Steelcitygrit [in exile]

Ruminating on all things Canadian and political.

 

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Quebecois VS Quebec: meaningful compromise?

If the motion tabled by Stephen Harper is representative of Stephane Dion's compromise, I'm heartily disapointed.

In brief, the motion is purportedly superior to Bloc/Quebec Liberal motions because it defines a nation of Quebecois rather than the nation of Quebec.

I am one of many who argue that a sociological nation is undeniable, but that we run into problems when we confer nationhood on the province of Quebec. The Harper wording purports to solve this problem. How I haven't a clue. A nation of Quebecois can mean only one of two things:

EITHER
1) 'Quebecois' is intrinsically a territorial denomination. Like "Ontarian" denotes inhabitants of Ontario, it denotes inhabitants of Quebec. If this is the case, no compromise has been made. The nation in question is still the province of Quebec. This is still, assumedly, the mythological civic nation. This motion is identical to the others.

OR
2) 'Quebecois' is used to denote only those that belong to the pur laine sociological nation which is being addressed. If this is the case, where are the rest of the inhabitants of Quebec left? New Canadians, Cree, Mohawks, Anglo are denied full status as participants in the province. Further, French-Canadians outside of Quebec have their claims to nationhood obliterated.

The Harper/Dion compromise is no more worthy or our support than its predecessor motions.

6 Comments:

Blogger Olaf said...

SCG,

'Quebecois' is used to denote only those that belong to the pur laine sociological nation which is being addressed. If this is the case, where are the rest of the inhabitants of Quebec left? New Canadians, Cree, Mohawks, Anglo are denied full status as participants in the province. Further, French-Canadians outside of Quebec have their claims to nationhood obliterated.

No. Not at all. Harper didn't say "The Quebecois who own the province of Quebec" or something. Just because he recognized one group within Quebec, doesn't mean that the other residents aren't full participants in the province. I don't see how this follows.

Rather, by recognizing the Quebecois (I accept the second definition you provide), he is distinguishing between all residents of Quebec (which includes those who don't identify themselves with the Quebecois) and the Quebecois, which is infinitely more palatable than the Liberal resolution calling Quebec a nation, based on a sociological reality that only applies to the majority.

6:13 PM  
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