In the event of Quebec’s separation, what responsibility would it have to take with it, its share of Canada’s national debt?
If a newly independent Quebec declined to shoulder its share (however that was calculated - another mess, I’m sure) of Canada’s debt, what recourse, if any, would Canada have?
In the event of Quebec’s separation, how would Canada’s military capital (eg. tanks, planes, ships, …) be divided between the two countries?
Strictly speaking Quebec would owe none of the debt. The debt is owed by the Government of Canada, mucyh of it in the form of savings bonds. Quebec would, technically, be no more repsonsible for it than I am responsible for my parents’ mortgage… with the huge caveat below.
This sort of question would likely be settled BEFORE independence. Quebec cannot legally separate out of the blue; Canada is a sovereign nation. Unilateral, un-negotiated separation means civil war, which would relegate Canada’s debt to pretty low on the problems list.
In all likelihood, were a separation to be made, it would be negotiated, and assumption of debt would be part of it.
Quebec would really have no choice; avoiding assuming any debt would be ill received in financial market and would likely hurt the new country’s credit rating. Quebec would HAVE to borrow money; the government of Canada transfers well over $6 billion a year to Quebec as an “Equalization payment,” money entirely paid by the provinces of Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan, an amount that makes up ten percent of the Quebec government’s budget. That would have to be made up for somehow, plus you’ve got what would likely be very substantial costs in reorganizing the government.
Again, this would likely be a negotiated issue, but it would depend on what military capability Quebec wanted to retain.
Keeping some of the ships, planes etc. would be a substantial COST to Quebec with not a lot of obvious benefit. It costs a tremendous amount of money to maintain modern platforms like F-18s and missile destroyers; it’s a hell of a money sink, and those sorts of things need either major upgrades and overhauls (the fleet of F-18s is over 20 years old) or need to be replaced at exorbitant cost. I’m not sure what benefit Quebec would get from a quarter of the Navy or air force. Canada’s warships are state of the art, but what benefit do you get from having two or three of them? Or having 20 or 30 warplanes? And what happens 15 years from now when the F-18s need to be junked and you’re looking down the barrel of an invoice in the billions to replace them?
This is especially true given that Quebec would have some hard questions to ask concerning what military capability it wants to have; it wouldn’t be a member of NATO, so has no obligations there unless it chose to join, and in any event the Quebecois are generally less in favour of the use of military force than English Canadians. Or maybe the questions wouldn’t be so hard. Canada’s military, as it stands, is still more or less organized in a way that reflects its Cold War role, which was to be ready to fight in the North Atlantic and Western Europe. (Canada no longer maintains its base in Germany, but the Forces is still pretty much set up the same way in terms of the organizational structure.) That’s changing, but sloooooowly. The current government is finally doing some things to change that, and showing some awareness of what military challenges Canada might actually face - the war in Afghanistan has revealed a lot of this sort of thing. But, the truth is that Canada has not fully revisited the question of what military capability it wants in… well, since the Cold War.
Quebec, however, would be newly able to ask itself that very question. It might be the best course of action for Quebec to simply maintain a small security force, oriented towards anti-terrorism and border control activities, presumably initially armed with the usual stock of Canadian small arms.
The nationalization of electricity in Quebec has an important symbolic value. It represents wrestling control of our economy from the foreign investors who until then were controlling it, making huge profits that bled from the province. It symbolizes going from a nation of servants to a modern nation in control of its own destiny. Can you say that the creation of Ontario Hydro has the same nation-building signification?
And in any case, what I was saying is that it is understandable that the nationalization of our electrical system isn’t given the same importance, or isn’t seen as symbolically meaningful, in the rest of Canada. Because the rest of Canada is another nation, with other historical events that have a great symbolic significance that probably wouldn’t be obvious to Quebecers.
The bottom line is that Quebec gains immeasurably benefit from being part of Canada - more so than any other province, IMO. Six billion dollars a year in transfer payments is a big deal.
If Quebec were to seperate, it would lose that money. It would have to negotiate trade agreements, rights of travel and commerce through Canadian territory, defense agreements, etc. Quebec would suffer financially in a big way from being on its own. That’s why I find it hard to see threats of seperation as being anything other than a negotiating ploy and/or the expression of frustration and anger as the result of being a very different culture from the rest of Canada.
But there are similar incidents in the history of other provinces. Are you going to tell me that the introduction of medicare in Saskatchewan, in the face of vicious opposition and the doctor’s strike wasn’t every bit as important to the formation of Saskatchewan’s identity as your example was in Quebec? It’s indisputably the defining moment in Saskatchewan history and is a key part of our provincial identity. Are you going to tell me that the nationalization of electricity in Quebec is somehow more important because Quebec is a nation while Saskatchewan is just a province? That hints at exactly the attitude that so pisses people off out here. Quebec is unique and special, and things that happen in Quebec are uniquely significant, and the ROC is just a monolithic homogenous blob. Which is of course complete bullshit. I know that’s not exactly what you are trying to say, but it’s the inevitable implication of the idea. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba are inevitably lumped together as “the Prairies” in national discussions, and yet each province has a unique identity complete with different formative historical moments and different mythologies. Of course Quebec has a distinct identity and has criticial historic moments in its history. But so do we. Not just as the ROC, but as individual, unique, distinct provinces.
Look, I’m not entirely unsympathetic to the points you’re making in this thread. There is certainly some truth the Quebec as nation idea, and the import of the significant cultural divide between Quebec and English Canada. But the nationalization of electricity in Quebec? It may be an important part of Quebec’s provincial history, but it does no more to bolster Quebec’s claim to be a nation than the introduction of medicare would bolster a hypothetical claim to nationhood by Saskatchewan.
Since the federal government reserves itself the right to decide at what point they would have a moral obligation to negociate, you may very well be right. I’m also not seeing this happening in the near future. But I’m not willing to make long-term predictions.
I guess you’re right that the federal government would have refused to negociate any kind of sovereignty-association. At which point, I can’t say what Lévesque would have done. This refusal would probably have infuriated voters in Quebec, so maybe he could have then won a mandate simply to separate Quebec from Canada. But I’m not sure he would have wanted that, and I also don’t know what the federal’s response would have been to that. Trudeau has shown he doesn’t have any qualms about sending the army to Quebec.
On the other hand, Trudeau also seems to have been quite popular in Quebec at the time. I wasn’t alive at the time, so I can’t offer anything meaningful about what would have happened.
I can’t presume to speak for the PQ leaders. But what they wanted was an end to the duplication of government levels that prevented Quebec from taking control of its own policies. There was no way that this could be done through discussions with the federal government. So they set out to get a mandate from the population to repatriate the political power. I guess what you’re saying is that, if they had considered the probable reaction from the federal, they either should have accepted their fate as a Canadian province like any other, or asked for a mandate to get total independence. Well, maybe they should have chosen the second option. But the sovereignty movement was born out of a desire for sovereignty-association, so that’s what was put to referendum.
What I understand from reading this question is that the Quebec government has the right to declare independence after offering a new partnership to the federal government. This is what I understand in the current position of the PQ: they do not want to unilateraly declare independence, but reserve the right to do so if they consider that the federal doesn’t negociate in good faith.
As I said in my first post, there is probably at least 30 to 35% of the Quebec population who would support simple independence. Yes, that is not enough to ensure a victory for the Yes side. But no, it does not answer the OP. First, I don’t know what these numbers will look like in 10 or 20 years or so. There are indications that younger people are more likely to favour independence than older people. And second, any movement that can consistently get 30 to 35% approval is a strong political force. And, as I said, it means that even more people than that could under some conditions join the movement, or want, if not all the goals of the movement, at least part of them.
I have here a study done by sociologists Gilles Gagné and Simon Langlois of Laval University, and published in L’annuaire du Québec 2006 (Fides, Institut du Nouveau Monde). They argue, comparing surveys done in 1995 with ones done in 2005, that among francophones, new voters are more likely to support independence, while for the most part voters who support independence continue doing so while growing older. They also argue that this trend is also visible among native speakers of a non-official language, and even among anglophones. According to them, this is because francophones who voted for the first time before the 1960 election, and who are therefore older than 65 years old today, have had their political opinions formed while people around them still considered themselves as “French-Canadians”, while younger people have always considered themselves more as “Quebecers”.
I see your point, and I agree. In fact, the introduction of medicare in Saskatchewan, as far as I know, paved the way for Canada-wide health insurance, so we could see it as an important moment for Canada as a whole. But even if it weren’t the case, it could both be a defining moment for Saskatchewan and not really that important for the rest of Canada. However, see below.
Thank you. In fact, I think these are the most important points I’m making in this thread. I believe it is very important to understand them if we are to understand how Canada works (or doesn’t work, or could work).
Agreed. This said, I must say that the nationalization of electricity does have an important nation-building resonance in Quebec. It symbolizes the Quebec nation getting up and becoming masters of their own house. This, however, does not make it any more or less important than the introduction of medicare in Saskatchewan. And this nation-building significance is actually independent of the actual historical event; it could have happened – with some differences – even if Quebec wasn’t actually a nation, and it would still be a very important event in the province’s history.
And let’s not forget Alberta’s rich heritage and culture, which started when the first Albertan looked at a Chuckwagon and said, “You know, I’ll bet we could race those.”
I kid. I kid because I love.
Qubec has their own political party. It’s called the Quebec Bloc. A state having its own political party is dangerous to the union. The Quebec Bloc often plays spoiler to both sides of Canadian’s minority lead Canadian government. As a state Quebec has a different language. It’s French, and not all of them speak English. A nation that can not communicate with each other is a nation that lacks chemistry among states.
As an American, I am 100% for Canada, and do not support treasons types in Quebec. Just imagine how Quebec as a separate nation could open its door and undermined USA efforts.
The feeling is, Quebec Bloc politicians will wait for bad times, before brining up their separation movement. Canada has a very lethargic heath plan and sky high taxes. If hard times fall upon the providence of Quebec, we will see more talk on separation from the Union.
The party is called the “Bloc Quebecois.” Even if you were to translate that into English, it’s still “Bloc Quebecois.”
Quebec is not a “state.” Canada does not have “states.” Quebec is a province.
Good thing we don’t have states.
The country seems to function quite well with two official languages. It’s weathy and peaceful.
There are no significant number of “Traitors” in Quebec; the separatist movement has always been peaceful and has almost always advocated a negotiated separation, which is in effect the same as advocating constitutional change.
What the hell does this mean?
The Bloc has been “Bringing up their separation movement” since the day they were created. That is the point of the party. Most of that period of time, you might note, has been very economically favourable.
Holy shit. “Sky high taxes?” Riiiiight. Because my customers in upstate New York don’t pay THREE TIMES the property taxes I do relative to their property value… oh, no, wait, they DO pay three times the property taxes I do. I am always amazed at the little ways the U.S. tax system chips away at people. We pay more income and sales tax but at least there’s a certain honesty to that, as opposed to charging some poor bastard $7000 a year for taxes on his $250,000 house.
In fact, the federal government of Canada taxes Canadians less, per capita, that the federal government of the United States taxes Americans, per capita. It’s a very small difference, but Canadians do come ahead by about nine percent if my math is right (I’m going by official 2006-2007 budget projections for both governments, and assuming the Canadian dollar is worth 90 cents, and assuming populations of 33 million for Canada, 300 million for the USA.) The U.S. government also spends an additional 10% it does not actually have every year, which is just tax money that will have to be paid later.
Now, provincial taxes vs. state taxes might swing the balance in the USA’s favour, but that varies so wildly from place to place that really you cannot compare countries, you must compare jurisdictions.
Maybe Im getting cynical in my old age but whenever I look at these movements espousing a part of a developed westen democracy becoming independent from the nation as a whole it always seems to be a case of "were independant and a sovereign nation so dont you dare try and tell us what to do !O h but we still want our people to be able to live and work in YOUR country in large numbers when it suits us and of course were not going to make any credible efforts to pay for our own defence !We know your moral principles wont allow you to stand idly by if bad guys want to invade us. " The main benefactors of these independance movements appear to be the local politicians who eg. can get transformed from being county councillors to government ministers whilst doing exactly the same job of running exactly the same area of land only with hugely raised salaries and allowances plus the opportunities for little foreign shopping trips (oh yes im visiting the U.N. dont yer know) and the ego boosting paraphenalia that goes with it.The taoeshec(or however the hell you spell it lol ) the Irish primeminister has a fast car available with driver and a helicopter on the roof at all times 24/7 !er why? is that to release the strike codes for the nuclear weapons you dont have !or are you expecting an urgent phonecall from the world bank asking for your economic advice and the contribution of a few billion dollars from irish gold reserves that has never actually existed for eire ever! Or maybe its just that your numerous and well trained and well equipped navy/army/airforce ,may be called on to assist an area of the world suffering a humanitarian crisis ?oh sorry you dont actually have any sort of an airforce do you ?(bit remiss really for a nation surrounded by water !but there you go N.A.T.O. will defend the Irish even though they`re not members and contribute zilcho in the way of men ,money or equipment towards it )or for that matter you dont actually have very much in the way of numerous or very well trained navy or army do you ? It reminds me of a teenager who insists on leaving home to stand on his own two feet but goes back to mom for his meals and to get his laundry done and expects his dad to pay the rent on his apartment and both of them to look after him if he falls ill .And that my friends is exactly the same thing I think is going to happen if we ever get a “free Quebec”!
Funny, this seems to be the same attitude that many Americans have towards the British and French. You’re all just hopeless lazy socialist cultural snobs anyway, why not just drop this farcical notion of sovereignty, do what we tell you, (you can have your stinky cheese and your queen), and we’ll all be happier?