I’m not feeling that disenfranchised, but yes, I do consider myself a Quebecer first and a Canadian second. I don’t see what the problem with this is. I’m still as much of a Canadian as you are. My experience of Canada is certainly different from yours, but it is equally Canadian. I may use French as a normal part of my every day, but that’s as Canadian as if I were in a place where I wouldn’t speak it once a year. Even though I’m not much of a flag waver, it’s true that at patriotic events I’d be more likely to wave the fleurdelisé than the Maple Leaf flag which I don’t really consider a symbol of my people, but that’s just as much of a part of the Canadian experience as anything else. I may get my news from media sources you’ve barely heard of, watch movies, go see artists and comedians you’ve never heard of; and I may not know things you think every Canadian should know, but our lives are still equally representative of Canada.
This is something else I find interesting. CBC seems to have sort of a bad reputation in English Canada, especially among conservatives, who see it as “socialist” or Liberal-leaning. But while most Quebecers get their TV news from TVA, Radio-Canada’s news programs and current affairs programs have a very good reputation among people of most political horizons. Bernard Derome, the immortal host of Radio-Canada’s Téléjournal, claims to have been approached by every political party except the Social Credit (and the ADQ) to serve as a candidate. He’s always declined. Radio-Canada is certainly where I get my news on television.
Radio-Canada doesn’t even show hockey anymore, though I think I’ve heard they’ll start showing it again.
It is important to understand that some of what Quebec wants and what Quebec does are indeed within Quebec’s powers. As they are within Ontario’s powers, or Alberta’s powers, or Nova Scotia’s powers. See the Constitution. The big sections to understand are ss. 91 and 92 (the division of federal/provincial powers sections), but not everything is covered in there. For example, much is made in English Canada about Quebec wanting to control its own immigration. But s. 95 of the Constitution allows any province, including Quebec, to make its own rules on immigration:
To put it as simply as possible, the other provinces don’t really care who comes in. But in deciding who comes to Quebec, Quebec is doing nothing wrong–it is exercising its rights according to the Constitution.
What the problem is, as I see it, is that most Canadians know very little about their Constitution. That’s kind of to be expected; in my experience, it is not taught at all in schools, and there isn’t any reason why its details should be. Those are for lawyers. Schoolchildren need to know how members are elected to Parliament, and what Parliament does, and so on; but division of powers questions are not touched upon at all. Canadians tend to know their Charter rights, but as for the rest of the document–nope.
While I cannot speak for all English Canadians, I can speak from the experience of living in both Ontario and Alberta. To put it as kindly as possible, CBC is ignored by most English Canadians. It is listened to/watched/quoted by the artsy types, by the intellectuals, and by the otherwise leftists, but Joe and Jane Sixpack Average English Canadian don’t waste their time on it at all. Many resent it, because it costs tax dollars that they pay, but they (in their view) get no benefit from it. Others resent a government broadcaster telling them what they should think. Yet others don’t like it because everything originates in Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver and doesn’t consider that the town of Buttfuck, Anyprovince even exists. (Hell, except for Quebec, Ontario, and sometimes British Columbia, even I would agree that you’d have a hard time believing other provinces exist, from what the CBC portrays.) Any way you slice it, I’d have to say that the average worker or farmer or low-on-the-totem-pole office worker in English Canada generally ignores CBC. Except, possibly, for hockey.
So have I got this straight. Harper wins a minority govt just a few weeks ago, and may feel that with the current economic problems, a majority govt would be a must have.
Only problem being the aforementioned previous election, so how do we get to spin the wheel again without looking like it was actually set in motion.
They pull some kind of budget shenanigans that every opposition party cannot ignore, bring back two old party warhorses to broker a deal that would form a coalition govt that is both legal and justified from their point of view, but at the same time have the actual canadian people view this as a parliamentary coup de tat.
While legally and morally the coalition govt should be allowed to form and govern, to a good many people, this is not a legitimate govt and we should head to the polls to end this one way or the other.
Monday rolls around, the govt falls and I my opinion the govgen will drop the writ and we go back to the polls.
Harper wins a slim majority to see us through the meltdown.
Other than the govgen dropping the writ, is that more or less how the dance card looks.
I don’t know. Harper is a crafty son of a bitch but this borders on conspiracy theory. The Liberals and the NDP don’t have all that much in common and neither of them can count on meaningful support from the Bloc. The only thing all 3 have in common is hatred for Harper and the Conservatives. Could Harper have played on that hatred to make them do something ill-considered? Possibly but I think it would be a Karl Rovian level of political genius that I don’t honestly think he’s capable of.
The person you’re describing here, IMO, sounds very well suited to a provincial legislature; someone who will be dedicated to doing what is best for his/her province, but who considers national priorities secondary. Such a person has no place in the federal government, however, because their priorities are incompatible with national policy making. That has nothing to do with language and everything to do with general attitude towards politics. Does it make you less Canadian? No. But I wouldn’t want you in federal office.
As Spoons noted, most folks outside of Ontario do not like or appreciate much of anything to do with the CBC. I can’t speak to the quality of the programming or reporters on the French channel, but I can say that it grows incredibly tiresome to watch the CBC news out here and see five Toronto-based stories for every not-Toronto-based story. It’s almost enough to make a person feel like he’s not even a part of his own country. Almost. And the shows that pass for entertainment, funded by our tax dollars are crap. Not so much “liberal” crap as simply crap. Little Mosque on The Prairie? Sophie? Are you shitting me? I mean, shouldn’t comedies have a little humour mixed in at some point? But I’m getting off topic…
Meanwhile, word is Harper will ask for a prorogue until the budget comes down in January. And on the radio this morning I heard that in a poll, 64% of respondents did not want Dion as PM. I am very interested to see what the GG decides to do on Monday…
I heard something interesting on the news yesterday. In the last few days the Quebec television industry has held a fair in Paris that will probably lead to some series being picked up by French channels. Apparently Quebec television has a very good reputation in France; it is known for its originality and for its low cost of production. Many of Quebec’s most popular and most critically acclaimed television series were broadcasted on Radio-Canada.
So, not to pick on Dread Pirate Jimbo in particular, but as the thread seems to have taken off in a direction about the merits of the CBC, I’d like to interject and say that I think that some in this thread represent views that may be a tad strong in their expressions about how “most” of English Canada or those outside of Ontario view the CBC. I think that there have been some fairly sweeping generalizations.
Additionally, someone earlier in the thread said that the CBC was not something that “Joe Sixpack” (again with the generalizations) watched. That may or may not be true, but I think that this statement does not address whether if true, they would be watching the equivalent on a non-CBC network. In other words, I’d question whether the fact that it is the CBC that’s the issue, or if it is the type of activity.
With respect to complaint about funding with tax dollars, tax dollars are ultimately directly and indirectly used to support many educational, cultural, recreational and sporting activities. It would seem to me a bit much to expect that there be universal or near universal appreciation of the initiative that is receiving support before funding is given. If so, well, when can I expect discontinuing funding of the Olympics?
This is one of those statements that, if you parse it, doesn’t really make any point, and is obviously wrong:
Joe Sixpack’s favourite show in Canada is Hockey Night in Canada. What channel is that on?
Anyway, when you consider the number of channels available to most Canadian viewers in the age of cable and satellite, it could be said that there isn’t any channel that any demographic watches. The viewership is split up in very small fractions amongst dozens of channels.
Yeah, most Canadians have no idea who Don Cherry or Ron McLean are, right?
Hockey Night In Canada is the world’s oldest sports-related television program still on the air. (According to that stellar Wiki source.)
ETA: How did this thread get sidetracked into a CBC appreciation thread? (I know there is in fact one started elsewhere, so let’s keep this to the matter at hand: the coalition vs. the Conservatives.)
Harper was kind of pleh, but he made his point. I figured he’d talk more about what he’s going to do instead of waving the separatist card. He looks odd when he gives a fake smile. I like the natural “closing in for the kill” grin he gets during Question Period, lol!
Dion…oh my, what can I say without hurting myself laughing. The cell-phone quality video. His blurry face. The “Hot Air” book on the shelf behind him. Oh, the endless hypocrisy by referring to “your government” and “your parliament”. That’s right, Dion, it’s OURS. We voted for the governing party and gave them a mandate to govern. Not YOU.
I lost track of how many times I laughed and couldn’t believe how he was giving such platitudes and being such a hypocrite. Unbelievable. And apparently his gang couldn’t get the tape to the media in time because “we’re not used to being the opposition.” Geez, it’s been almost 3 years, how much more practice do you need?
I don’t see how he could imagine picking up votes for this stunt. I admit I don’t think any of the people I’ve spoken politics with are extremely Conservative, but I think the prevailing thought is “WTF was he thinking???”
Why would you vote for a guy again when the last time he ground federal politics to a gear-stripping halt?
Well, to be fair, he didn’t grind anything to a halt – whether or not anything grinds to a halt has yet to be determined by the GG. One could also ask, why would you vote for any of the three guys who lost the election fair and square and then began plotting to take over anyway before they had any reason to cry non-confidence?
From what I have heard in my own circle of friends ,is that the opposition partys are stealing the pm ship after losing (not gaining actually) an election. Its that scenario where we go back to the polls and we have a record turn out and low and behold the conservatives come out with a small to medium majority and we dont bother with elections for the next five years.
Most of the people I’ve talked with are more disgusted with the Conservatives taping and releasing to the press that tape of an NDP caucus meeting than what the other parties did. I’ve never heard the word “Watergate” so many times in years…
Maybe I’m not following this super-closely, but IMO the time to organize a coalition is before the party in power loses a no-confidence vote, not after. And there doesn’t seem to be any question that he’d lose it.
