What happens if quebec secedes

The statement on a Yes win never had to be delivered in , as Quebecers voted by a paper-thin margin to remain in Canada. This week, star Parti Quebecois recruit Pierre Karl Peladeau suggested that vote had been stolen by the pro-Canada side.

Pequistes have long groused about illegal federal spending during the campaign, and about the federal government ramping up its citizenship proceedings to allow more votes by immigrants, who lean more heavily toward the federalist side. Another unity supporter was then-president Bill Clinton.

He had told the Canadian Parliament in the run-up to the referendum: "In a world darkened by ethnic conflicts Canada has stood The documents released Friday also contained a note that questioned the wisdom of Clinton taking sides.

What can be wrong with a country that tops international competitiveness surveys, that boasts one of the world's best-educated workforces and a universal, affordable health care system? Why would a people so blessed by natural resource wealth, a modern transportation system, a massive market on its very doorstep in the form of the United States and a non-violent political and civic life, want to throw it all away on a roll of the dice, on an unknown and divided future?

Surely separation is a disease of the Balkans, an extreme political decision more closely identified with a Czechoslovakia than a Canada? In fact, there is a real malaise in the True North, one that has affected many other countries where different cultures, language groups and "ethnicities" have been forced, or have chosen under duress, to live together. To understand why Quebec nationalism will not go away and why there is a chance, if not this time then perhaps the next, that Quebecers will choose to go, you have to look at the history.

The country's birth in was the coming together of two founding peoples, the descendants of the settlers of New France and the victorious British, who vanquished the French army on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec city in Rather than force the losing side to assimilate, to bury its culture and traditions within the bosom of the larger and stronger side, the British instead allowed the French minority to establish separate Catholic, Francophone schools and retain a different legal system Napoleonic, not Common Law.

Over the years, but particularly since the Sixties, the Quebec government has exercised more and more powers: to collect its own income taxes the only province to do so ; to run its own pension fund; and to develop a stand-alone welfare system, albeit one financed by transfers from Ottawa.

Despite this "sovereignty by stealth", Quebec has seen the separatist option remain popular with a solid 40 per cent of the province. Nor has this separatist voice been quiescent. It has enjoyed a highly active presence for a long time now: from the terrorist bombing campaign of radicals to the election of an avowedly separatist government in , to the high drama of myriad constitutional wranglings in the Eighties and early Nineties.

What does Quebec want? The question has dogged federalist politicians for the years of Canadian federation. It is indisputably the fact that Quebec is another country: different language, different elite. To be Francophone in Quebec is to yearn to be "maitre chez nous" masters in our own house. Said one Quebecer last week: "We have been paying rent for so many years.

We want now to buy the house. It would lose more than it gains without Canada. Will Barium, Mississauga, Ont. Of course Quebec has a future in Canada and indeed a great future.

At present Canada subsidizes its social programs and grants Quebec special powers in Canadian institutions, language laws, immigration, international representation and self administration of federal programs. Quebec has all the trappings and powers of an independent state that it wants without the obligation of fiscal responsibility, and evidently Canadians are prepared to accept this arrangement for the foreseeable future.

Harvey Kaplan, Thornhill, Ont. Having Quebec within our confederation is like living with a spoiled child. The next referendum may not be that they want to separate but whether the rest of Canada wants to keep them.

They have to realise that once they do become their own nation. That it will spell the end of them being unilingual. They will have to teach their children English to be able to coup with the rest of the world economically.

Then the rest of the provinces can become unilingual and use English only. Saving the taxpayers billions annually, that can be used for more important things like our health care and infrastructure. Then have two languages on all our packaging. Peter G. Keith, Calgary. Quebec, the eternal ingrate parasite will always have a place in Canada — as long as the Federal government allows them to continue their feeding frenzy at the equalization trough, at the expense of the rest of Canada.

Cut them off from this and their incessant whining will increase to the point that the rest of Canada will demand that they either shut up and support themselves, or leave. Discussion with similar-aged Quebeckers in a Florida restaurant. Knowing glances at the mention of Fascism. Come back when you are ready. A better question would be: Do anglophones have a future in Quebec?

The anglophone community has been poorly served by conflicts of interest, and an organization that claims to be the voice of English education : the Quebec English School Boards Association. Consider : the chairperson of the Lester B. Chris Eustace, Montreal. They were the foundation of Canada and it would be a sad day if they left. At this time with their huge debt, it would be financial suicide for them to separate. The rejection of the English language in their schools only tends to isolate their young people and make it hard for them to succeed else where in North America.

I think we are stuck with Quebec for some time yet. Martin Bohn, Ardrossan, Alta. Their culture and language is different. Switzerland can be put inside Algonquin Park. France and England fit into Ontario, with room for a little country like Liechtenstein.

Quebecers must acknowledge the North American context. Their Quebec language and culture is protected within Canada. Douglas Cornish, Ottawa. The holiday, which is a big deal elsewhere, is becoming a thing here, too. If you're in the market for a new option this cold-weather season, we've rounded up four fashionable finds that will be sure to up your cool factor, while keeping out the cold. Sign up to receive the daily top stories from the National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way.

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Read the Shopping Essentials newsletter for unbiased product recommendations every week. Manage Print Subscription. Main Menu Search nationalpost. If these backbones of the language disappeared so would French. And of course from fifteen to twenty percent of Manitoba's French-speaking population came here from France. They have no roots in Quebec. As far as I know no French-speaking person has ever been denied the right of free translation in any court of the province of Manitoba.

In Maillardville. Jean-Baptiste Goulet, manager of the local credit union and unofficial mayor, says that if Quebec departed "we'd be submerged by the Anglo-Saxons and the Anglo-Saxons would be submerged by the Americans. Perhaps because they find it so difficult to imagine how a province so poor as Quebec could conceivably want to part company from a province so rich as Ontario, the big businessmen of central Canada — of Montreal as well as Toronto — take the talk of secession less seriously than almost anyone.

The railway and banking headquarters of course would move out of Quebec. So, likely, would the big textile plants. Quebec would have to have its separate airlines, flying Caravelles of course, to get even with TCA for passing up the French plane for the American DC9. There'd be an exchange of landing rights so instead of having two transcontinental airlines, which is already one too many, we'd have three.

In Quebec the courted political minority would be the English, just as the French have been the courted political minority here. The Canadian oil industry which is trying to heat the tankers from Venezuela in the Montreal market would be set back at least a generation. No doubt the big U. The cost of cars would go up everywhere, the costs of everything would go up.

Quebec and Ontario would both hold out desperately against joining the United States. They'd hold out long after the Maritimes, B. To avoid total ruin, Quebec would have to rely more and more on the tourist industry. The saddest of all ironies is that the fight they began in order to save their culture might end up saddling them with the neon-hotdog-and-craps-table culture of Florida and Las Vegas.

It is, curiously and perhaps tragically, not in the comfortable heartland of the country that the really painful thinking about Confederation is being done. We still trade a lot of our fish there. Still, you can never be sure about us Maritimers. We might stick with Canada just to get even with the Frenchmen.

Any weakening in Confederation would leave us away out on our own, something like the West Indies. We'd have a tremendous load of welfare. It could only happen after a very long and agonizing time — perhaps fifty years — but we'd begin looking back again toward New England.

Grant Deachman. But the rest of Canada makes a great mistake in thinking that B. The fact is that we look on ourselves as a great big booming international seaport backed by a great big booming hinterland, and our outlook is a world outlook. We have a big big trade with the East and, through Canadian Pacific Airlines we have a growing trade with South America.

Our standard of living depends on our ability to export. We are tremendous contributors to the Canadian economy because of our exports and we take tremendous pride in this. We pay more for the privilege of being Canadians than anybody.