Talk:Quebec sovereignty movement

Archive created

Firefox didn't like editing a page this big :), so I decided to create an archive. I didn't bother to search for all the currently active discussions; fell free to move current text back in here. /Archive 1 MartinToupin 14:18, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Article problems

Wow. This article needs a lot of work. I'm an American, but I'm in my 4th year of working towards a bachelor's degree in Canadian Studies. I believe I can offer a well-educated opinion (and hopefully) I don't have much of a bias because I'm an outsider to the issue. I'd like to help clean this article up...but I don't know where to begin with my laundry list of things that need some work. I do not understand the point being made by the previous post. As someone who studies Canadian politics and Quebec seperatism, and who monitors the Canadian English Language media carefully, I would strongly disagree with the contention that the terms separatist and sovereignist are interchangeable, or that they are ever properly used as such.

Sovereignist is not the same as seperatist is not the same as Quebec nationalist (Kudos for not mixing that one up). These three terms are related as follows: ALL separatists are Quebec nationalists, but only some separatists are sovereignists. ALL sovereignists are Quebec nationalists, but only SOME sovereignists are separatists. SOME Quebec nationalists are NOT separatists, NOR sovereignists, but federalists.

The whole existence of the concepts and ideologies of Quebec Nationalism and Sovereignty / Separation stems from the fact that there are two underlying and fundamentally different interpretations of Canada. One vision, held by ALL Quebec nationalists is that Canada is a double-compact -- a country formed by two nations, the French Canadian nation and the English Canadian nation. Therefore, Quebec, as the homeland of the French Canadian people should be treated constitutionally as ONE of the TWO founding nations of Canada. On the other hand, the predominant view in English Canada, and especially in the west, is that Canada is not a union of TWO nations, but TEN co-equal provinces. Therefore, Quebec is not entitled to be treated any differently in the Canadian federation and Constitution, because it is simply ONE of TEN.

With me so far? Okay -- this central disagreement about the nature of Quebec's role in Canada is essentially the reason for the existence of Quebec nationalism and sovereignty and separatism. Quebec nationalists all feel that Canada is a union of TWO founding nations, not TEN co-equal provinces. The federalists among the Quebec nationalists feel that the way to rectify this is to change the Canadian constitution, and that Quebec's best chance for meaningful cultural survival is as a part of Canada. Sovereignists agree with the TWO nations not TEN provinces notion, but feel that that argument is largely immaterial, because Quebec's best chances for meaningful cultural survival lie outside of the Canadian federation, but disagree with separatists as to whether the best way to exit the current Canadian federation is to become completely independent from Canada, or to renegotiate Quebec's constitutional position to receive separate powers of autonomy, but still exist within some kind of a looser arrangement with Canada.

I believe that this article would benefit from an articulation of the above facts. I'd appreciate hearing from people where such a section ought to be placed, and how I can make it more clear and easy to understand. I will also annotate with specific references. Thx.

I more than welcome your initiative. Before the article degenerated to what it is right now, I wrote an important part of its contents. Same for the History of the Quebec sovereignty movement and the Quebec nationalism articles. Unfortunately, back then in 2004, I was new to Wikipedia so I didn't source properly. I did provide links to many of the on line sources I used though. The Quebec sovereignty movement article stood relatively untouched for a surprisingly long period of time. Recently, it was destroyed by people who took advantage of the lack of proper references and annotations. I am all to blame for this. Since I am mostly working on other articles in the French language Wikipedia at the present (articles which I work hard to source properly now that I have learned my lesson), I have no intention of fixing this particular article anytime soon. But I will point you to a few things that could help you out I believe:

* You can go back to this earlier version of the article to see what it looked like for a while: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quebec_sovereignty_movement&oldid=75454621

* The beginning of something on Quebec's Historical demands of the Quebec government (also in French here)

* This Website, although far from being complete, already contains a great deal of information, especially interesting for the history of the independence movement in Quebec: http://english.republiquelibre.org/index.php

-- Mathieugp 18:39, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

4th-year American student: Thanks for those clarifications. Based on your descriptions, I can't differentiate between federalist-nationalists and sovereigntists. Both believe that the province of Quebec deserves extra autonomy or legal powers because of the idea that the French Canadians are one of the two founding nations of Canada. And both believe that Quebec should stick within Canada, but with a new constitutional deal. I'm not sure if this is just due to a misunderstanding on my part, or a lack of clarification in your descriptions, or if maybe there really is a lot of overlap between nationalist-federalists and sovereigntists.

Also, based on your descriptions, I think this article should be renamed to "Quebec separatist movement". The first sentence of the article says "The Quebec sovereignty movement is a political movement aimed at attaining independent statehood (sovereignty) for the Canadian province of Quebec." This sounds like separatists, and not just people who think that Quebec should be equal to the other provinces combined but want to stick around. --thirty-seven 06:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm on the brink of making a major re-editing effort myself. One big problem that this article shares with a number of others on Wikipedia is that there are competing views of 'the facts'; and it's not easy to present these in a truly unbiased fashion. Everyone has bias - and this format doesn't make it particularly easy to acknowledge those since one is trying to write a factual article. Nevertheless, I think if one makes an honest effort to state both competing views of the pertinent issues, the article will seem cleaner. The only other major problem to deal with is the bare fact there are those users who aren't necessarily honest in their inentions with edits - seeking only to promote their own view at the expense of others.

The original author of this comment (the American student) makes some valid observations too; but there's something rather simplistic about his/her statement of the competing persepctives. All contributors should keep in mind - the issues aren't as simple as 'there's a bunch of pro-separationists that see Canada as being founded by 2 nations, etc. opposed by anglophones who all believe Quebec is only 1 province in 10, etc.' Any comprehensive discussion of the soverignty movement must acknowledge competing points of view and these complexities fully. And that the movement is in a kind of fluid state - I haven't heard too many anglophones stating they see Quebec as 'only one province' lately. It may well be that this is an example of a view that was expressed during and for a period subsequent to the Charlottetown Accord which is no longer in vogue. Just as nationalists in Quebec might well accept that Canada and Quebec are a lot more complex than 2 founding nations now. In short - you're not dealing with a bunch of academics with profound historical awareness dating back to the Patriotes of the 1830s. It's a living, breathing population with views that evolve and are altered by the events that occur within living memory. --ross613 10:36, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

A sovereignist and a separatist are the same thing. Before 1995 the label "sovereignist" or "souverainiste" wasn't used. People who wanted Quebec to become separate or independent from Canada were called séparatistes or indepedentistes in French, or usually just separatists in English. In the 1995 referendum, the question put forward (for various political reasons) asked if Quebec should become "sovereign" and not separate or independent, and so the new label for a person supporting this movement became sovereignist.

I've lived in Quebec my whole life and I can tell you that here the two terms are used interchangeably. The distinctions you are making between the terms are artificial and pedantic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DMac (talk • contribs) 21:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

We do not need editing wars

I put down that in 1995 some 86, 000 No ballots were rejected without valid reasons citing a valid source and yet that number and source were again removed. We do not need editing wars, they get in the way of the truth and mix propaganda with history! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.115.85.176 (talk • contribs)

Please sign your posts. You did not read the source properly. 86 501 is the total number of rejected votes during the referendum (rejected ballots occur in all elections and referenda), of which The Gazette insinuates many (no actual number is given) were valid "No" votes rejected by Yes scrutineers without reason. That's the Gazette's own interpretation of the events without actual proof. Only a handful of ridings had rejection issues which were later investigated. Go read Talk:Quebec referendum, 1995, the full list is given in the first section. ETA: Only this link on the judgement seems to still work, but as you see, only 4 constituencies had suspicious rejection rates.--Boffob 15:23, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Made a few more edits late last night. And did another re-read today. My approach remains keeping the points made by contributors, whatever their apparent biases, and neutralizing unqualified statements like "Québec feels that..." or "french-speakers believe that..." with "Some groupname have historiecally believed that...". I may add detail about an opposing perspective to present both sides as fairly as I can. I understand this isn't always a good idea too - there are times where I agree that many or most Québecers have historically held a view, and at times I've been inclined to make that statement too. But the general idea is to get rid of obvious biased remarks and present a "flow" to the language, which is still lacking in this article. There's plenty of opportunity here for more editing and improvement. I'm deliberately not doing this too quickly because I want others to review and have opportunity to comment. Plus I just don't have time to give this article the attention it desperately needs. --ross613 18:53, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

POV

The article is biased in favour of separatists. To begin with, its' clear that separatists wrote it because only separatists refer to themselves as "sovereignists," which is ironically the English equivalent of that ever so hated-in-Quebec grammatical error, the anglicisme. An anglicisme consists of directly translating from English to French, with the result that the translation loses the meaning of the original, and usually sounds awkward. Thus while most separatists refer to themselves in French as "souverainistes", sovereignists is both awkward and unusual, in that separatists is the English word for people with separatist political inclinations. Furthermore, the article presents separatist views as fact, which obviously is editorializing and should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.68.251.236 (talk • contribs)

"Sovereigntist" is a perfectly acceptable and mainstream was of referring to this movement in the English-language Canadian media (e.g. Globe and Mail, CBC News). Indeed, Martin attracted a lot of attention in the recent election for referring to the BQ as "separatists".

An "anglicism" in this context refers to an English expression occurring in French. Since this is the English wikipedia, and we are speaking English, "sovereignty" is a natural translation of "souveraineté". --Saforrest 17:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The phrase 'sovereigntist' has only been used in English media since after 2000 and the term 'separatist' was used exclusively in English language Canadian media prior to that. To quote recent articles from the CBC or the Globe & Mail as 'proof' to refute the prior comment is either done through ignorance or political motivations.

That's not true. It's also worth mentioning that there are also Native sovereigntists in Canada. bobanny 05:03, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Hadn't heard about these aboriginal sovereigntists myself - it doesn't seem they're a very large group. Certainly not very vocal. As for 'soverigntist' exisitng in anglophone media; I myself have never distinguished the term from 'soverignist', and the latter term has most definitely been used prior to 2000 both in popular media and literature. In the 1980 referendum campaign, I can personally recall the terms 'sovereignty association', 'sovereignty', and 'sovereignist' all being used. It may well be that 'sovereignist' evolved from the phrase 'sovereignty association', in fact. By convention, so far as I know personally, these phrases refer generally to the political seprartion in whole or part of Quebec from Canada. The 'in part' interpretation is going to be subject to generally more debate in anglophone-speaking regions of the country, since the prevailing view among the federalist camp is that you can't have a partial political separation; it's all or nothing, according to them (me included, as a federalist). However, the opposing view is that 'soverignty association' could have meaning where Quebec would negotiate powers ordinarily the province of a soverign nation for itself in a new post-confederation agreement with Canada. I've heard (yes, citation is needed) that these could include such things as the sharing of a common currency and economic policy (i.e. central bank), but Quebec would still have its own army and exclusive rights of taxation. --ross613 10:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

---

After reading this article, I get the impression that the writers are against separatists. Don't get me wrong, I just stumbled upon this article, and I myself do not currently have a stance on the issue :). Perhaps my lack of stance allows me to see the bias, thus I've tagged this article as in need of a POV check.

While I can't agree with the contention the article is anti-separatist, I also see need for a POV check. I live in Ottawa (Canada's capital city) which straddles the border between Ontario and Quebec so maybe it's just my perspective, but this article to me very clearly demonstrates pro-separatist/sovereignty bias. This goes a lot further than mere semantics - the reference to (paraphrasing) 'people in Quebec feel "had"', etc. is going way too far. How does the author (or do the authors) know how people in Quebec feel? I work in Quebec and work with lots of francophone Quebecers - and, oddly, not a one of them has mentioned feeling "had" when the subject of the constitution or politics has come up (albeit rarely). Regardless of whether this is a representative view, it's clearly overstating the case to state how Quebecers feel about the issue and since this is done in more than one place, I've re-enabled the POV flag, with a monitor on the article. The world shouldn't be mislead into thinking the views expressed herein are universal throughout Quebec - as they most certainly are not. As two referendums have already shown, it is indeed the opposite view that might well be taken to be true. Less subjective wording on perceptions in Quebec is needed to consistently eliminate the POV flag.

--ross613 10:03, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Etapisme

Is "étapisme" really the best French term for sovereignty-association? My French isn't as good as it could be, but "étapisme" looks like it means "stopping off half way." It doesn't seem as precise as "souveraineté-association". The Canadian Oxford Dictionary gives the etymology as "first used as the slogan of the Mouvement Souveraineté-Association, forerunners to the Parti Québécois." Indefatigable 18:50, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Étapisme is not sovereignty-association, it's just a tactic. Peter Grey 8 July 2005 15:56 (UTC)

To continue from Peter Gray's comment...

"Étapisme" is a tactic that involves a slow (possibly multi-generational) walk towards independence. Authors who advocate etapism often refer to the history of Norway's efforts to gain independence from Sweden (independence gained in 1905). Etapism was the preferred tactic of Lucien Bouchard post-1995 and of Bernard Landry ("creating the winning conditions" and the "1000 days"). Today, etapism has been rejected by most sovereignist strategists, in favor of a return to (1) a new referendum (mainstream PQ, André Boisclair), or (2) a "referendum election". While the former tactic has been favored by the PQ during the last two decades, the latter is only supported by a fringe faction within the PQ (the MES and Jean-Claude Saint-André). Prominent sovereigntists such as Jacques Parizeau have warned that the MES approach wouldn't lead to any kind of recognition by the UN and thus, is a juridical fallacy. Former PQ tactics also include "affirmationism", which was the preferred view of Pierre-Marc Johnson in the mid-1980s (and before the Meech Lake dead-end). -- Hugo Dufort 23:05, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

---

As expected, there are serious inaccuracies in this page.

Étapisme, from French étape (step) means step by step. The étapiste approach has been rejected as a way to achieve sovereignty. L'étapisme could consist of holding a referendum on the repatriation of jurisdictions, one by one, until Québec is a fully sovereign State, associated with Canada or not.

Some other problems:

"PQ leader René Lévesque, who led the party from 1968 to 1985, developed the idea of sovereignty-association to reduce the fear that an independent Quebec would face tough economic times."

This is the interpretation that was given by the English-speaking commentators at the time. According to René Lévesque and the sovereignists the reasons follow from logic :

- We were (and still are) moving towards a globalised world, where States open their borders to free movements of persons, goods, capital and ideas (therefore, culture). The construction of the European union was beginning. It was in the air to have these kinds of ideas.

- The case of Danemark and Norway as a good example. Following the independence of Norway, talks began for a political association profitable to both sides.

- Quebec and Ontario's economies were heavily interdependent. This is less true since the free trade agreement with the USA.

Again, this is an encyclopedia. You cannot simply put political opinions and propaganda in here. You need to support your claims with evidence. It would be good for this page to be written by people knowledgeable of History in general, colonial history and the history of Québec.

This page should deal with what Sovereignty-Association is:

1. A political movement that lead to the creation of the PQ.

2. A concept in which sovereignty is understood to be indissociable from international cooperation.

Bashing the separatists should be done in a page dedicated to it.Mathieugp

"Independent statehood" vs. "greater autonomy"

Just curious about the recent change. Has something shifted in the general separatist position? Is independent statehood not still the goal of the separatist movement? "Greater autonomy" sounds like they want more control over trade positions or whatnot. Switching back, but please feel free to discuss. Edit -- forgot to sign -- --66.129.135.114 17:39, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

What does Quebec want? Only a small minority of sovereigntists want independence, a minority position among a minority position. But most Quebecers will say they want more "autonomy" or leeway under the Canadian federalist system. Which begs the question, what does Quebec need?Toddsschneider 18:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The game is this: The PQ failed to prevent the creation of a party to its left. Québec solidaire, another sovereignist party, is there to try to get the votes of those who want independence for Quebec, sovereignty for our nation, but are day to day more concerned with world-wide environmental issues, fighting poverty, women's rights and human rights in general. So the PQ cannot claim to be the only party to represent this crowd anymore. Meanwhile, the ADQ, whose position is to be "not the PLQ and not the PQ" plays the same game of self-pride, "we can do it, we have the right" as the PQ but says that it will not hold another referendum and wants to try to convince Canada to reform. The result is that with its Conservative-Liberal "lower the taxes, cut down on the bureaucracy" discourse, its nationalist discourse stolen to the PQ, it gets a lot of votes from Quebecers, almost exclusively French speakers of course, who are not politicized at all but are proud Quebecers and have little to no attachment to Canada. They are the average Joe, or I guess the average Jean, those middle class folks all parties try to win with candies.

So the PQ, having lost a great deal of supporters, needs to readjust. Being run by technocrats disconnected from its very militant base, itself poorly representing the whole of the movement for independence (i.e., some are for independence but not for the PQ because it is to much to the left for some and not enough for others), this party is in serious trouble if it intends to remain the "main vehicule" toward independence. Some former PQ militants are already taking steps to create another party as we speak, others try to rescue the boat while not really believing in it, and a good number, possibly the majority of PQ members who do not follow politics day to day, want to give a chance to Pauline Marois before they take any position.

As for the ambivalence between those who want more autonomy for Quebec withing Canada and those who are determined to secede, there is a lot of confusion there too. Those who want independence are divided on the best way to get there. Theoretically, what unites them is the conviction that Canada cannot be reformed from the inside. Because many Quebecers favourable to sovereignty for Quebec are also favourable to creating a new political union with the ROC, similar to the one that unites European countries, they are often taken for "autonomists", those who say "No" to sovereignty/secession but "Yes" to reform of Canada so that Quebecers stop sending more than 50% of their tax money to the federal government. These objective allies to independence are unfortunately not able to comprehend that the ROC considers either A) that Quebec already has too much or B) that it should keep what it has even if we do not agree with it because it is a matter of national unity. The situation is incredibly pathetic. Are we going to get out of it honourably? -- Mathieugp 13:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

"What is the meaning of Quebec as a nation, and what political, legal and constitutional implications, if any, does that recognition have?

"In the past, a constant ambiguity was maintained, both on the definition of nation -- or distinct society -- and on what that would imply. The Council of Europe, in a statement in January, concluded that no [certain] definition of 'nation' was possible. As for the forms of recognition for minority nations proposed by the council, Quebec already exercises more self-determination than the council proposed."[1]Toddsschneider 10:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Article abbreviations and acronyms

I have been reading this article (as an interested observer, as I am American) and I have difficulty (as many non-Canadians would) with the parties, and groups listed as abbreviations and acronyms of the organisations instead of writing the group name. At the very least, I think each section of the article should spell out the organisations in question once, with an appropriate Wikipedia link. There will be many times someone will only need to read a specific section of an article, and I think it's necessary to allow the reader to understand what is being abbreviated without having to go to an earlier section of an article to decipher what is being said. ArdenD 17:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

What is this?

When I was using this article for a school project, (Yes its always risky with Wikipedia), I found that there are no reasons listed supporting separation, but a section for being against it. I see why the neutraity of this article is disputed :/. 72.12.130.133 (talk) 16:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)Quinn

Lack of consistency

This article is truly awful. It is laden with grammatical errors and typographical inconsistencies. I couldn't begin to list them all. I also spotted a few inaccuracies. In particular, Ségolène Royal is described as being "the head of the French socialist party". She actually has never held any significant position within the governing body of the socialist party. In France, just like in the US, one may become the candidate of one's party without being a prominent figure in the internal governance of the party itself. Royal is such an example. The highest ranks she ever held within the French government include "minister of familial matters" and "co-minister of education", as well as local duties (e.g. congresswoman and mayor). But no specific ranking position within the socialist party. In fact, she has lately distanced herself from the socialist party on the grounds that the party no longer represents the younger generation and that it needs urgent reforms and a total re-foundation. Her stance has earned her to be ostracized by the prominent members of the governance of the party.