Two things are going to happen this year: there will be an election in Quebec and a separation referendum in Scotland. If the separatist Parti Quebecois wins a majority in that province, they may hold their own referendum. Separation, in general, which on its own holds some merit, isn’t the problem in Quebec. So what is?
Ask the PQ three years ago and they’d tell you it was the Anglo bastards. That explanation has fallen out of fashion lately, because they realized the persecution complex was getting old.
Since the Charter of Values debacle, the scapegoat for everything wrong with Quebec has become the hijab. If that legislation passes, public employees will be barred from wearing any overt religious symbols. (God forbid I should be forced to watch someone peacefully express the most important part of their life on their head when I renew my driver’s licence.)
As if that wasn’t enough, Quebec premier Pauline Marois has so graciously drawn to our attention the secret plot by “les autres” to steal Quebec’s upcoming election. A recent story in Montreal’s Le Devoir chronicled the tale of a poor, unsuspecting electoral officer bombarded by people trying to vote… get this, whose first language wasn’t English or French! Naturally, they were turned away. So was 21-year-old fourth-year McGill University student Dune Desormeaux, who couldn’t vote because he was a student.
Skip over the Atlantic and we can see a separation movement being run the right way. Whether you agree if Scotland should separate or not, it’s hard to argue that the separatists in that country are doing a bad job. Their six-word question is clear as day, and the separation website lays out answers to all kinds of questions, from the banal to the complex. Rhetoric surrounding their referendum tends to revolve around the positives to separation, rather than the same complaints parroted a few hundred more times.
If Quebec separatists want to be taken seriously, they should take a page out of Scotland’s book and stop looking for someone to blame.