Quebec Votes 2007

Good Rainy Morning to you!

I don't know what it's like where you are, but it's raining like crazy here in the Big Smoke. It was sunny when I was driving to work, then about an hour later it was pouring, then it stopped, then it was pouring, now it's drizzling... Like I said, crazy! However, the temperature is a balmy 14 degrees Celsius and I am pretty pleased with that. I think we may be on the road to spring!

So, with spring in mind, I'd like to point out a little something to my faithful friends: Quebec is having a provincial election on Monday and apparently, the Liberals may not win! Follow along with the CBC to keep tabs on the nail-biting, mud-slinging, name-calling race.

Some of you who are Canadian, will understand what it means for the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) not to win the provincial election: the issue of separation will once again rear its ugly head. If the Liberals are not elected to government, then (most likely) the Parti Quebecois (PQ) will be elected; although that is also not guaranteed any longer because there is a relatively new player, the Action Democratique de Quebec (ADQ), that is right up at the top of the polls with the other two. Both the PQ and the ADQ are sovereigntist parties. Therefore, if either of these two form the provincial government in Quebec, there will be more, and louder, and more insistent talk of referendums and separating from the rest of Canada.

The rest of Canada (as far as I know) doesn't want them to separate; aside from the whole 'losing a vital part of your country and its history' thing, we'd be cutting our country in half and that would mess up our maps. Thus, I will be following the results on Monday as closely as I can. I'll have to do it in French, but that's cool; they say better stuff in French anyway.

I'm not sure how many of you knew about the upcoming election, or the platforms of the parties or how the race was going, or anything like that. As I was reading the French language articles on canoe.ca from Quebec I began to realize that I should have been aware of more than I was. There's a lot of stuff going on in our country that we don't know about because we don't read their newspapers, or watch local French news, etc. It occurred to me that if we (the rest of Canada) always wait until the horse has left before closing the barn door (so to speak) then we're not going to be able to have any credibility with the Quebecois. Or, to put it more simply: Most of us are going to wait until a separatist party is elected before we even think about the fact that a large amount of people in Quebec are willing to separate from Canada.

I don't think that's a good idea. I know it seems as though there is nothing we, the rest of Canada, can do since we don't get to vote in a referendum, but perhaps we're wrong. What if we did think about it more? What if we tried to make it an issue with our MPs? What if we told them that we wanted Quebec to be a part of Canada and that we wanted making that happen a priority? Isn't that what government is for? Aren't the elected officials supposed to represent the will of the people? Are we not obligated to take an active role in public life in some way as part of our social contract? Yes. To all of those questions. If we want something to be done, we should not wait until the milk is spilling to start crying about it. We should be working pre-emptively to try to prevent the milk jug from tipping over in the first place.

I am as guilty as the next person. It wasn't until my friend from Quebec pointed these articles out to me that I woke up to the realization that all sorts of wierd political stuff is going on in Quebec right now and that a separatist party just might win the election on Monday.

We (the rest of Canada) may be 'tired' of hearing about Quebec's distinct society, or some of us may think they should just let it go because they've had two referendums and lost both; but at least the Quebecois care about their nation and their politics. That's more than you can say for most of the rest of us. (I'm not suggesting that their position is a good one.) Would we all get out and vote if we were allowed to vote in the referendum? I'm not sure that all of the people I know would.

Rant over for today, thanks for coming along for the ride!

Drive safe peeps,