Paul Wells on who's losing out in the polls

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 11:56 AM - 16 Comments

Coyne v. Wells on why we still have to talk about a coalition

By Claire Ward - Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 1:27 PM - 11 Comments

Shot and edited by Tom Henheffer
Produced by Claire Ward

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Aaron Wherry on why we're heading to an election

By Claire Ward - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 4:22 PM - 5 Comments

Shot and edited by Claire Ward

And "Non" it is

By Andrew Potter - Monday, November 30, 2009 at 9:48 AM - 21 Comments

So I didn’t make it to Duceppe’s address to IPSO (Intellectuels pour la souveraineté) yesterday. Life’s just too short and the lineup at Schwartz’s was too long. But this morning the Bloc sent out a release listing the main plot points of the speech. Like all good political speeches, it begins at the end:

« Devant l’échec du fédéralisme, La seule véritable solution pour le Québec, c’est de sortir du Canada »

Well, that’s a given. But we want to know why. Herewith:

1. Twenty years after the failure of Meech, it is clear that Canada has no intention of bringing Quebec into the Canadian constitutional fold. (Note: No mention of the “The Quebecois are a nation” resolution).

And why should they? After all,

2. Quebec is suffering  from both political and judicial decline. The province that was, at Confederation, 36 percent of the population is now 22 percent.  Demographic trends suggest this will only continue to erode Quebec’s political power in Canada. (Note: This is the trend cheered by Brian Crowley in Fearful Symmetry). Also, Quebec is clearly being harmed by the Supreme Court — e.g. the recent ruling on Bill 104.

3. What is at stake is Quebec’s identity, in particular its ability to integrate immigrants into Quebec’s culture and values. But exacerbating the situation is the fact that 200 000 Quebecers who work for federal departments or agencies are not protected by the provisions of Bill 101. Worse, these people work for departments that are growing, meaning even more Quebecers will be hired by le federale.

4. Quebec’s ambitions on the environment and climate change are held hostage to the federal government’s pandering to Alberta at Quebec’s expense.

Thankfully, there’s an alternative:

5. Sovereignty. In which Quebec’s political influence will shift from 22% to 100%, its control over its laws and constitution will rise to 100%, and its ability to speak for itself on the world stage will rise from almost zero to… you guessed it, 100%.

The text of the release below.

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I'm guessing "Non"

By Andrew Potter - Friday, November 27, 2009 at 11:39 AM - 13 Comments

We get press releases from the Bloc:

Conférence de Gilles Duceppe devant les Intellectuels pour la souveraineté

Ottawa, vendredi 27 novembre 2009 – Le chef du Bloc Québécois, Gilles Duceppe, donnera une conférence intitulée « Le Québec a-t-il un avenir dans le Canada? », dans le cadre d’un dîner-conférence organisé par les Intellectuels pour la souveraineté (IPSO), qui aura lieu le dimanche 29 novembre 2009. Les représentantes et les représentants des médias sont invités à assister à cet événement.

 

A very different view from the West

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 12:01 AM - 1 Comment

You might think the PM could do no wrong in Calgary, the city that shaped him. Think again. “He didn’t have to poke them in the eye,” one prominent Alberta Progressive Conservative said yesterday, referring to the Conservative economic update that proposed to revoke party subsidies. “He was showing his mean streak and that is why he didn’t win a majority.”

A Calgary lobbyist, on the business community’s take: “Harper is making this about national unity—when it’s not. And the opposition is making this about the economic crisis—when its not. It’s just all a bunch of political jockeying.”

Footage of Stephane Dion, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe—in the parlance of Alberta, a socialist, a separatist and an incomprehensible francophone—signing an agreement to tear power away from Harper did not particularly enrage as many as you might imagine. Sure, the hardliners blame the East, but “the consensus is, a pox on all their houses,” says Thompson MacDonald, a politically connected Calgary businessman. Although much of the political-constitutional crisis can be attributed to a naked power grab, Harper’s disastrous economic update does not escape judgment. Calgary’s boardroomers will, says MacDonald, “analyze the executive capacity of that particular manoeuvre and probably judge it poorly.”

Worse, the shenanigans risk putting a major crimp in Alberta as a destination for investors—at the worst possible time, as the province’s finances get hit on several fronts. You might expect Alan Hallman, Ralph Klein’s former campaign manager, to be as partisan as anyone. But he sits on the board or directors of a small oil and gas company and shifts the focus from blame to the turmoil’s impact on business. “It’s the uncertainty,” he says. “We’re known as a politically stable place to do business. Investment is just so flighty these days. And in these uncertain times, to have investment capital look at us and say, ‘Oh Christ, they’re turning into a Banana Republic—I’m going to Yemen.”

Alberta in particular would be in deep trouble should Team Dion-Layton-Duceppe wrestle power from the Conservatives—they would go, in the words of University of Calgary political scientist David Taras, “from being in the driver’s seat to not being in the car.” Calgary would go from Harper’s hometown to an environmental version of this:

The Calgary lobbyist spells out Alberta’s coalition nightmare: “Jack Layton becomes Minister of the Environment and gets his hands on the oil sands. Then Calgary starts to tank with the whole rest of the country. And then we decide it’s all the coalition’s fault. And then we just say it’s the National Energy Program all over again and start stoking this western hatred.”

Reform Party founder Preston Manning, for one, doesn’t see that happening: “This would be a coalition of expediency so I frankly wouldn’t expect it to last very long,” he told Maclean’s. So coalition damage would not necessarily be Albertacentric. Yet it would be severe, says Manning. “The damage it will do is it’ll put off for three months, four months, six months, even a year, Parliament’s actually coming to grips with this economic and financial problem.” He adds of the coalition: “They claim to be getting together in order to pass some government stimulus package. But stimulating economy involves not only government expenditures, but restoring consumer confidence and particular restoring investor confidence.”

Could we be heading towards this? Lament.

Irony-free headlines from the recent past

By Martin Patriquin - Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 7:11 PM - 17 Comments

In honour of the current goings on in Ottawa, in which the Liberals and the NDP are planning to form a coalition government with the tacit approval of the Bloc Québécois, DMA humbly presents, without comment, a few choice headlines from the run up to the 2006 federal election–AKA, the last time Canada underwent a ‘national unity crisis.’

Harper risks ‘getting into bed’ with Bloc: Layton

The Whitehorse Star – April 28, 2005 

Liberal-NDP marriage to be shortlived?

Cornwall Standard-Freeholder (ON) – April 29, 2005

Leaders blast others’ political promiscuity: Who’s sleeping with whom: parties trade barbs over political bedfellows

Sudbury Star (ON) - Canada, Friday, April 29, 2005

The unofficial federal election campaign has turned downright racy with charges of political promiscuity and sleeping with the enemy.

[...]

Prime Minister Paul Martin and NDP Leader Jack Layton used separate stops half-a-country apart Thursday to deliver a common message: the Conservatives are in bed with the separatists in a fickle attempt to bring down the minority Liberal government.

Jack Layton says party won’t prop up Liberals in possible confidence motion

Timmins Daily Press (ON) - Tuesday, November 8, 2005

Martin, Harper playing patriot games

[...]

[Paul] Martin, however, barely broke stride when he reached a rally in Quebec City, where he once again conjured the image of an alliance between Harper and Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe.

They're traitors here, too

By Martin Patriquin - Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 2:33 PM - 29 Comments

“Traitors.” “Whores.” “Sellouts.” No, these aren’t the words of those charming scamps from out west, here and here, and they aren’t directed at those the poncy Liberal-NDP elitists who dare usurp the Conservative’s power. Rather, these are the sentiments of several ardent nationalists, who are infuriated at the Bloc Québécois for supporting our seemingly inevitable (but wait!) coalition government. It seems the irony of having the BQ as a de facto member of the government is as much of a problem for sovereignists as it is for another living west of Ontario and east of Vancouver.

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Bloc blocked, bluster begins

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, September 26, 2008 at 7:06 PM - 11 Comments

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED. See below.

Sébastien Caron is a brave fellow. He is the Liberal candidate for Laurier-Sainte-Marie, where he has to contend with two (two!) communist parties vying for precious Liberal votes. Oh, and Caron also happens to be running against Gilles Duceppe, the preternaturally popular leader of the Bloc Québécois, who in the last election garnered over half the votes and beat his nearest competitor––a Liberal, coincidentally or not–by nearly 19,000 votes. [UPDATE: Wrong! It was actually the NDP that took second place, by about 16,000. So much for my narrative.]

It seems Mr. Caron’s plight attracted the attention of an internet vigilante, who has used his powers, such as they are, to ‘help’ Mr. Caron–whether Mr. Caron wants it or not. Threats and means words from Bloc HQ ensued.

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Kissing the flag

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, September 26, 2008 at 12:52 PM - 5 Comments

Here at Deux maudits anglais headquarters, we’ve been wondering about the rather loose use of the term ‘nationalist’ in Quebec during this election. Sensible lads that we are, we discussed. Have a read.

Marty: Good morning, Phil. The economy is in ruins, the world is going to hell, but we have more pressing issues to deal with. Like, why is everybody and their grandmother a nationalist in Quebec these days? Duceppe has been one since forever, obviously. Now, though, everyone has caught up. Harper says he’s a nationalist. Dion is apparently a nationalist, which is about the funniest thing I’ve read in the last 10 minutes. And Jack Layton played ‘Gens du Pays’ on his guitar on a Quebec radio station, prompting me to set fire to my head. It used to be a dirty word; now, you can’t get elected without it. What gives?

Phil: Morning, Marty. I was more than a little baffled myself when I heard Layton had been singing Quebec’s unofficial national anthem on the radio while Dion was re-christening himself as not-that-Clarity-Act-dude. For years, they cut their teeth championing the role the federal government could (or should) play in people’s lives. But now we’re expected to believe they whistle Félix Leclerc songs on their way to work in the morning. I can think of two reasons everyone’s suddenly so eager to hop aboard the nationalist bandwagon (despite the constant rumours of its impending breakdown):

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