, Michael Ignatieff tells the BBC

[Daradon]

I think he was joking about the 'Other ' category. Which is even crazier if you think about it, those other six are considered major or official parties, and there are even more than that!

Probably have the usual Communist, Marijuana, Elephant, etc. parties in there.

[FlamesAddiction]

Going by the colours used, I kind of assumed that Quebec Solidaire is their version of the provincial NDP and the Coalition is the Conservative equivalent.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Daradon

They sure do have a lot of parties.

Keep in mind that Quebec only has four parties with >5% support. The remainder are fringe parties that won't have any impact on the election. That's really no different than Alberta, where the PC, WR, Lib, and NDP all have elected MLAs, but we also had the following fringe parties run candidates without winning any seats in the 2012 election:

Alberta Party
Evergreen
Social Credit
Communist
Separation

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta...election,_2012

[Daradon]

Oh I get most of them are fringe, it's just that at least according to that poll six of them were deemed important enough to show. A few more than us, that's all I was saying.

[Rerun]

Perhaps Quebec should change to a Proportional Representation election format.

I would love to see that happen.... in Quebec.

[Fire]

I bet neither party has any plans on how to get out of their terrible economic position. Maybe raising the HST to 25% will fix all the problems.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by Fire

I bet neither party has any plans on how to get out of their terrible economic position. Maybe raising the HST to 25% will fix all the problems.

... nope... The solution is just demanding more money in equalization payments from the rest of Canada.

[CaptainCrunch]

Thought I would update this because this election is becoming incredibly fascinating, and really making the whole process into a pretty massive joke.

stories of voters being denied the right to vote

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/03...ce-since-2009/

To me this really makes the election look like a third person banana republic election, do we need to request that the UN send in observers to make sure this thing is above board?

More craziness as the Charter of Values could extend to university students and people calling the police for help.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montre...ther-1.2586380

5 things to watch for if your watching the debate tonight

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montre...bate-1.2587567

Pauline Marois draws Brad Wall into this mess

http://saskatoon.ctvnews.ca/quebec-s...eaky-1.1745446

[Daradon]

Whoa, that Charter of Values one was a strange read. The PQ guy in charge of drafting the proposed charter threw out those ideas and suggestions to INCREASE the lagging support for the PQ.

How anti-alien/anti-foreigner is their base? (Why can't I think of the proper term...?)

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Whoa, that Charter of Values one was a strange read. The PQ guy in charge of drafting the proposed charter threw out those ideas and suggestions to INCREASE the lagging support for the PQ.

How anti-alien/anti-foreigner is their base? (Why can't I think of the proper term...?)

I think the term that I use on it is sinister because it is so undefined. The whole police thing is scary when you think about it. As is telling the student population what they can and can't wear.

I'm not the biggest religious guy out there, but the right to religious freedom is protected, wearing a turban or a cross or a Kirpan is not a fashion statement, its part of a persons article of faith.

The only thing that will happen if this does get through is that Quebec will lose a ton of skilled government workers and students.

And the fact that they're making it up as they grow is frightening to me, they are basically trying to pass an unformed bill with the clause, don't worry about it, we'll fill in the blanks later.

However, I will say if Quebec wins on this odious bill that its a brilliant political move because it will get implemented, and create massive prostests in Quebec, and there is no way that it survives a supreme court challenge which the feds will have no choice but to file.

So two things will happen.

Right after the PQ win, you will get a ton of people leaving that province not only for fear of separation, but fear of prosecution and backlash over this bill.

If the Supreme Court squashes it, Marois will accuse the outsiders of meddling and use this as a lynch pin to galvanize the Francophones into a froth, and it will be used as a point of contention during a referendum.

I'm hoping that the people of Quebec realize that even debating this bill as a key election platform makes them look incredibly intolerant and they kill this thing in its grave.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Whoa, that Charter of Values one was a strange read. The PQ guy in charge of drafting the proposed charter threw out those ideas and suggestions to INCREASE the lagging support for the PQ.

How anti-alien/anti-foreigner is their base? (Why can't I think of the proper term...?)

Also remember that this is in the separatist psyche since jacque parizeau declared that their dream of sovereignty was killed by money and the ethnic vote.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Also remember that this is in the separatist psyche since jacque parizeau declared that their dream of sovereignty was killed by money and the ethnic vote.

I posted several months ago about my suspicions that the Charter of Values is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt by the PQ to make life so miserable for "the ethnic vote" that they well choose self-deportation (to borrow a phrase from Mitt Romney), thus making a future sovereignty referendum more likely to succeed.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I posted several months ago about my suspicions that the Charter of Values is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt by the PQ to make life so miserable for "the ethnic vote" that they well choose self-deportation (to borrow a phrase from Mitt Romney), thus making a future sovereignty referendum more likely to succeed.

I do believe its a big part of stirring up fear in the religious and ethnic communities so that the francophone percentage increases.

But like I said this is a suicide bill, its designed to die at the hands of the Supreme Court of Canada so that the PQ can rally the Francophones and pick a fight with the rest of Canada.

But to me, its just a bill that runs counter to everything that the average Canadian should believe in. that's why it makes the Francophones in Quebec look like horrible people if they do support this.

[Daradon]

I agree with both those posts, I think I've either agreed to, or mentioned all of those points in previous posts. It is definitely a political move above all, and there's no way it holds up even if it does go through. Though, as you said, that would probably be the perfect thing for the PQ, as then they can site federal involvement in their affairs. I totally get that, and I think I mentioned it earlier myself.

However, I'm just a little surprised in the new comments that came out and just how deep a lot of this anti-foreign sentiment run in some circles. I guess French cultures, both here in Canada and in France have always been a little insular and anti-foreign. They definitely have a fear of losing or diluting their culture (which of course is largely unfounded). Not saying other cultures don't have that, we've got ignorant racists everywhere. I'm just surprised it's come this far in this race/debate. It's a little above the normal fringe groups. Feels like a lot of things the Republicans say to their base in the southern states to get the base going that have actual political benefits even though they're horribly wrong and racist (or homophobic, sexist, whatever).

I guess the positive thing so far is that the public doesn't seem to be supporting the new comments. But the scary thing is they haven't exactly come out against them yet either.

[CaptainCrunch]

Bumpity Bump

Things looking very dire for the PQ as the Liberals slip into majority territory.

I guess that untrue swimming pool story about the evil dark men from McGill taking over a swimming pool didn't resonate

Look for the PW to outright panic release the hounds this week.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Sli...386/story.html

[Daradon]

This makes me so happy, though not going to count any chickens yet. Since we saw what happened in our last provincial election I've seen how polls can be wrong (or at least change overnight).

[Daradon]

This quote is along the lines of what I have posted earlier in this thread though:

Fewer than one-quarter — 23 per cent of voters polled — want a referendum.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/...#ixzz2xg1X97SE

I know it's a bit scary (annoying?) for the rest of us when we see the PQ get elected there again, but the fact of the matter is, the numbers for separation simply aren't what they were in the 90's and are the lowest they've been in a long long while. As Quebec (and Canada) continues to become more multicultural, it will probably only continue to decrease. When we see votes for the PQ and BQ nowadays they are more for votes for Quebec interests, and not necessarily Quebec sovereignty.

[CaptainCrunch]

True enough, but I guess my hope is that this buries any talk of a referendum until even more of the old Quebecois are dead and buried.

Frankly this campaign is a disaster for the PQ. They couldn't get the campaign off of the separation question due to Marois actually not being very smart at all, and she got absolutely buried on it n the debate that I watched.

And even when they got off of the Separation question it went right over to the Charter question and the charter went from being about government workers not being able to wear symbols to police officers not having to help woman wearing face coverings to horrible McGill men stealing a swimming pool.

Basically the PQ and their supporters began to look like horrible anti-human rights racists.

But the PQ didn't have a strong leg to stand on anywhere, they couldn't point to the economy and show any kind of success, they couldn't point to corruption without being caught in the blast.

This election represents a massive political strategy blunder. The PQ failed to read the voter intent properly and even worse didn't have a strategy in place besides the Liberals are evil and corrupt.

This one will be put into poli-sci textbooks pretty quickly if it goes the way of the polls.

But polls are tricky things as we've seen and there is still the midnight rally where they find pictures of the Liberal Leader having sex with a sheep while a text bubble floats in the picture with him yelling French is for ######s.

[Jacks]

PQ made a huge miscalculation allowing the referendum talk to dominate the election. They should have come out on day #1 and said no referendum during this term, it's not like they couldn't flip flop later if the winds changed.

[Daradon]

Yeah agreed. I think part of the problem though is that Marois and the inner circle really do believe passionately in sovereignty and weren't willing to give it up.

Though I argue that the people voting for the separatist parties are doing so for other reasons, I will admit there are still a lot of bullheaded people leading these parties that think the road to independence is a heroic endeavor and akin to leading the masses to the land of milk and honey.

It will be interesting to see when that softens. I suspect it won't take long because politicians everywhere have shown that getting re-elected is far more important than fighting for their values, no matter how tightly they hold them.