Topic: Quebeckers have a mental Bloc

[Jim Seggie]

I'm an Easterner....and I'll agree with everything you've said above.

And the Atlantic provinces were screwed over as well.

[RDJP]

And the Atlantic provinces were screwed over as well.

You bet they were. 

[Larry Strong]

And the Atlantic provinces were screwed over as well.

What comes to mind instantly....Quebec......Power/Electricity....Newfoundland.

[E.R. Campbell]

The fun part was trying to figure out the pseudonyms of the main and supporting characters from the different Regiments. Having just been posted to one of the units in the book, it was interesting to note how accurate he was in their descriptions and persona. Not a bad read and one of the better in this rather limited genre. Far superior to Rohmers efforts and the 1970's Killing Ground (IIRC the name)

Reactions to the Dauphin's musings are in this article, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Separatist+comments+reveal+real+Justin+Trudeau+analysts/6153616/story.html

Separatist comments reveal the real Justin Trudeau, analysts say
 
By Robert Sibley

The Ottawa Citizen
February 15, 2012

Justin Trudeau betrays his political immaturity and narcissism in suggesting that his commitment to a united Canada is dependent on whether the Conservative government validates his personal values, say prominent political analysts.

“This guy is clearly self-indulgent; he really does think everything is about him and his feelings,” Barry Cooper, a political theorist at the University of Calgary, said Tuesday in commenting on statements Trudeau made in a recent French-language interview. “That’s a measure of his lightweight status in the firmament of deep-thinking Liberals.”

On Sunday, Trudeau, a Montreal MP, told his Radio-Canada host: “I always say, if at a certain point, I believe that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper — that we were going against abortion, and we were going against gay marriage, and we were going backwards in 10,000 different ways — maybe I would think about making Quebec a country.”

The remarks have generated a furor this week. The blogosphere and the twitterverse went into hyperdrive, with commentators stunned that the 40-year-old son of Pierre Trudeau could so readily offend his father’s federalist vision. The politicians weren’t far behind. Not surprisingly, the Bloc Québécois interpreted Trudeau’s remarks as an endorsement for their own opposition to the Conservative government. A Tory MP, Merv Tweed, taunted Trudeau, saying “while our Conservative government is committed to keeping Canada strong, united and free, the member opposite is contemplating reasons for Quebec to separate from Canada.’’

Such remarks forced Trudeau to beat a hasty retreat on Tuesday, clearing the air with a three-minute address in front of a mob of reporters and cameras on Parliament Hill. “The question is not why does Justin Trudeau suddenly not love this country, because the question is ridiculous,’’ Trudeau said. “I live this country in my bones every breath I take, and I’m not going to stand here and somehow defend that I actually do love Canada because we know I love Canada.’’

Regardless of Trudeau’s rhetorical retrenchment, some observers said his original remarks revealed a great deal about his character, as well as his incoherence as a politician.

“If had read the quote and not known who said it, I would have attributed it to an adolescent,” said Tom Darby, a political philosopher at Carleton University. “It does not matter what party or even what policies one favours, the quote is factually untrue, irresponsible, and even treasonous. He (Trudeau) says that his father was an intellectual and that he is not. About this he is correct, which his childish statement proves.”

Robert Asselin, a political scientist at the University of Ottawa who specializes in Canada-Quebec affairs, noted the inherent narcissism of Trudeau’s attitude. “That’s the first observation I would make. But also, government policy should not dictate one’s preference for secession or not. Secession is a very grave action and you don’t even suggest it (as a possibility) because you don’t share certain beliefs or values of the government of the moment.”

“Politics is not about personal feelings,” said Cooper. “It’s about the ethics of responsibility. He was elected as a member of Parliament from a particular constituency. He was not elected in his own right because he has these sensitive feelings about various things. Whether he likes it or not, he’s supposed to be a responsible political leader, and he’s clearly incapable of understanding what his job is.”

Trudeau has, in fact, been stepping in it regularly of late. In December, he referred to Environment Minister Peter Kent as a “piece of sh--.” He was taken to task for wrongly claiming that there would be no way to track firearms after the registry’s disappearance when he tweeted his opposition to the Conservative government’s plans to scrap the gun registry. And he was much criticized when he told a reporter he was “uncomfortable” with the use of the phrase “honour killings” because he thought it was “pejorative.”

Political analysts such as Darby and Cooper question whether Trudeau has taken his dislike of Harper’s policies to an imprudent extreme that says more about himself than about the policies he supposedly opposes.

“Young Trudeau is living out the consequences of his father’s vision of what the country should look like, that the state exists to compel us to like one another, to think alike, that we all have to have the same values,” said Cooper. “You’ve got this kind of narcissistic response that the state only exists to reflect your values. There’s nothing to be patriotic about (and) so you can indulge whatever idiosyncratic policy preferences you might have. Trudeau Junior reflects this attitude, and for a lot of people his age and younger, they probably think this is a perfectly legitimate way of looking at politics.”

Trudeau’s statement reflected the “incredible notion” that loyalty to one’s country is predicated on whether that country lived up to your personal sentiments, said Darby. It is quite legitimate to oppose the policies of a particular government, he said, but Trudeau showed no sense of what Canadians have in common, no sense of shared citizenship and the responsibilities that come with citizenship. “The problem with that is he’s not thinking beyond his own self-interest. He’s like a kid who says, ‘I don’t like what’s happening in this game, so I’m going to take my stuff and go home.’”

Asselin, meanwhile, speculated that Trudeau reflected the sentiments of many Quebecers who feel they don’t share the values of the Conservative government. Nevertheless, that’s no excuse to indulge in imprudent hints about supporting separatism. “That’s the line he crossed. That’s why it’s dangerous.”

Trudeau’s behaviour raises questions about his political intelligence, and his potential as a future Liberal leader, Asselin said. “I’m always surprised to see his name as a potential candidate (for the Liberal leadership) because I’ve never seen anything substantive from him that would make me believe he would be a good leader. What is his vision of Canada? I would not be able to tell you what it is. I know what his father stood for, but I don’t know what Justin Trudeau’s is.”

And what might Pierre Trudeau have thought of his son’s statement? “I don’t think his father would have been happy at all to read it. He would probably spank him on his behind, and say, ‘What have you said? This is not right.’”

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

I think it is true that "Trudeau reflected the sentiments of many Quebecers who feel they don’t share the values of the Conservative government," but that's neither here nor there. Québec isn't going anywhere because there's no place to go, nationhood, as envisioned by a majority of Québecers is impossible, even if they can win a referendum.

Trudeau has already excused himself from this leadership race ~ it looks, to me, as if he's disqualified himself from the next one, too.

Can you just imagine the even bigger smile on this guys' face?


Dominic LeBlanc — Beauséjour
Franco, 45 years old, fluently bilingual, electable, smart ...

[Rifleman62]

Inherent narcissism does not stop a person,  massively supported by a bias, (malevolent to me; benevolent to Redeye) media, from being elected by people to be the head of a country.
 
His father did his very best to tear apart Canada.

[Colin P]

Quebec separatism suffers from some reality issues. First thee is the issue of First Nations. The FN will know they have the Quebecers by the short and curlies and will make them pay dearly for any support. Where will this money and future monies come from?
2nd I suspect that the GDP of Quebec likely outstrips the rest of the Francophone world not counting France, so who are they going to trade with purely in French?
3rd Most of the immigrants in the francophone world are not white and come from very poor countries. So if Quebec need immigrants the pool they have to draw upon will significantly change Quebec culture and they will not have the education to quickly start contributing to the Quebec economy.
4th They are going to have to deal with a significant backlash by the rest of Canada, including boycotts of their goods
5th They are going to lose out on any more transfer payments and I doubt many politicians are going feel any political pressure to bow to Quebec’s demands for  payouts and transfers of funds
6th What happens to all Federal lands within Quebec? Who pays for the transfers, cleanups? Again the average English-Canadian (or recent immigrant) is going to tell the politicians “I ain’t paying no blackmail monies” 

[E.R. Campbell]

Inherent narcissism does not stop a person,  massively supported by a bias, (malevolent to me; benevolent to Redeye) media, from being elected by people to be the head of a country.
 
His father did his very best to tear apart Canada.

While I agree that the Trudeau era was bad, even very bad for national unity it was not, I believe that Pierre Trudeau retained any of his youthful separatist/fascist/Abbé Lionel Groulx fantasies. It was, I think more the unintended consequences of his approach. It was hard for Trudeau, who promoted the "French fact" in Canada, to appear as anything other than anti-English, thereby simultaneously fueling Franco animosity and Anglo mistrust. Additionally, his evident disdain for Québec's popular leaders (political and social) stoked the flames of Franco humiliation without earning any "respect" in English Canada. Trudeau (mistakenly) thought he was the smartest kid in the room; in fact others, including René Lévesque and Peter Lougheed, had a much better understanding of Québec and Canada.

In my opinion Pierre Trudeau's main problem was that he was not, in his heart or his mind, a Canadian or a Québecer; he was a European and he was never "at home" in the country of his birth, not even when he was leading its government.

[Rifleman62]

I did not mean it was his intent, but it was the result produced. He was not smart enough to figure out for ever action there is a reaction.

But, look at some of the kiddy antics which did not exactly enhance unity: fingers, fuddle duddle, pirouetting, sell your own wheat, etc, etc, etc.

[E.R. Campbell]

The Good Grey Globe's Jeffrey Simpson tries to square the circle in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/jeffrey-simpson/canadas-political-reversal-is-complete/article2391100/

Canada’s political reversal is complete

JEFFREY SIMPSON

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Apr. 04, 2012

Montrealer Thomas Mulcair’s election as NDP leader completes the reversal of the fundamental dynamics of Canadian politics that have prevailed for more than two decades.

Since the late 1980s, Canadian politics has been shaped, more than anything else, by the dialectics between Montreal and Calgary or, more broadly, between Quebec and Western Canada, whose political centre is Calgary.

Since the 1960s, when the Quiet Revolution changed Quebec politics, the aspirations of that province dominated federal politics until the end of the Jean Chrétien era. Under both Liberals and Conservatives, Ottawa struggled to deal with Quebec’s restlessness.

Quebec was always in power in Ottawa (except for the Joe Clark interregnum). It drove decisions and shaped events. Its priorities were usually those of the federal government. All those constitutional and federal-provincial conferences were, more than anything, about Quebec.

Quebec’s ideas about constitutional change, the role of the state, social policy, even international relations – most of which were incubated in Montreal – influenced every federal government. Clearly, Quebec provincial governments and the more nationalist elements in the province did not always get what they sought, but their pressure was always felt in Ottawa.

In the late 1980s, a reaction began against some of those Quebec ideas. Intellectually and politically, the reaction began and flourished in Calgary, epicentre of the Reform Party, the Canada West Foundation, the oil business, the University of Calgary’s social sciences departments, and some contributors to the magazine Alberta Report.

To Montreal’s demands for special status for Quebec, Calgary replied that all provinces should be equal. To Montreal’s preference for constitutional changes giving more power to provinces, Calgary replied with a Triple-E Senate. To Montreal’s preference for a providential state, Calgary favoured a diminished one. To Montreal’s belief that the state should guide the economy, Calgary preferred laissez faire. To Montreal’s belief that climate change was a real and pressing danger, Calgary replied with indifference.

The Mulroney government broke apart because of the political and intellectual gap between the ideas of Montreal and Calgary, with parts of his coalition becoming the Reform Party and the Bloc Québécois.

It also fractured because, after the failures of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown constitutional reform efforts, the rest of Canada grew tired of Quebec’s agenda and was no longer scared by its threat to secede. In Quebec, it became clear that constitutional reform was at a dead end, so, after a last shot at seceding in the referendum of 1995, the province’s politics settled into a less existential mode. Quebec would stop trying to change Canada, or break it up, but withdraw into a de facto special status.

Quebec remained central to the Chrétien thinking, led by a Quebecker. But when Stephen Harper, a transplanted Calgarian and former Reform MP, created today’s Conservative Party, Calgary shoved Montreal out of the driver’s seat.

From being the intellectual and political centre of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, Calgary’s vision (and, more generally, Western Canada’s) became ascendant in Ottawa – lower taxes, smaller government, no special status, indifference to constitutional reform, conservative social policy, little interest in the environment.

In Mr. Harper’s first years, there was muted dissatisfaction in Calgary with their prime minister (who, if truth be told, knew very few big hitters in the city). But the disillusioned bit their tongues because their boy and party had arrived in office and one day, they prayed, the Conservatives would form a majority government.

Quebec had put itself on the political sidelines by voting Bloc Québécois, a party with no interest in governing Canada and no interest in Canada as a whole.

Quebeckers finally tired of this political futility but couldn’t vote for a Calgary-dominated government whose vision was so different from their own. They voted to put themselves into Official Opposition status by supporting the NDP. With Mr. Mulcair’s election, in no small part due to his support in Quebec and the sense in the party that he could hold that support, Quebec’s interests will daily shape the NDP.

So the Calgary-Montreal dialectics that dominated Canadian public life remain, but in a different relationship. After being in opposition for so long, Calgary is now in power – and after having been in power for so long, Montreal is now in opposition.

This is Simpson's own mini "lament for a nation" - the "nation" in which he believes has its intellectual soul in Montreal and its economic heart in Toronto and those red-necked Westerners and provincial Maritimers are to consider themselves lucky to be guided by the Montreal-Toronto (Liberal) axis.


Change is good, Donkey Jeffrey

[Infanteer]

The Calgary:Montreal dichotomy is interesting.  I shall also be interested to see how the Vancouver:Calgary dichotomy evolves in Western Canadian politics - the greater Vancouver metro area has about half the population of Western Canada.  Having lived in BC and Alberta for most of my life, I can say that BC outside of Vancouver is very similar to rural Alberta, except that the NDP has a traditional level of support in much of the BC interior based upon forestry/mining union support.  In Vancouver however, anything goes politically, with much of the outlying municipalities going Conservative while the urban core splits between NDP and Liberal.