Define Nation

Huh? Does this make any sense....

Mr. Harper said that he respects the National Assembly's declaration that Quebec is a nation, but that Ottawa has no need to enter the debate."I recognize that the Quebec National Assembly has adopted that position. I don't know quite frankly what its legal significance is," he said, adding later that "it just seems to me to be a semantic debate that doesn't serve any purpose."

Nope but then again Mr. Haprocrite can claim not to be a lawyer which is good because even as an economist he is a failure. And he says Ottawa doesn't have to enter the nation state debate with Quebec. Gee I thought that was the debate. And considering repatriation of the Constitution, Meech Lake, the Charlottetown accord, it is far from semantic.

Nation hmm lets look that up shall we;

Nationalists define individual nations on the basis of certain criteria, which distinguish one nation from another; and determine "who is a member of each nation". These criteria might include a shared language, culture, and/or shared values which are predominantly represented within a specific ethnic group. National identity refers both to these defining criteria, and to the shared heritage of each group. Membership in a nation is usually involuntary and determined by birth. Nationalism sees most human activity as national in character. Nations have national symbols, a national culture, a national music and national literature; national folklore, a national mythology and - in some cases - even a national religion. Individuals share national values and a national identity, admire the national hero, eat the national dish and play the national sport.

and it should not be confused with the Nation as State;

Historians Benedict Anderson or the Communist author Eric Hobsbawm have pointed out that in fact, the nation-state precedes nationalism. According to their conception, nationalism is a creation of the nation-state, and not the reverse. For example, French nationalism emerged in the 19th century, once the French nation-state already constituted through the unification of various dialects and languages into the French language, and also by the means of conscription and the Third Republic's 1880s laws on public instruction. However, in countries divided into multiple states such as Germany or Italy, the sense of a common membership to the same cultural movement, as in the Volkisch movement, can be said to be nationalism, and in this case precedes the unification of the various states into the German or the Italian state.

One of the earliest, and perhaps oldest example of a nation state was the Dutch Republic (1581 and 1795).The Eighty Years' War that began in 1568, triggered a process of what we would now call "nation-building", the following circumstances/events were very helpful in this process:

And Quebec nationalism does not mean the end of Canada.It is the source of the greatest classic liberal (as in Thomas Paine the Rights of Man) political critique of the Canadian State that originated in the great Con that was the federation of 1867.

Coincidently both founding ruling classes in Pan-Canada; the English/Scottish and Irish Freemasons, and the French and Irish Catholics celebrate the summer solstice with St. Jean Baptiste/St. John the Baptist celebrations. They are the rites of Bourgeoisie nationalism.

'Fete nationale' a Canadian holiday: Harper As in Les Canadiens. Since the Canadian National anthem originated in Quebec as part of its St. Jean Baptiste celebrations.

And Quebec and Canada are federated nations, who also share a common colony; Haiti. That makes them both bourgeoise nations and Imperialist.

And behind the Harpocrites dismissal of the Quebec Nation as semantic, is his self professed status as autarch of the Canadian State.

And we know how anarchists feel about the State, and nationalism. They are last refuge of the scoundral.

The ever growing power of a soulless political bureaucracy which supervises and safeguards the life of man from the cradle to the grave is putting ever greater obstacles in the way of the solidaric co-operation of human beings and crushing out every possibility of new development. A system which in every act of its life sacrifices the welfare of large sections of the people, yes, of whole nations, to the selfish lust for power and the economic interests of small minorities must of necessity dissolve all social ties and lead to a constant war of all against all. This system has been merely the pacemaker for the great intellectual and social reaction which finds its expression today in modern Fascism, far surpassing the obsession for power of the absolute monarchy of past centuries and seeking to bring every sphere of human activity under the control of the state. Just as for the various systems of religious theology, God is everything and man nothing, so for this modern political theology, the state is everything and the man nothing. And just as behind the "will of God" there always lay hidden the will of privileged minorities, so today there hides behind the "will of the state" only the selfish interest of those who feel called to interpret this will in their own sense and to force it upon the people. Anarchosyndicalism by Rudolf Rocker - Chapter 1

But it is Rudolph Rocker (1873-1958) who, in Nationalism and Culture (1937), provides the fullest anarchist discussion of nationalism. To Rocker it is clear that 'The nation is not the cause, but the result of the state. It is the state which creates the nation and not the nation the state.' (28) This assertion becomes more plausible when he proceeds to distinguish between a 'people' - what Proudhon had called a 'folk-group' - and a 'nation'. 'A people', he explains, 'is the natural result of social union, a mutual association of men brought about by a certain similarity of external conditions of living, a common language, and special characteristics due to climate and geographic environment. In this manner arise certain common traits, alive in every member of the union, and forming a most important part of its social existence. The nation, on the other hand, is the artificial struggle for political power, just as nationalism has never been anything but the political religion of the modern state. Belonging to a nation is never determined, as is belonging to a people, by profound natural causes; it is always subject to political considerations and based on those reasons of state behind which the interests of privileged minorities always reside.' And in a passage relevant to the manifestation in recent years of both 'sub-nationalisms' and the nascent 'supra-nationalism' of some ideologists of the EEC, Rocker insists: 'A people is always a community with narrow boundaries. But a nation, as a rule, encompasses a whole array of different peoples and groups of peoples who have by more or less violent means been pressed into the frame of a common state.' 'National states' (he concludes) 'are political church organisations...All nationalism is reactionary in its nature, for it strives to enforce on the separate parts of the great human family a definite character according to a preconceived idea...Nationalism creates artificial separations and partitions within that organic unity which finds its expression in the genus Man.'Resisting the nation state

Also See: Quebec

A History of Canadian Wealth, 1914.

Rebel Yell

Origins of the Captialist State In Canada

Voting for Capitalism On January 23

The Neo Liberal Canadian State

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The Bankruptcy of Liberal Federalism

The release of the testimony from the Gomery commission this week pushed the Popes funeral off the newspaper headlines on Friday. Scandal battering Liberals, poll shows

Damn good thing too, there was enough 24 hr coverage on TV to bore one to tears, with the platitudes given to the leader of this outmoded medieval institution.

On to Gomery, well lets see what has been revealed is that now that Jean Brault of GroupAction spilled the beans last week everyone is now singing like stool pigeons. The Chretien cone of silence has been broken open. And now it comes out that as PMO hack Alain Renault says "It's just the way the world works".

Yep it goes like this. Facing a crisis from doing little or nothing around the 1995 Quebec Referendum the Liberals under PM Chretien panicked after the vote went 49% Yes 51% No. Along with the 1993 election the referendum bankrupted the provincial Liberal organization in Quebec. The Federal Government, an arm of the Liberal Party, under Chretien created a sponsorship slush fund to promote Canadian Unity in Quebec.

The official opposition was the Alliance Party of Canada, which had no base in Quebec nor did the NDP. So the Liberals being the only Federalist party in Quebec naturally assumed that they were THE FEDERALISTS. That the Liberals see themselves, not the Government, as the voice of federalism is key to this mess.

Ever since Trudeau, the Liberals have had a vision of a Quebec within Canada, while the Parlimentary carreerists in the old Tory party and the NDP were weak sisters backing up the Liberal lead against the Quebec nationalists.

With the success of the PQ in coming to power in Quebec despite Trudeau, the two Quebec referendums, the collapse of the Tories into the Alliance and the Bloc Quebecois scared the bejessus out of the Quebec Liberals under Chretien.

But the real problem was that the party organization in the province was broke. So the sponsorship fund to promote Canadian Federalism, read the Liberals, in Quebec became a slush fund to refinance the party.

Now this is business as ususal in Quebec, the Tories under Brian Mulroney did the same thing on a smaller scale and got caught. The business class in Quebec like Bombadier always lobbies the Feds for corporate handouts, it is the legacy of Trudeau Liberalism. And even the PQ is now accused of accepting brown envelopes of cash to approve GroupAction contracts.

Of course this kind of brown envelope politics is not limited to Quebec, it has been practiced by the Liberals in areas like Hamilto, Ontario too. Both Hamilton and Quebec have strong organized crime families that have allegedly been involved with the Liberals through their ties to certain ethnic communities. And this has been the case in Quebec where some of those who are accussed of money laundering for the party have last names like Gagliano, Morselli,and Mignacca.

Was this approved by the PMO under Chretien,? Well the bread crumbs lead that way, but the former PM has plausable deniability built into this affair. He can claim he left his Ministers in charge, and not being one to micro-manage he can say he didn't know. He also has the Liberal arrogance of being able to say, as he has, that only the Liberals fight for Federalism, that Federalism (Trudeau's concept of it anyway) is the Liberal Party.

And that is the subtext to this whole affair, only the Liberals represent all of Canada and the Trudeau vision of a Federalism that includes Quebec, whether they want it or not. The Tories under Brian Mulroney never could say that since they were an amalgamation of soft Quebec Nationalists, right wing populist Western Canadians and Bay Street boys.

The NDP has a policy recognizing Quebec's right to self determination but their 'real politick' is two faced, the elected MP's are all quizzlings for the Liberal Federalist vision. So the only real Federalists are the Liberals, and whatever they do to save Canada from Quebec nationalism is ok.

Whenever the Liberals talk about Federalism it is their federalism, their party policy that integrated the Quebec ruling class into Canada after the Quiet Revolution. It is the continuation Trudeau's war against the Quebec nationalism of the unions and the left.

Which is also why the NDP has been historically locked out of Quebec, even though they are a social democratic party. The PQ and the BQ have the support of Quebec's unions and the left. And their social democatic parties are to the left of the NDP. The BQ is under the leadership of Duccepe who is a Marxist Lenninist and a labour activist.

While the NDP under Smiling Jack Layton a former city councilor, remains the voice of Ed 'I'm a social democrat' Broadbent and the CLC. During the referendum the English Canadian Unions and the NDP joined in mass demonstrations waving the Canadian flag in Quebec and calling for a No vote.

Yep, the Federal Liberals view themselves as the only party capable of maintaining Quebec in Canada. And if that takes creasing some palms, well so be it. Of course it helps when the pork also gets shared back to bail the party out of it's fiscal mess.

This is all the result of the politics of statist federalism, that refuses to reconstitute Canada as a partnership between Quebec and the Rest of Canada. It is the real legacy of Trudeaumania.

Federalism as it is now constituted is a failure. It requires a strong central state, willing to slap down the provinces, which Trudeau was willing to do ("just watch me") and his descendants have no stomach for.

The weak tea federalism of the post-Trudeau era has created the mess we are in. Mulroney tried to bandage over with recognition of Quebec's distinct status not as a nation but as a province, with powers different from other provinces cause it is, the home of one of the Canadian State's founding peoples.

This has left the door open to other provinces like Alberta to challenge the Feds over provincial rights and for the Right Wing Federal Tories to promote a decentralized federalism contrary to the Trudeau vision. Liberaltarian Stephen Harper offers a vision of Canada that would be the creation of ten provincial fifedoms. His version of Canadian Federalism is simply neo-Feudalism.

In fact Trudeau's Federalism is not that of the classical anarchists but the reverse, he stands Bakunin on his head and proposes a new Canadian Nationalism, which had a strong central liberal state in opposition to Quebec nationalism.

"In the great tide of nationalism in the nineteenth century, there was a handful of prophetic and dissenting voices, urging a different style of federalism. It is interesting, at the least, that the ones whose names survive were the three best known anarchist thinkers of that century: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. The actual evolution of the political left in the twentieth century has dismissed their legacy as irrelevant. So much the worse for the left, since the road has been emptied in favour of the political right, which has been able to set out its own agenda for both federalism and regionalism." Colin Ward. The Anarchists Sociology of Federalism

But Quebec does not want special provincial status and never has, it wants state hood, within a new regional confederation. And that could open up a real confederation, not only between the so called English Canadian State and the Quebec State but also with the Aborignal peoples, who were not included as 'founding peoples' of the modern Canadian state.

If this Federalist scandal proves anything it proves that trying to keep a former colonial state under British parlimentary rule founded in 1867 and revised in 1967 is a failure despite Trudeaus best efforts.

We need a new Canadian Confederation, one that recognizes citizens assemblies, the Quebec nation, the aboriginal and metis nations, that eliminates the Senate and allows for greater involvement of political movements through proportional representation. All this a liberal state could accomplish.

But a Liberal state never will.

From bad to worse: MPs fear Gomery revelations could lower public trust

Bruce Cheadle

Canadian Pres

Sunday, April 10, 2005

OTTAWA (CP) - Veteran New Democrat MP Bill Blaikie, an ordained United Church clergyman, has never felt a personal whiff of scandal in his 26 years in federal politics.

But the affable Winnipeg MP still fears the stench rising from Justice John Gomery's sponsorship inquiry will taint him and every other federal politician forced to call Ottawa home these days.

"Obviously, my hope would be otherwise: that people would resolve to rise up and do something about it," Blaikie said in a weekend interview from his Transcona constituency office.

"But I think there's a very real danger that it increases cynicism."

It's an almost universal lament as the inquiry unearths a vast cache of riveting testimony alleging Liberal party corruption that is unparalleled in recent Canadian political history.

"People are going to lose faith even in voting," offered NDP Leader Jack Layton.

For a profession that consistently polls at the bottom in public trust rankings, right behind used car dealers, the sponsorship scandal is like a cruel punchline.

Stephen Harper agrees. Federalism in peril: Harper, Liberals to blame And so does the public; Opinions range from 'Liberals must go' to 'all politicians are corrupt'

The Language Of Racism

Gee I guess it misses something in the translation. Say it in Quebecois and it isn't racist. It is only racist if you say it in English.

Mr. Boisclair was speaking French to a classroom of university students when he referred to "yeux bridés," which translates as slanted or slanting eyes. He suggested yesterday the term might have a more negative connotation in English than in French.

"I'm doing politics, not linguistics," he said, adding that he believes "Quebeckers are 100 per cent behind me" on the issue. Even Mr. Boisclair's rivals said they think he did not intend any malice.

"He might have used a better choice of words, but I know Mr. Boisclair enough to know his intention was not to be disrespectful," Liberal Leader Jean Charest said.

This is the height of unilinqual absurdity. But while the Quebecois Nation and its Nationalists, those Pure Laine unilinqual French speakers who proudly celebrate their colonial past as the French Imperialists in North America, but bemoan their later status as servants in their own house, try and cover up the fact that both Nations, those of the British and the French Imperialists are inherently racist.

This is the contradiction of Quebec Nationalism, as it is of English Canadian Nationalism. Of any Nationalism, period. This is not merely a matter of linguistics. It is a reflection of Imperialism. Canada being formed by two colonial powers, England and France, whose international battles for continental and global superiority over each other in the 18th and 19th Centuries shaped our country's political landscape.

The Quebecois of the old Pure Laine families despite their later poverty, remain a colonial petit-bourgeois ideological force. They were the founding families, the mercantilist and land owning classes. Today they are the farmers in Quebec, they live in the rural ridings of the townships and they gave their support to the Duplesis regime and later to the Creditistes, the Social Credit Party of Quebec. Just as their rural right wing counterparts in English Canada did with their support for the Social Credit party in Alberta and Federally across Canada.

The later slogan of the Quiet Revolution, Masters in Our Own House, belies this inherent old colonial French thinking. While touted by the left in Quebec as being progressive, it is not. It is a sop to the reactionary thinking of nationalism of pre-confederation, of the days before the battle of the plains of Abraham. The Quebecois of the townships today are the reactionary nationalists, who support the PQ, BQ and the ADQ as well as the Charest Liberals to a lesser degree.

In another article I will deal with the so called social democratic and left wing of nationalist politics in Quebec and why they have been a failure as a socialist movement.

Boisclair's racist comments, his refusal to apologize, bespeaks the reactionary nationalism of the colonialist mentality of the petit-bourgeoisie of Quebec. It was clear in statements made by PQ leader Jacques Parizeau, after the 1995 referendum, where he blamed Anglophone,immigrant and Jewish Quebecers for the loss of the vote.

Boisclair's comments must be seen in this light. That nationalism in Quebec is like ruling class nationalism everywhere, it is based on a distinct linguistic or ethnic national identity. Despite not being Masters In Their Own House, once they became masters they became the oppressors. This can be seen with Bill 101, and the underlying politics of nationalism in Quebec.

There is the Quebecois, the national petit-bourgoise that dates itself back to the colonial period of Canada's history, and then there are Quebecers. The latter being the English and immigrants who are not Pure Laine. They are bilingual, if not multilingual, the Pure Laine Quebecois has one language, one heritage, and is one people; the French Speaking.

This is what underlined Harpers stunning about face last fall when he recognized this fact. His Transportation Minister Lawrence Cannon, a Pure Laine Quebecois, though bilingual, said as much. The recognition of the Quebecois, as a nation as a people, was not a recognition of the diversity of Quebec in its modern form, but of the real ruling class in Quebec, the petit-bourgeoisie whose roots are in New France.

In English Canada the counterparts to the Pure Laine Quebecois are the old school nationalists, the reactionaries of the right. Like those who in the 1930's supported the KKK in Alberta; the Orange Lodge of Protestants, and from the ranks of some of those in Freemasonry. They were more concerned with French Catholic influence in 'English' Canada then they were about blacks, jews, or other immigrants (though these too were part of their opposition to immigration of Non-English, that is non-British from the Grand Old Empire, to Canada).

In the 1960's and through out the following decades the defended the old Ensign, with it's union jack, against the New Canadian Flag. They viewed the Liberals as the party of infamy, being the party of Quebec and of immigrants. Theirs was the good old party of the Conservatives, Arthur Meighen's party, not the later Progressive Conservative party of Diefenbaker, that is not an English name is it?

During the 1970's the racist reactionary right embraced the less offensive language of promoting Anglo Saxon Values. They hid their anti-Bilingualism and their anti-immigrant racism, indeed even their antisemitism, behind their supposed support for all things English in Canada. The old Ensign, the term 'Dominion of Canada', the monarchy, the fact Canada was one country under the Queen and had one official language; English, and one religion Christianity.

They attacked bilingualism and bi-culturalism, and Trudeau, as a conspiracy to change Canada into something un-British. When Ukrainian Canadians in the Liberal party pushed for a broader definition of Canada as being multicultural, they opposed that as well. Again for being an attack on Anglo Saxon, British Canada.

Later in the 1980's they added another term to their definition of themselves as an oppressed minority defending the old Empire values; Celtic-Anglo-Saxons. All this was a clever cover for the fact they were the same old racists, anti-immigrants, anti-Semites and anti-Quebec.

What they hold in common, these modern reactionaries of the Pure Laine in Quebec and those supporting the Dominion of Canada,is they base their politics on the old days of Upper and Lower Canada. Key to this is their common wish to be pure, to be unilingual. To be members of the old Imperial Empires, be they British or French.

These movements are inherently reactionary and conservative, in a Burkean fashion.

Modern Canadian Nationalism arose in the 1960's as did its counterpart in Quebec. Both were ostensibly left wing and social democratic. Where the Quebecois saw English colonial power as the enemy, Canadian nationalists saw American Imperialism as the enemy, since the English Imperial power collapsed after WWII, replaced by the new American Century.

And while both the Quebec Nationalists and their Canadian counterparts were predominately progressive and left wing through out the sixties and seventies, the old right wing nationalists were still powerful social forces, especially in the rural West and in the Quebec Townships.

What these reactionaries shared in common was a hatred of all things that were bi-lingual or multi-cultural. By their conservative nature they opposed all forms of modernization, of plurality, they wanted to retain their unique historical unilingual cultures.

There is an undercurrent of unilinqualism being promoted by the Conservative Federal Government in Ottawa today. And it is growing across Canada. English to be spoken in the ROC and French to be spoken in Quebec. A return of the two Solitudes.

The BQ in parliament speak in unilinqual Quebecois, several of Harpers ministers speak unilinqual Quebecois, just as many of his MP's are unilingual English speakers. Several of his cabinet ministers make a point of speaking English only though they are bilingual.

There is a transformation going on in Canada, that the parliamentary recognition of the Quebecois as a people, a nation, underscores, it is the death of bilingualism and bi-culturalism in the Federal State. This can be seen in the changes occurring in the linguistic programs in the Canadian Military, which the BQ and Liberals have pointed out in the house.

Minister O'Connor outlined the Department of Defence's new Official Languages Transformation Model. “During the last decade, the previous Liberal government never addressed the problems inherent to the previous universal approach to official languages within the Department of Defence. The Official Languages Transformation Model brings a new, more focused approach to bilingualism, which better takes into account the unique and distinct operational structure of the Canadian Forces. For example, senior officers will be held up to a much higher standard than in the past,” explained the Minister. “And the Model is in keeping with Canada's New Government's commitment to strongly defending our linguistic duality.”

“The goal of the Model is to ensure that National Defence personnel are led, trained, and supported in their official language of choice, thus better meeting the Department's legal obligations under the Official Languages Act. This will include requiring senior officers to be bilingual, when they are serving in units or functions designated as bilingual,” the Minister added.

The Conservatives are promoting two Canadian languages, not bilingualism and bi-culturalism, since that is a Liberal bugaboo, a much hated left over of the Trudeau era. The Harper Conservatives roots are in the old Social Credit party of Alberta, both provincial and Federal, the Reform party and its links to the reactionary right wing I spoke of earlier.

The are willing to accept two language groups in Canada, as long as they are unilingual. They have always opposed multiculturalism and bilingualism.

This new unilingualism can be seen in this recent incident in Alberta.

Poor English costs Quebecer his Suncor job

A Quebec ironworker is accusing Suncor of discrimination after he was fired for poor English, but a spokesman for the oil giant says poor communication can be dangerous.

The dismissal prompted a second Quebecer to quit Suncor in protest and has incensed the local ironworkers union, which is demanding Suncor do more to accommodate French-speaking tradesmen.

"They aggressively recruit labourers from China, Mexico and Germany, but won't hire us because our English isn't great," journeyman steelworker Marco Pelletier of Cowansville, Que., told the Sun in a French-language interview.

Iron Workers Local 720 will file a human rights
complaint against Suncor for firing a French speaking iron worker for speaking
poor English. Suncor's decision to terminate a qualified worker because of language is
discrimination based on ancestry and place of origin. Such discrimination is
prohibited under Alberta's Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act.
Carol Rioux, of Gaspesie, Quebec, was fired for failing English-language
orientation tests. He has been an ironworker for 25 years.

While Suncor claims that it is a safety issue, the reality is that they failed to provide instruction or training in both Canadian official languages. Something that is illegal under federal law.

One can find French and English on every cereal box in Canada, but Suncor claims it cannot provide the same for French speaking Canadians. Instead it fired the worker.This new uniligualism is the Asymmetrical Federalism being promoted by the Conservative government in Ottawa.

This unilingual asymmetrical federalism is racist, as Boisclair has shown, it is not the vision of Canada that the great Quebecois politician and classic liberal Louis- Joseph Papineau envisioned back in 1867, when he predicted a pluralistic Canada and Quebec which embraced new immigrants in particular the Chinese, whom he never called;"yeux bridés".

Very blind are those who speak of the creation of a new nationality, strong and harmonious, on the northern bank of St Laurent and the Great Lakes, and who are unaware of or denounce the major and providential fact that this nationality is already very well formed, great, and growing unceasingly; that it cannot be confined to its current limits; that it has an irresistible force of expansion; that in the future it will be more and more made up of immigrants coming from all the countries of the world, no longer only from Europe, but soon of Asia, of which the overpopulation is five times more numerous and no longer has any other outfall than America; composed, says I, of all races of men, who, with their thousand religious beliefs, large mix of errors and truth, are pushed all by the Providence towards this common rendez-vous that will melt in unity and fraternity all of the human family.

1867 Speech of Louis-Joseph Papineau at the Institut canadien

For related articles see:

Racist ADQ

Whipping Boy

White Multiculturalism

The New Conservative Racism

Shameless

Does Bilingualism Matter?

Should Liberal Leader Be Bilingual

PET Would Not Be Amused

Asymmetrical Federalism

Destroying the Federation

Another Fascist Bites the Dust

A History of Canadian Wealth, 1914.

Historical Memory on the Eve of the Election

Social Credit And Western Canadian Radicalism

The Bankruptcy of Liberal Federalism

Rebel Yell

Social Credit

Western Canadian Populism

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Shameless

This is my reply to Netjin's blog attack; Eugene Plawiuk, the shame of the Canadian blogosphere

Netjin took issue with my criticisms of Dion, Elizabeth May , The Green Party and my critique of Catholic economic and political ideologies like corporatism and distributism.

Quite correctly he and others have pointed out that Elizabeth May is an Anglican. However last time I checked Anglicanism is simply another form of Catholicism, albeit based on the English Crown. My point about May wasn't whether or not she was Catholic but that she was influenced by Catholic theories of economic justice. Anyways here is my reply.

My my where to begin. Well lets begin with the wonderful book Bilingualism Today French Tomorrow, which as you correctly pointed out is the basis of the Western Canadian Seperatist Ideology.

It was published and circulated in the late seventies amongst the right wing rabble in Southern Alberta, home of the COR, WCC and Reform parties, as well as the old stomping grounds of Social Credit.

When I went to the University of Lethbridge and was on the student newspaper I exposed the right wing Birchite movement amongst the folks there that was quite active. This was several years before the Keegstra affair.

The anti-Cantolic bias of the right has existed in Alberta since the 1930's when the KKK was strong in the province. While attacking Jews and Blacks, though there were few of the latter around to focus on, the KKK focused its attacks on French Canadians and Catholicism.

Since these right wing movements in the West past and present are forms of militant Anglo Saxon Protestant Nationalism this should come as no surprize.

So am I biased because I point out that Mormonism and the right wing Dutch Reformed Church are strong in this region, hence their anti-Catholic, anti-black, anti-gay, bias? I think not.

Nor should it come as any surprize that at the same time in Quebec the Right Wing Fascist movement of Arcand was anti-semitic anti-immigrant anti-English and Pro French, Pro Catholic and Pro Quebec Nationalism.

If Liz is an Anglican fine, however in the news article I linked to she credited Moses Coady as the source of her ecocnomic ideology, and then I went on to point out that Coady promoted Distributism a Catholic alternative to Socialism and Capitalism, the original Third Way.

Third Way politics of the Catholic social movements have always been both opposed to and a response to socialist workers movements. Thus they have been usually the basis for fascism. The Blair/Clinton Third Way was simply liberalized statism, on the other hand the Real Third Way movement is the Neo-Nazi's, who have embraced Green and Anti-Globalization politics.

So they can be progressive and they can be conservative, depending on whose promoting the ideology. This is also the problem that Liberation Theology faced, and its inherent contradiction, but that is a tale for another time.

In case you did not get it, and apparently you didn't I oppose all nationalism, and especially hypocrtical nationalism or the panderings to nationalism.

As in the case of the phoney bilingualism debate.

As for Quebec nationalism it is Catholic in origin, it is fascist in practice as we witness in the Quebec of Arcand and Duplessis, it is not the idelogy of liberalism, which is reflected in the great Canadian liberal Joseph Papineau, whom I have blogged about many times.

When it became left wing, it was the FLQ, while spouting left wing rhetoric its practice of misplaced urban guerrilla warfare placed it in the fascist camp.

I have criticized Trudeau for his inversion of classical anarchist theories of federalism and yet I have also praised his liberalism and even his libertarianism.

Political movements like the Green Party and the Social Credit party, are populist, pandering to a broad base, thus subject to no clear political philosophy, containing within themselves left wings and right. It is this contradition I try and point out.

I remember years ago meeting a left wing Social Creditor, who loved reading Lenin. Because Lenin exposed the financial cabal that ran capitalism. Which cabal, well the Rothchilds of course. Yoiks.

I guess I am a contrarian, and one that is shameless about it.

I will call a spade a spade even if everyone insists its a shovel.

The debate continues in the comments at Netjin.


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Bouchard's Bankrupt Nationalism

This should come as no surprise except perhaps to those leftists that still see Quebec Nationalism or Soverignty as the road to socialism. In fact Quebec nationalism is merely the creation of another capitalist market to compete with other national capitalisms in North America. In this case Bouchard true to his bourgoies roots as a nationalist and a capitalist, who came out of the Mulroney Tories to create the BQ wanted to move the PQ to the right. A merger of the right wing ADQ with the PQ would be like the merger of the old Reform/Alliance with the NDP. His recent manifesto from the right shows that this is his agenda still. Once again Quebec Nationalism offers nothing to the working class in Quebec except the rule of petit-burgoise shop keepers, carrerists, and opportunists.
The sooner they learn this the better off we all will be, as this is one of the most militant working classes in Canada. A militant working class that could unite the rest of the country in rebellion.

Bouchard eyed PQ-ADQ merger

Quebec — Just before he became Quebec premier, Lucien Bouchard invited the Action démocratique du Québec party to merge with the Parti Québécois after the 1995 referendum on sovereignty, ADQ Leader Mario Dumont says in a book released yesterday.

The statement underscores Mr. Bouchard's conflicting views with his party.

In the book, Mr. Dumont, 35, writes that Mr. Bouchard, who became PQ leader in early 1996, offered him a cabinet position -- which "would have meant the disintegration of the ADQ" -- in a bid to transform the PQ into a moderate nationalist party seeking political autonomy rather than independence.

Right Wing Nationalism

The man who proclaimed his support for Alberta Separatism with Firewall Alberta has again shown Quebec that he can embrace their 'nationalism' for his cause of decentralizing federal power in Canada. Just as he can embrace the concept of provincial rights for Alberta.

After all the pure laine nationalism of the Quebecois, as exemplified by the ADQ, has the same reactionary base as the right wing separatism of the Reform/Alliance coalition that is the Stephen Harper Party today. It shares a common political economic ideology of the petite bourgeois middle class and rural farmers. And in Quebec it embraces the idea of racialism and the exsitance of a 'French' race which is of course the White Race. Just as it's counter parts in Alberta share the idea of the White British Race. This is the same base that made up it's historic predecessors of the twentieth century; the fascist movement.

And what we have in Stephen Harper is an ideologue with the absolutist power of the PMO to reshape Canada in his image just as Trudeau had done before him. His agenda is to stay in power, and to recreate the Canadian State according to the vision of his pals in the Calgary School. The party is irrelevant, except as a vehicle for him to maintain his power as autarch.

Harper in Quebec to woo ADQ supporters

He also said his move to recognize the Québécois as a nation within a united Canada has proved critics who said the motion would endanger national unity wrong. “The philosophy of this government is the very antithesis of the centralizing philosophy of the successive Liberal regimes of [Pierre] Trudeau through to his successor, [Stéphane] Dion,” Mr. Harper told the gathering.

Nationalism -- A Political Religion
Rudolph Rocker


That modern nationalism in its extreme fanaticism for the state has no use for liberal ideas is readily understandable. Less clear is the assertion of its leaders that the modern state is thoroughly infected with liberal ideas and has for this reason lost its former political significance. The fact is that the political development of the last hundred and fifty years was not along the lines that liberalism had hoped for. The idea of reducing the functions of the state as much as possible and of limiting its sphere to a minimum has not been realised. The state's field of activity was not laid fallow; on the contrary, it was mightily extended and multiplied, and the so-called "liberal parties," which gradually got deeper and deeper into the current of democracy, have contributed abundantly to this end.

In reality the state has not become liberalised but only democratised Its influence on the personal life of man has not been reduced; on the contrary it has steadily grown. There was a time when one could hold the opinion that the "sovereignty of the nation" was quite different from the sovereignty of the hereditary monarch and that, therefore, the power of the state would be awakened. While democracy was still fighting for recognition, such an opinion might have had a certain justification. But that time is long past; nothing has so confirmed the internal and external security of the state as the religious belief in the sovereignty of the nation, confirmed and sanctioned by the universal franchise. That this is also a religious concept of political nature is undeniable.

Mussolini's liberal clamour stopped immediately as soon as the dictator had the state power in Italy firmly in his hands. Viewing Mussolini's rapid change of opinion about the meaning of the state one involuntarily remembers the expression of the youthful Marx: "No man fights against freedom; at the most he fights against the freedom of others. Every kind of freedom has, therefore, always existed; sometimes as special privilege, at other times as general right."

SEE

Bernard Lord And Two Solitudes

White Multiculturalism

Denis Lebel Nationalist

Canada and Quebec Two Tory Solitudes

Bouchard's Bankrupt Nationalism

Conservatives Orwellian Language Politics

The Tories Two Solitudes

Corruption, nationalism and capitalism

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FIRST READING: Is Alberta the new Quebec?

Tristin Hopper - NATIONAL POST

Danielle Smith celebrates at the BMO Centre in Calgary following the UCP leadership vote on Thursday, October 6, 2022.© Provided by National Post

The joke has been made quite often in recent weeks that Alberta and Quebec politics appear to have switched places.

Quebec – whose politics were once a decades-long struggle between sovereigntists and federalists – has now transitioned seamlessly into voting for an all-powerful, centre-right monolith.

And Alberta – which spent 44 straight years under the rule of the monolithic Progressive Conservatives – now has the most sovereigntist premier in its history.

On Monday, Quebec delivered an absolutely crushing re-election victory to Coalition Avenir Quebec, the big tent conservative-for-Quebec party headed by disaffected former separatist Francois Legault. The election also utterly demolished the Parti Quebecois, the province’s tradition standard-bearer for sovereigntist sentiment; they only got three seats.

Four days later, a leadership vote by the Alberta United Conservative Party confirmed Danielle Smith as the province’s premier-designate. The one-time leader of Alberta’s upstart Wildrose Party, Smith’s political comeback was due in part to her promise to champion an Alberta Sovereignty Act that would empower the province to govern itself “as a nation within a nation.”

But the wild rose and the fleur-de-lys aren’t so much trading places as they’re becoming mirror images of one another. Both Legault and Smith now share a common mission of aggressively seizing as much power as possible from Ottawa, but without all the red tape of literally trying to separate.

The Alberta Sovereignty Act was modelled to mimic Quebec’s unique level of control over its own affairs, something that Smith said specifically in an August National Post op-ed. “It would essentially give Alberta the same power within confederation that Quebec has,” she wrote.

Among other things, Quebec has control over its immigration, including the power to select the criteria and rate at which immigrants move to the province. Quebec also collects its own income taxes, rather than having the Canada Revenue Agency do it by proxy.

Quebec is also the most enthusiastic user of the Notwithstanding Clause, the section of the Constitution that allows provincial governments to ignore the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This has been used most recently by the Legault government to head off Constitutional challenges against Bill 21, which bans religious garb for anyone in the civil service, and Bill 96, which polices mandatory use of French in the private sector.

Legault’s Coalition Avenir Quebec was founded in 2011 with the stated mission of pursuing unapologetic Quebec nationalism without advocating for outright separation. The pitch has resonated, and the explosive CAQ victory this week was due in part to the fact that so many former separatists have flocked to the CAQ banner.

In 2021, the CAQ even passed a bill proposing to unilaterally change the Canadian constitution to mention “la nation québécoise” and to state that said nation had only one official language.

And for Smith – and the United Conservative Party faction who voted for her – it’s this view of nationalism that has proved most attractive.

“Quebec has asserted it is a nation within a nation … Under my leadership, Alberta will too,” Smith wrote in August.

Despite any emerging political similarities between the two, Quebec and Alberta continue to harbour a raging mutual dislike, usually over the issue of money.

In a Leger poll from just last month, Albertans were found to lead the pack among Canadians who harboured the most resentment towards Quebec.

In 2019, Quebecers were asked by the Angus Reid Institute to rank the provinces that they deemed to be most “unfriendly.” Alberta was the clear winner, with 81 per cent classifying it as an enemy.

This sometimes manifests itself in a very public airing of grievances between the two provinces. In 2018, Legault declared his opposition to Alberta’s “dirty energy,” sparking backlash from then Premier Rachel Notley.

“(Legault) needs to understand that not only is our product not dirty, but that it actually funds the schools, the hospitals and potentially even some of the hydro-electricity infrastructure in Quebec,” said Notley at the time.

Three years later, a clear majority of Albertans voted “yes” in a referendum calling for the abolition of Canada’s equalization program – a program that disproportionately functions to transfer wealth from Alberta to Quebec. (NOT JUST QUEBEC)

THIS IS BULLSHIT PROPAGANDA, VERY LOW VOTER TURN OUT ON THE VOTE, EDMONTON OVERWHELMING MAJORITY VOTED NO, 

SOUTHERN ALBERTA HISTORICALLY AMERICANIZED POPULATION 

VOTED YES.

Quebec BQ vs Conservatives

Canada Tories win endorsement, surge in Quebec The endorsement today by formely Liberal La Presse, is as stunning as the Globe and Mail endorsement the other day. Like the Globe editorial it is not so much an endorsement of Harper or the Conservatives as much as a rejection of the tired old out of touch Liberals. It's a turf the Liberals editorial. Time for a change though as they say Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

The Conservatives are now the qausi Federalist/quasi Nationalist party to beat in Quebec. Why quasi Nationalist you ask, well the Nationalist ADQ has endorsed them. The ADQ is of course right wing, pro privatization of everything standing and pro tax cuts. The ADQ is the Conservative party in Quebec.

Harpers capitulation to the BQ program of Fiscal Imbalance and recognizing Quebec's right to attend international meetings as a Province, something Alberta already does along with having its own embassies, err Provincial offices, abroad, puts the Conservatives squarely in the old Mulroney camp of supporting soft nationalism in Quebec.

Remember Mulroney's Conservatives was an alliance with Quebec nationalists, and endorsed by Rene Levesque and the PQ. His key Quebec cabinet minister Lucien Bouchard went on to found the BQ and then on to become the PQ leader and Premier. Bouchard is now is talking about the need for Quebec to dismantle its social democratic state in favour of a privatized one.

The Liberals are trailing behind the Conservatives in Quebec. In the homeland. Their Trudeau Federalism has never been about Canada it has always been about opposing Quebec Nationalism. The Bankruptcy of Liberal Federalism

But the NDP are making gains in popular voter intention in Quebec as well. They represent a Left Wing alternative to the BQ.

They are having their best showing in Quebec EVER, despite the flip flop Layton made over the Clarity Act early on. His appeal to get Quebec to sign the Constitution has even been picked up by Harper lately. It is the first time the NDP has had a Leader from Quebec. And that is what wins votes there.

While Harper is not from Quebec he has learned the Mulroney lesson well, and his candidates are well known Quebecois, Lieutants All.

More Quebec Articles


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Whipping Boy

Chong quits Tory cabinet over Quebec motion A three line whip has been called by the Harpocrites. That means not only must Cabinet vote in favour of the Quebecois motion but so must every caucus member and MP or absent themselves from the house.

A three-line whip is the most urgent, and every MP is expected to attend and vote with their party. An MP who fails to attend may be temporarily suspended from the party, a penalty known as ‘having the whip withdrawn’.

This from the party that called for free votes, and criticized the Liberal government when it whiped its Cabinet but allowed its MPs a free vote on Same Sex Marriage. My, my whats that saying in french; oh yeah;Plus de changement de choses, plus ils restent la même chose.

And the subtext of losing ones Intergovernmental Affairs Minister is that he WAS NOT CONSULTED, before Harper sprang his motion on the house last week. Harper talked to Liberal leader BillGraham and consulted famed constitutional expert Dr. Dion, but failed to discuss it with his Intergrovernmental Affairs minister, the guy in charge of the file.

Despite his role as the federal link between Ottawa and the provinces, Chong has had little to do with the Conservative government’s busy relations with the Quebec National Assembly. Most of those relations have been handled by Harper himself.

Harper conceived his strategy in the hope of outflanking the Bloc Quebecois and boosting sagging Conservative popularity in Quebec for the next election.

But he didn't consult Chong, the second-term MP who had been his surprise choice as intergovernmental affairs minister when the Tories formed a cabinet in February.

As it turned out, Chong rarely spoke publicly on federal-provincial issues during his 10 months in office, leaving all the key decision-making to the Prime Minister's Office.

Not consulting is a major downfall of this Harper driven government. They didn't consult the Income Trust industry, they didn't consult over the cuts to the Womens Program or Court Challenges, they didn't consult the environmentalists, and they didn't consult parliament over Afghanistan.

Harper just goes ahead and does what he wants. Bull in the China Shop. Damn the torpedos full speed ahead.

And the other point that arose from Chongs resignation and was raised by the press in the shambles of the press conference with Senator Marjorie Lebreton and Quebec MP Laurence Cannon, was what is the difference between Quebecker and Quebecois. Cannon himself slipped in the press conference and admitted that Quebecois means the founding french families, the Old Quebecois of which he is one.

"I am resigning as minister so I can abstain from the vote tonight," Chong, the former intergovernmental affairs and sport minister, said at a news conference. "While I am loyal to my party and to my leader, my first loyalty is to my country. I believe in one nation undivided called Canada."

He said voting for the motion to recognize Quebec as a nation would be supporting ethnic nationalism, something he could not bring himself to do.

But Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon responded by saying the debate over Quebec as a nation is not divisive and gives voice to Quebec’s unique identity.

Chong’s opinion that it grants Quebecers "ethnic nationalism" isn’t realistic, he said at a news conference with Senator Marjorie LeBreton.

"I certainly don’t share that point of view because this debate has been going on for close to 40 years," Cannon said.

Now some may say this is a semantic difference, however as one reporter pointed out it is more than that. Quebecker includes Anglophones and immigrants who live in Quebec as well as Francophones. Quebecois in Quebec sometimes means the founding families the pure laine. It is a term of racism and petit-bourgoise nationalism as infamously memorialized in Jacques Parizeaus speech denouncing 'foreigners in Quebec' for defeating the 1995 referendum. Foreigners, being Jews, immigrants and Anglophones. It is ethinc nationalism not just a nuanced phraseology, despite Cannon's denials. had

Mr. Chong quit his post as federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister to protest Stephen Harper’s much-ballyhooed proposal to recognize Quebecers as a nation. His move instantly reduced his status to that of a backbencher, with the associated reductions in salary, staff and perks. “I believe in one nation, undivided, called Canada,” he said yesterday. “My first loyalty is to my country. It is for this fundamental principle that I cannot support the motion recognizing the Québécois as a nation.”

And as for the nasty results of censure for those who would oppose the bosses motion well Lebreton dismissed that too.

She denied Chong would have faced serious consequences, such as being kicked out of caucus, if he didn’t tow the party line. "There was no threats," she LeBreton said. "No one was threatened with being kicked out of caucus."

Ha, what the hell does a three line whip mean.

Theoretically at least, expulsion from the party is automatically consequent from defying a three-line whip.
Chief Whip - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

After all this is the party that just turfed Garth Turner for far less. If Chong stayed and voted against the motion well he would be sharing wall space with Garth.

See

Quebec

Harper Autocrat


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