I don’t think I have ever seen this before. In 2022, the CAQ (roughly translated as Coalition Future Quebec) party won a majority of seats in the Quebec “National” assembly. They held 79 seats of 127. Yesterday (Oct. 5) there was an election and they were totally wiped out: zero seats. The separatist party PQ (Parti Quebecois) won a plurality but 5 short of a majority. They have promised a referendum on independence, but will need at least 5 more votes to carry that out. Probably they will try to have a good government and then call an election to get a majority.
Good. I want Quebec to leave Canada. Canada kowtows way too much to the 20% or so of Francophone residents. For example the Governor General is expected to be Francophone alternating with Anglophone- but it really should be a Francophone Governor general 1/4 of the time, not half.
And the harassment Anglophone residents of Quebec get is intolerable.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebec-language-police-harassing-small-town-1.179482
Store owners in a small town in West Quebec say they’re sick of being harassed by that province’s language inspectors.
Shawville is a predominantly anglophone community on the Ottawa River. Most business owners there advertise with English or bilingual signs. That prompts frequent visits from the language inspectors.
“They send these fines. And if you don’t do anything, they leave it for a year and they start over again. It’s just something on your mind all the time. People are starting to get a little upset about it,” says Barry Murray a Shawville store owner.
Yeah, I too would be morbidly curious to see a new North American nation spring up.
Ay. Go vote for it then.
And it will improve once PSPP and the anti-anglo culture warriors get their winning conditions?
ETA: It’s important to note that the vote share was evenly split:
- PQ 28%
- LIB 24.2%
- PCQ 20.7%
- QS 12.4%
- CAQ 13.4%
PSPP gets his win, but only with 28% of votes. And an overwhelming percentage who do not want another referendum. He’ll need to create his winning conditions if he hopes to be competitive in one.
It will be worse- but at least most Anglophones will just move out, since there will be only the French language (sorta kinda, a Quebecois in Paris will get laughed at).
Have you seen a map of the country? Quebec leaving the federation is a non-starter.
Since the vast majority of Québécois are native French speakers, their speaking French in their own province isn’t exactly kowtowing.
Governor general doesn’t do all that much in the way of governing, anyway, just as the monarch they represent does not either. I am curious, though, how you arrived at one quarter. The current prime minister has promised any new appointee to the office will be fully bilingual in both of Canada’s official languages.
Someone who refuses to obey the local law posting a complaint about the local law on Facebook is not very persuasive. You and he may call it harassment but it is actually enforcing a provincial code.
IMHO this is a bad idea for some of the reasons given in the Alberta independence thread.
The future direction of the U.S. is uncertain. As an American I hope for a good outcome. But trying to be objective, the most likely trajectory down here is instability with off and on excessive nationalism. A strong Canada and Mexico is needed to reduce risks when the U.S. tries to play off one neighbor against another.
No one is stopping people from moving out today. Quebec is richer for having them too. You cheer the dismantling of Canada because you are triggered by PQ culture trolls.
Starter or not, the majority of Québécois do not want to leave the federation.
Basically (roughly speaking), in Québec people have the “right” to conduct their daily business in French, so businesses have to put up signs in French. You can add other languages if you want, but you can’t just put up a sign only in English.
It is easy to dismiss this kind of language politics as trivial background noise, but I have been to, e.g., Catalonia and people can feel strongly about that sort of thing (dissing their language and culture in their own province, then Step 2 is e.g. maybe only 1/4 of people in Wales can speak Welsh, or that is the fear).
So ignorant American here - CAQ got nearly 14% of the vote but were so spread out that they won zero seats? And PQ with 28% of the vote is just 5 seats short of a majority, roughly 46 to 47%, of the seats? I get how the system works but that still seems … something?
Do folk like this system? Well probably when it benefits them they do …
I hate fptp. I hate it with all my might. I’ve written about it every election cycle.
Trudeau did not stick to his word. Good riddance to him. As for PSPP, Ruba Ghazal, the QS spokesperson, popped this exact question to him during one of the debates 2 weeks ago:
Ghazal: I want to ask Mr. Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon, does he commit to, if he is elected October 5th as Premier, to change the voting system?
I got Mr. Éric Duhaime’s (Conservatives) commitment. We know that Madame Fréchette and the CAQ betrayed their word. When it comes to the Liberals, they’re never interested for partisan reasons. So I turn around now to Mr. Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon. Do you solemnly commit yourself, here to the people, to change the voting system?
PSPP: Yes.
Ghazal: Good.
We’ll see if he backtracks, but the QS have the power to prop his minority government up or let it fall. And let’s be honest. This parliamentary result is a travesty and a shame in representative democracy.
Canada has federal, provincial and municipal elections. In federal elections, you vote for a local party representative, not directly for a prime minister. Federal and provincial “election districts” are called ridings, or comtés in Quebec. Parties are pretty powerful in Canada, and leaders dominate the parties.
The winner of each riding is the person representing a party, who gets the most votes. This is the “first past the post” (fptp) system. It is actually slightly unusual for the winner to have an actual majority of votes. You could get 15-20% of votes over the province or country and win very few seats, or none. Very different from proportional representation. Losing parties always complain they are going to change the system until they win, when they do nothing. (Although some areas, given a chance to consider proportional representation and ranked ballots have turned these down). Municipalities vote for mayor, councillors and trustees; these are not usually associated with parties, but are in some cities. Things like judges and the military are supposed to be apolitical.
Canadians often adopt a “throw the bums out” mentality. Parties have fairly similar views since they want to get elected and Canadians generally like health care, women’s rights, a degree of welfare state and free trade. Few want a politicized judiciary or politicians to debate things like abortion.
This Quebec election is not that surprising. CAQ has underperformed. The Quebec Liberals lost popularity. A minority PQ government is not likely to hold a referendum at this time, and has been successful at squeaking the wheel to procure grease. Quebec will continue to push boundaries through the notwithstanding clause. I certainly value Quebec culture and language, it is unquestionably a distinct society, although their treatment of English speakers and universities does leave much to be desired.
I saw this blurb about PQs referendum policy on Wikipedia so it looks like they at least have that in mind:
Interesting.
Seems like they want to avoid looking divided and vulnerable to a particularly rapacious neighbor.
There is no way that this parliamentary session survives to 2029. Minorities are inherently unstable; and PSPP’s PQ, in particular, has no real friend, maybe not even a temporary ally. It will fall.
Yes, I know, there are practical reasons, it is a bad idea. But a lot of Francophones want it.
Where did i say the opposite?
Simple math. 20% or so of Canada are Francophones, why do half of the Governor Generals have to be Francophones?
You can be bilingual and not be a Quebecois.
Of course it is. But a lot of Quebecois want it. It is a terrible idea, in fact. But they keep threatening it and wanting it, so maybe let them. Like Texas. 
Voting took place on 30 October 1995, and featured the largest voter turnout in Quebec’s history (93.52%). The “No” option carried by a margin of 54,288 votes, receiving 50.58% of the votes cast.[1] Parizeau, who announced his pending resignation as Quebec premier the following day, later stated that he would have quickly proceeded with a unilateral declaration of independence had the result been affirmative and negotiations failed or been refused,[2] the latter of which was later revealed as the federal position in the event of a “Yes” victory.[according t
2,308,360 voted YES to leaving, or 49.42%. Pretty close.
50.58%.
Instead of digging way back 31 years for that statistic, let’s use a poll from this year.
Remind me who said kowtow in this thread.
Two official languages for the country, thus a rotation between two. But that’s not what the PM has promised. He promised to appoint someone who is fully bilingual in both of Canada’s official languages.
Why not alternate between non-First Nations and First Nations persons? Protestants and Catholics? Blacks and Whites?
Better yet, go with the PM’s announced policy.
Deleted. I misunderstood the post.
“Fully bilingual” is difficult to achieve, among Canadian English speakers anyway, since most of them will never have a need for French. But since all of us had to have a certain amount of instruction in the French language at school (cripes, I took French from grades 5 through 13 in Ontario, but I liked learning it, so while I didn’t have to take it for that long, I chose to. I’m a bit of an outlier among English-speaking Canadians, most of whom dropped French as soon as they could), it shouldn’t be difficult to give the next appointee a crash course to bring them to the point where they are functionally bilingual at least.
My French language skills got me through France and elsewhere, back in the day when I did a lot of travelling through Europe. I’d need a refresher now, but if Carney wants to appoint me to the G-G’s position, I’d be happy to go through a crash refresher in French. Mr. Carney, are you listening? M. Carney, vous m’écoutez? 
But conversely, most Quebeckers speak English even if French is their first language, as a practical necessity of being part of North America. Thus insisting that a candidate for a federal government position be fluently bilingual heavily biases the selection pool in favour of Quebec.
The irony of a Quebecker being Governor General is that Quebec has traditionally not been very fond of the monarchy, since it reminds them that the Britain and not France won control over colonial Canada.
I would guess that this is due to some of the radical separatists – some of whom at one point sought secession through violent means – have mellowed with age. Plus the fact that Quebec has been allowed to take extraordinary measures to protect the French language and culture, some of which in my opinion are unconstitutional and prejudicial against the anglophone minority. But if it pacifies the radicals and prevents the breakup of Canada it’s worth it.
They may or may not know that these policies have hurt Quebec economically, but even if they know, they don’t care because they’re passionate about their culture. So be it. Montreal used to be the economic capital of Canada, aided by the fact that it was a port city. Now it’s Toronto. Montreal is still a great and beautiful city, but no longer a business powerhouse like Toronto.