Posted on 12/02/2005 10:18:25 PM PST by goldstategop
Canadians who for the last 15 or so years have been enjoined to celebrate a Politically Correct Christmas – no mention of Christ, Bethlehem, shepherds, angels etc., no wishing people "Merry Christmas" – are to be endowed this year with a purely political one.
When the Liberal minority government of Prime Minister Paul Martin lost a confidence vote in the Commons last Tuesday (171-133), this triggered an election set for Jan. 23, with a predictably bitter campaign raging right through the holiday period.
Superficially, the present polls indicate the return of a Liberal minority government. If the vote were held last week, said one poll, the Liberals would get 35 percent of it, Stephen Harper's Conservatives 29 percent, the Socialist NDP 17 percent and the separatist Bloc Quebecois 14 percent.
But the Bloc's 14 percent is all in the Province of Quebec, so the poll in fact portends a separatist sweep of that province. This in turn would foreshadow the election of a separatist provincial government in a provincial election next year or in 2007, and a new Quebec referendum on the separation of Quebec from Canada immediately after that election.
And so, Martin's federal Liberals will now argue, whom would you rather have running the government at Ottawa during this, the third Quebec separatist crisis? Paul Martin of Montreal? Or Steve Harper of Calgary, Alberta, the province least sympathetic to Quebec's aspirations, and therefore least able to rouse support for Canada in a Quebec referendum?
This factor, barely mentioned at the outset of the federal campaign, can be counted on to become increasingly significant if the Bloc's strength in Quebec becomes ever more evident as the campaign progresses. Pointing to the Quebec situation, the Liberals will paint themselves as the only possible saviors of the country. They will portray a vote for the Conservatives as a vote to see the country destroyed.
Nowhere in Canada will this line of argument become more persuasive than in Ontario. The province has 106 seats in the 308-seat House of Commons. At present, the Liberals hold 73 of those 106. In the past, they have held virtually all of them. If they can restore that overwhelming grip on Ontario, they will almost certainly return with a majority government.
To do that they need only emphasize one point. More than any other province, Ontario needs Quebec. That is, it needs a united Canada. It must preserve the status quo.
If Quebec were to separate, this would isolate the four Atlantic provinces from the rest of Canada, certainly a reversal but not a disaster. For the four western provinces, the economic consequences of a Quebec departure would be minimal, for Alberta and British Columbia probably even beneficial. But for Ontario generally, and Toronto particularly, the partial breakup of Canada would be an unimaginable disaster. The central pillar of Ontario 's economy has been its role as the country's financial and economic center. If Canada began to break up, this role would begin to disintegrate and Ontario's economic ascendancy along with it.
All of which will be made abundantly clear to Ontario voters by the Liberals. They will point out the apparent weakness of Quebec's present Liberal government, where the popularity of Premier Jean Charest has reached a doleful low, and the separatist Parti Quebecois has named a new and vigorous young leader. He is Andre Boisclair, a confessed ex-cocaine user and dazzling crowd-charmer who has transformed the aging separatist cause established back in the '70s into a boisterous youth movement that thoroughly frightens federalists. He is also the first acknowledged homosexual to lead a Canadian political party.
Ironically, the Liberals will also point to the damage done to the federal image in Quebec by the sponsorship scandal in which federal Liberals were shown to be helping themselves and their friends to federal funds earmarked to bolster the federal image in the province. This has enormously strengthened the separatist cause, making it all that much more necessary, the Liberals will argue, to maintain Quebec's Martin as prime minister. Thus, Liberal corruption will be converted into an argument to vote Liberal.
Most of all, they will point to a prosperous and gloating Alberta, accepting, even cherishing, the possibility of a separated Quebec because in the surviving Canada, the West would gradually supplant Ontario as the country's economic center.
So this unprecedented Christmas campaign may establish another precedent as well. It could become a campaign whose central issue, scarcely mentioned when it began, became decisive by the time it was over.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Canada will break up before Iraq ever does.
As a recovering Canadian (of the Western persuasion), I say the cost of keeping Quebec within the Confederation (including being ruled by the corrupt Liberals) now far exceeds the benefit. Bid them adieu.
If my memory is correct, the western provinces have a lukewarm pro-US-statehood population. How likely is it that some other provinces form a coalition with Quebec to get out of Canada, only to join the US?
I would agree. But I would guess that Quebec might only be phase one of this breakup. After they go off on their on...you might easily see British Colombia in 10 years thinking along the same lines.
An independent Quebec would be the perfect place for John Francois Kerry to display his leadership and linguistic skills.
I think the scenario Byfield describes is most likely to happen. There is so much vested interests from Ontario to keep the current national arrangements intact.
But what happens next? Will we see a Federal republic of the Prairies within 10 years time with Ted Morton as president?
Lets hope France wil take the Q's back?
I think Ontario (at least the southern triangle covering population centres like Windsor, Toronto, Kingston, and Ottawa) will definitely stay on as "rump" Canada - so much of its past as the United Empire Loyalist which opposed the American War of Independence to contemplate US statehood on the part of its Right, and the hardcore Chomskyite anti-Americanism on its Left.
About western Canada, I would say half don't want US statehood simply because they hate the already too bureaucratic Washington. They will form a pro-US, but separate, country. The other half will want statehood.
Many have speculated the Maritimes will want to merge with Maine to form Greater Maine, while others speculate initially they will want to try forming an independent country. Newfoundland is a special case: nothing much in common with the United States, and even their English accent is more "British" than American. They may want to revert to a self-governing crown colony of the United Kingdom like Bermuda, or it may form an independent country on its own right and with the Queen as their =head of state directly.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
The omens will be extremely bad if the Liberal Party wins in January. In particular, the vast areas from Victoria to Winnepag will not bite another bullet of "keeping Canadian national unity" - if they wetre already pondering separation back in July imagine what happens after January if we get yet anotehr Liberal Party government?
http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=928&pagenumber=1
This blog post may turn out to be the most accurate prediction at the end:
I become extremely skittish at this talk -- premature as it may be -- of new American states.
Western Canada may be relatively friendly to the U.S. in the context of Canadian politics but might not look quite so conservative as potential American states, especially B.C. And, along with any such development, would come the inevitable renewal of cries for D.C. statehood.
I would be fiercely opposed to any plan with a possibility of installing another pair of Dem senators in Washington.
Absolutely agree. Western Canada's leftists (in particular BC) are clones of Left Coast lefties from Seattle or San Francisco Bay Area. But I dare suggest that Ontario's Left is an entirely different animal and infinitely worse than anything you will ever see in the United States.
I can easily see this happening. Quebec, when it sobered up, would feel isolated and beleaguered. And what better way for sick continental France to renew itself than with a big expansion in the new world.
I can see -- in this scenario -- U.S./French relations going from testy to outright dangerous (dangerous for them, anyway).
They may very keep to their own local political parties as opposed to simply becoming democrat or republican!
What are the odds the Liberals will win in January?
I don't know for certain, but I feel that it will be over 50% chance that the situation is for the Grits to gain. Ontario will once again be the key to decide the next government, and there fears of joining-the-US-on-"so-called-WOT" and free market more than compensates "throw the bums out!" mentality.
I'm afraid after 23 Jan of next year, it will be the end of the beginning of the drama, and the beginning of the end of Canada as we know it.
Is there really much difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals? One notes that even the Conservatives have vowed to allow only socialised medicine so that all Canadians are treated the same, irrespective of wealth. That doesn't work. You end up with a system with massive waiting lists where nobody gets treated.
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