Pour dépasser 250 ans d'impuissance nationaliste



Le choix de l'indépendance signifie en soi que le traumatisme de la Conquête anglaise a été surmonté, que les rouages du colonialisme et de la domination aliénante ont été démontés et, donc, rendus inopérants, que la peur de la liberté a été vaincue et assumées les responsabilités inhérentes à la pleine maîtrise du destin national. [Andrée Ferretti->auteur699] _ [Gaston Miron->auteur1149] _ Les grands...

La fuite en avant



vendredi 31 décembre 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Certains ont la fâcheuse tendance à confondre le progrès avec la fuite en avant. Or, en ce moment de passage des ans, nous devons nous imposer cette réflexion. Peut-on faire avancer les choses en balayant le passé? La tabula rasa peut-elle nous emmener ailleurs qu'au néant? Il faut souligner que la tend...

Le sens subversif de Noël

La fête de Noël nous rappelle l'insertion de tout être humain au coeur d'une société


vendredi 24 décembre 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avec le temps des Fêtes qui nous revient chaque année, une question est de plus en plus soulevée: quel sens peut bien revêtir une fête d'origine religieuse dans une société sécularisée et laïque? Il est vrai que le sens de cette fête a grandement évolué avec le temps. La fête de Noël s'enracine dans ...

Est-ce bien l'astrolabe de Samuel de Champlain?



jeudi 30 décembre 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Un article signé par le chercheur Douglas Hunter relance une fois de plus les débats autour de l'origine de cet instrument d'un type peu commun Un petit cercle de métal de 13 cm, un instrument de navigation du XVIIe siècle ayant en principe appartenu à l'explorateur Samuel de Champlain, constitue une des r...

Scrutin ou souveraineté, l'enjeu d'une véritable citoyenneté québécoise



mardi 28 décembre 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- François Cyr et Paul Cliche (Le Devoir, 22 décembre 2004) ont vertement critiqué le projet de réforme du mode de scrutin déposé par Jacques P. Dupuis, ministre délégué à la Réforme des institutions démocratiques du gouvernement libéral. Ils ont attaqué le modèle proposé de proportionnelle et la façon de procéd...

2004 a été une bonne année pour les souverainistes, soutient Gérald Larose



mercredi 29 décembre 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Le président du Conseil de la souveraineté, Gérald Larose, a dit estimer hier que l'année 2004 a été «très positive», voyant «le projet souverainiste s'ancrer et s'enraciner encore davantage dans la population», a-t-il déclaré à l'heure des bilans de fin d'année. Porté par cet élan, le Conseil de la souvera...

Bouchard has nerve to comment on health matters



December 17, 2004 Friday -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Given their horrendous record, there are two men who should refrain from commenting, let alone giving advice on any issue that relates to Quebec's health-care system: Jean Rochon and Lucien Bouchard. Yet, in yesterday's La Presse, Bouchard penned a long, verbose opinion piece on the controversial choice ...

Lucien Bouchard haunts us still



Many Pequistes must have choked on their cereal Friday morning when they read La Presse's front page: "A majority wishes for Lucien Bouchard's return." According to a CROP poll, 49 per cent of those surveyed favoured Bouchard's return to politics. Masochism reached even greater heights among PQ voters with 63 per cent wanting him back. But these were voters, not PQ members, most of whom would rather spend the ...

Fiscal imbalance is slippery slope for federalism



12 novembre 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Those who hope the ugly infighting within the Parti Quebecois and the election of a federalist government in Quebec have put the national-unity issue to rest better think again. If anything, the constitutional issue is making a fierce comeback. Only this time, it comes under a different brand name. Given that th...

Unity cowboy shoots wildly

Paul Martin made a big mistake by creating the Gomery commission and ensuring that the sponsorship scandal just won't go away


November 5, 2004 Friday -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Martin made a mistake. A big mistake. He thought the creation of the Gomery commission would free him of the stench of corruption that flowed from the sponsorship scandal by painting the Chretien clan as its sole culprit. Instead, the commission has become one huge no-man's-land where landmines b...

Landry hasn't really changed mind



October 20, 2004 Wednesday -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was an air of surrealism at the weekend Parti Quebecois national council meeting. Even veteran party members needed a map to keep up with the players. While a group of his personal organizers were handing out a 30-page booklet outlining his own "vision" of the PQ, Francois Legault went on denying...

Legault seems to be Landry's chosen heir



October 15, 2004 Friday -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Francois Legault wants to be leader of the Parti Quebecois. And he wants it badly. No other contender has worked harder to win the leadership race that's sure to follow Bernard Landry's departure the moment it happens. This week, the incorrigible attention seeker penned a 27-page document outlining his "v...

Is the Bloc becoming federalist?



October 8, 2004 Friday -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The opening of the 38th Parliament in Ottawa was one of the most theatrical we've seen in decades. With the ink on the Throne Speech still fresh, the survival of the Liberal minority government was already hanging in the balance. Behind the show biz and posturing we're seeing from all parties, the danger t...

Follow the money



1.10.2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Gomery commission is doing amazing work. With precision and non-partisanship, it is fast exposing the mounting ugliness of the sponsorship scandal. But what will matter most is that its final report help us answer these five crucial questions: How much did Ottawa pay to get a majority No vote in the 1995 referendum...

PQ could learn a few things from ADQ



September 24, 2004 Friday -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He's back. Buoyed by the election of a fifth MNA, Action democratique leader Mario Dumont is heading into his party's convention tomorrow armed with a brand new constitutional position. Sort of. The ADQ's "autonomist" virage marks a return to its founding principles outlined in the 1991 Allaire Report. ...

Martin and Charest need health-care deal



September 10, 2004 Friday -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Jove. It looks like after 10 years of post-referendum hard-line, very tough love from Ottawa, Quebec is fast becoming a veritable object of affection for federal parties. Conservative leader Stephen Harper wants to rebuild his party's Mulroney-era base in Quebec. He's even planning to hold the first ...

Landry gambles on confidence vote



September 1, 2004 Wednesday -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pauline Marois has opened a huge Pandora's box. It might be fun to speculate whether she made a strategical error or showed courage when she challenged Bernard Landry to a leadership race, but the real problems lie elsewhere. No one should take for granted the massive vote against a leadership race he...

A duel of visions within the PQ



August 27, 2004 Friday -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For Bernard Landry, this will be the year of living dangerously. Between now and next June's Parti Quebecois convention, he'll be putting his leadership and his vision on the line. This will be the battle of his life. This battle will oppose two vastly different visions of sovereignty: his own and Jacques ...

Nothing undemocratic about Parizeau's proposal



20.8.2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's a truly Pavlovian phenomenon. Every time Jacques Parizeau speaks up, the media and prominent péquistes rally to admonish him with almost equal fervour. So it went after Monsieur penned a two-page newspaper article suggesting the Parti Québécois take a different road to sovereignty. His plan was called undemocratic...

Landry is vulnerable on sovereignty



August 13, 2004 Friday -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Charles de Gaulle isn't quite the type of leader to whom most people would spontaneously compare Bernard Landry. Except perhaps for Landry himself. On Wednesday, he made the comparison at a press conference. Asked whether he would lead the Parti Quebecois in the next election, the 67-year-old Landry quippe...

Fiscal issue could be millstone for both Martin, Bloc



9.7.2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next few months will offer an answer to an important question raised by the federal election results: Is Paul Martin a spent force for the Liberal Party? If he doesn't manage to rebuild bridges to the Chretien clan, which he and his entourage have blown up quite well, the answer could be a resounding yes. But if...

Bloc floats around in a bubble



11.6.2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This election might be exciting because of its unpredictable final results, but it's also one of the strangest, most surreal campaigns we've seen in a long time. While moral issues like the right to abortion, the death penalty and same-sex marriage are debated in English Canada between sparring Liberals and Conservativ...

Liberals can do nothing right in Quebec

Even the reviled Stephane Dion would make a better spokesperson than Pierre Pettigrew and Jean Lapierre


Friday, May 28, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's an ad you might soon read in your morning paper: ''Outgoing, distraught prime minister desperately looking for a credible, likeable and media-friendly spokesperson to defend the Liberal brand name on French-language radio and television.'' But what happened to Jean Lapierre, you ask? Where's the com...

Quebec voters are eager to Bloc the Liberals



May 20, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The battle for Quebec has begun. And it's all Ontario's fault. If Prime Minister Paul Martin had iron-clad support in Ontario, he wouldn't be obsessing over Quebec. Yesterday's Ipsos Reid-Globe and Mail-CTV poll shows that Liberal support in Ontario stands at 49 per cent, the Conservatives at 27 per cent and the New...

Our new war of images



Friday, May 14, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The situation in Iraq has mutated into full-blown psychological warfare with the media as the weapon of choice. Pictures of tortured Iraqi prisoners have been joined by the unbearable broadcast of the minutes leading up to the barbaric beheading of Nick Berg in retaliation. The pictures from Abu Ghraib priso...

Watching the Liberals in freefall



April 30, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Poll numbers just keep getting worse for Premier Jean Charest. If this continues, there will be more people in Quebec who believe Elvis is still alive than those who are satisfied with his government. According to the latest CROP poll published yesterday in La Presse, a staggering 66 per cent of respondents said t...

Charest, Martin victims of winds of change



Friday, April 16, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In politics, the promise of change has a magical ring to it. For most products - that includes parties and leaders - the label "new and improved" usually sells. But for Paul Martin and Jean Charest, the word change has turned into a nightmare. Ironically, these two leaders, who promised sweeping changes on...

Parizeau has no reason to lie; Landry does



Friday, April 09, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What really happened on the morning after the 1995 referendum, and who's telling the truth about it: Bernard Landry or Jacques Parizeau? What really happened on the morning after the 1995 referendum, and who's telling the truth about it: Bernard Landry or Jacques Parizeau? On Tuesday, Parizeau confirme...

Did Parizeau go voluntarily, or was he putsched?



Friday, April 02, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Only Jacques Parizeau knows why he resigned the day after the referendum, and chances are he'll take the truth to his grave. But Pierre Duchesne's unauthorized biography Le régent sheds a fascinating light on a chain of events that cost the sovereignty option its most determined warrior. Duchesne's book ra...