By Andy Radia - The Tri-City News
- FACE TO FACE: If Parti Quebecois wants cash, should Canada let Quebec go?
I think I’m part of a growing number of Canadians who are ready to say “Au revoir” to la Belle Provence.
Quebecers will be heading to the polls Tuesday and, for the fifth time in 35 years, seem poised to elect the separatist Parti Quebecois.
The PQ has already publicly stated that, if elected, it will stage a series of financial and constitutional battles with Ottawa, and use any defeat to help build momentum for another referendum on separation.
In other words, the Parti Quebecois wants more power and more money from the rest of Canada or it will inflict upon us a constitutional crisis that we haven’t seen since the 1990s.
At some point, Canadians have got to say enough is enough. If Quebec is not happy with the status quo, then perhaps it’s time to part ways.
We’ll stop paying them $7.8 billion a year in equalization payments and they can pay us $131,789,570,016 — their share of the national debt based on population.
While my position in this debate might seem harsh, I’m not the only who feels this way.
In a recent online survey, Abacus Data asked 1,795 English-language speakers living outside of Quebec how they would vote if all Canadians could vote in a referendum on the future of Quebec in confederation; 52% said they would vote to keep Quebec in Canada while half that many, or 26%, would vote to remove Quebec.
But of greater significance, the survey indicates that only 12% of respondents would support giving Quebec more federal funding powers or special status if it would keep the province separating from Canada.
My colleague opposite, like so many others, has his head in the sand suggesting Quebecers don’t really want to separate.
That theory is full of holes. Not only have the good people of Quebec repeatedly elected PQ governments, they have also voted en masse — in 1993, 1997, 2003 and 2008 — for the Bloc Quebecois, which makes no bones about its mission for an independent Quebec.
So, either a large number of Quebecers want to separate or they want to manipulate the rest of Canada for more powers and more money.
Good luck, good riddance and au revoir, I say. And don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
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Andy Radia is a Coquitlam resident and political columnist who writes for Yahoo! Canada News and Vancouver View Magazine. He has been politically active in the Tri-Cities, having been involved with election campaigns at all three levels of government, including running for Coquitlam city council in 2005.