Micheal Ignatieff Unexpectedly Endorses the Separatist’s Constitutional Platform
Canadians have always had a hard time telling the difference between a country and professional sports franchise. They love anthems, logos, flags and little patches on their backpacks that neatly tells you which team everybody is playing for. They also, just like sports fans, have no problem whatsoever with the fact that their country shares its branding with a beer company and a major retailer of replacement wipers and cheap camping equipment.
The important thing is that they are recongnized. As long as people stop confusing them with Americans, they’re good.
Micheal Ignatieff, the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and one of our time’s great intellectual fashion victims – support for the war in Irak? Support for torture? But everyone was doing it! – apparently believes that the Québec independence movement and the forty or so years of important political upveal that has rocked the province stems from the same petty insecurity.
Speaking about the concrete effects of Québec being recognized as a “nation within a united Canada” by Canada’s House of Commons last year, the would-be Prime Minister candidly admitted that the whole idea, for which he has often claimed credit, was just a whole lotta nothing.
“The Charest government has all the powers it needs to do excellent work for the citizens of Quebec and I see no reason to revisit the issues of jurisdictions and powers,” Ignatieff told the The Canadian Press on Thursday. According to him the canadian federation is “working well and that he “sees no need to increase either the central government’s power or the power of the provinces.”
So, Micheal Ignatieff thinks that fatal waves of terrorism in the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, four election victories by Québec’s seccessionist party, two referendums on sovereignty, one of which came within a statistical error of being successful was only about the Québécois longing to be recognised?
This wise thinker and writer thinks that the reason every political party in the province refuses to sign the canadian constitution is not because of an unnacceptable allocation of powers or because for four decades English-Canada has aggressivly rejected any possibility of discussion or change. Nope. The professor thinks all about English-Canada. He thinks all the Québécois really want is for Canada to acknowledge that they exist, in the same sad way that canadians feel vindicated whenever Access Hollywood recognizes that Micheal J. Fox or William Shatner are Canadians.
As of today Mr. Ignatieff is on the record saying that the Canadian Federation will not change. It’s the status quo or else.
That’s what the sovereingtists have been saying the whole time.
That’s called scoring in your own net, Mike.
AngryFrenchGuy 
The ancient Greeks bore the gift of Democracy to mankind.
The modern Greeks have an amazing diner on rt 17 just off exit 18W of the New Jersey Turnpike.
Edward
June 6, 2009 at 11:12 am
I vote to secede from you. Cool for me.
Kriss
June 6, 2009 at 11:23 am
“However, this article only gives two examples: QC being at la Francophonie (NB is too) and QC being over compensated in equalization. But it’s pretty undeniable that Canada has some asymmetry in its federal system”
Pardon me for interrupting again, Yoda, but I think it also mentions Canada’s turning a blind to QC language laws that violate some people’s rights.
But you probably subscribe to the belief that some rights aren’t individual but rather collective, as in this masterpiece:
http://www.mef.qc.ca/why_we_need_bill_101.htm
Very clever. They must have had a team of philosophers working around the clock to come up with that.
allophone
June 6, 2009 at 11:27 am
The ancient Americans bore liberty to their country.
The fat modern Americans have hamburgers and Paris Hilton everywhere you look.
Kriss
June 6, 2009 at 11:33 am
Touché. It is indeed admirable how effectively Canadians have resisted hamburgers and hollywood.
Beware of Americans bearing gifts.
Edward
June 6, 2009 at 11:38 am
Actually if my english writing was better, I would have a blog about how great the american people is and how important this people is for mankind, and discuss how this people is being manipulated to be a herd of docile cow. I really wish in the next few years you people will do something else with your guns than shooting cans in backyards and children in schools and get rid again of slavery.
“There is something rotten in US kingdom”
Best whishes.
Kriss
June 6, 2009 at 12:01 pm
We don’t do any of that stuff in New Jersey. (The Jersey Cow actually comes from England.) You’re thinking of the so-called “red states”. We’re a “blue state” just like Québec.
…and I sure hope that “something rotten” comment wasn’t meant to be about New Jersey!!! We’re a bit self-conscious about the smell, but it’s not our fault really.
Anyway I’m a big fan of Quebec too. I know you guys don’t just eat poutine and maple syrup, discriminate against islamic girls and misdiagnose cancer patients. I hope in the next few years you too will have a chance to prove to the world that you have a great literary and artistic tradition.
Edward
June 6, 2009 at 12:21 pm
You bet !
Mind you, I have all respect for NJ, the homeland of Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen and Electric Frankenstein. I wish I’ll go there this summer and smell good industrial fragrances.
Kriss
June 6, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I’m very hurt.
allophone
June 6, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Je te souhaite la bienvenue. Tu vas découvrir que
Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est une autoroute.
Mais c’est mon autoroute à moi.
Edward
June 6, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Ok. See you in Kingda Ka.
Kriss
June 6, 2009 at 12:43 pm
heuuhh! I mean ON Kingda Ka.
Kriss
June 6, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I do have a team of philosophers working around the clock on that!
How did you know?
Have you heard of them? They’re called the Supreme Court of Canada.
Fon
June 6, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Why you poor oppressed thing you! Worse than growing up in the slums of Bombay. Have you thought of putting Brent Tyler on retainer? Explaining yourself over a lobster and white wine dinner with Jan Wong? Appealing to Reporters Sans Scrupules? Or Médecins Sans Gêne? Or Human Rights Watchers for the CIA and State Department? Bon courage, insignifiant.
James
June 6, 2009 at 6:40 pm
You won’t see me on Kingda Ka!
Edward
June 6, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Totally…sick!
Kriss
June 6, 2009 at 9:17 pm
“Why you poor oppressed thing you!“
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm
“ Have you thought of putting Brent Tyler on retainer? Explaining yourself over a lobster and white wine dinner with Jan Wong? Appealing to Reporters Sans Scrupules? Or Médecins Sans Gêne? Or Human Rights Watchers for the CIA and State Department?“
http://www.douglas.qc.ca/accueil.asp?l=f
allophone
June 6, 2009 at 11:23 pm
For paranoids:
Kriss
June 7, 2009 at 1:49 am
That is hilarious (no sarcasm this time).
They should have let him play Adolf:
allophone
June 7, 2009 at 10:53 am
Warning. Very `meprisant` stuff.
“On November 14, 1988 the political and human rights watchdog organization Freedom House published “The Doctrine of ‘Preponderance of Blood’ in South Africa, the Soviet Union and Quebec” in its journal Exchange. Introduced by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s National Security adviser, the essay compared the language of instruction provisions of the charter with South African apartheid statutes and jurisprudence.“
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg6n6657_8gfjsb8
allophone
June 7, 2009 at 11:21 am
Finally what’s your point?
Kriss
June 7, 2009 at 12:33 pm
“essayist Tony Kondaks”… now where have I heard this name before?
Anonymous
June 7, 2009 at 3:23 pm
https://angryfrenchguy.com/2008/03/09/quebec-city-hip-hop-webster-making-his-story/
Kriss
June 7, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Whoa…gone for a couple of days an look at the rhetoric on this site.
Here is one for you.
Was in Alberta this weekend (Kananaskis) for a golf tournament but the weather didn’t cooperate with the 2 C, rain and snow. Managed five holes before the team and I called it quits. (hard to hold a golf club when you have no feeling in your wet and cold hands)
Anyways, drove down to the Crowsnest (Blairmore region) to see some family.. Recurring signs we witnessed.
“LESS OTTAWA AND MORE ALBERTA” on many ranches and business endeavors.
I guess the Rednecks are getting restless and tired of Ottawa reaping the fruit and distributing it to others (who would they be). I can’t imagine why they would be upset!!! :)
The sun was out in the Pass this morning, a bit cool but the golf on the mountain course was great, better yet now snow or rain.
ABP
June 7, 2009 at 11:35 pm
As someone who is not a sovereignist nor as hard-core a federalist as you Vinster, I would like to ask you this question: do you actually think that NOTHING at all would change if Quebec were to become independent?
You seem to have spent quite a bit of time analysing the issue, so it puzzles me to no end that you seem to think that:
1) There are no constitutional changes that could be made to the current arrangement that would bring the percentage of Quebecers “comfortable” within Canada up to around 80% (acknowledging the fact the some purs et durs will never be happy). So Canada has absolutely nothing to learn from other multinational federations that are differently structured like Switzerland, for example?
2) That Quebec becoming an independent country would change barely an iota of the economic, social, educational, linguistic, and cultural environment here, when national independence has produced tremendous changes (both positive and negative) in every single place in the world where it’s occurred. So you mean to tell me that Quebec-Canada is that unique a situation that it would be THE exception that confirms the worldwide historical rule of thumb that “independence changes everything, for better and for worse”?
Acajack
June 8, 2009 at 9:29 am
Dear AngryFrenchGuy and Bloggers all–
I just discovered this fun blog today (6/3/09) and I’m enjoying the topics, exchanges, etc. (The humor and quips are hilarious, especially the monicker “angryphones!”) I’m an African-american ESL teacher at Orange High School in Orange, New Jersey. My students are all Haitians and Latinos in 9th–12th grades.
Perhaps you kind and erudite Canadian folk can enlighten me about an incident I had during a vacation to your lovely province…..
In the summer of 2007, I attended Language Studies Canada to learn some French and enjoy multilingual Montreal. (Malheureusement I was placed in French 1B instead of 1A where I knew I truly belonged, and blithely walked into the first class to learn–the passe compose! I’ve tried since then to improve my French and my students are teaching me, but I STILL can’t properly pronounce anything with the “eur” suffix if my life depended on it. But that’s another story….*)
One day, I found this cute “Quebec” T-shirt with the elegant royal blue-and-white provincial flag on it in one of those little tourist shops and wore it to school and then to a store in the shopping mall there on Rue St. Catherine. Imagine my surprise when
The Nice White Lady in my aisle suddenly upbraided me
with the statement: “We’re all Canadian here!”
So, I, The Nice Black Tourist Lady from New Jersey simply stated: “Uh…ma’am, I’m just an American tourist from the states–the T-shirt is not a political statement for me!” She just loooked at me in shock–I’m not quite sure what she expected me to say.
Question–Did The Nice White Lady assume I was:
A. Representing the Parti Quebecois?
B. Saying I was quebecoise and she wasn’t?
C. Stating that other Canadian provinces were unimportant?
D. Declaring French to be the most important language
of Quebec and therefore at odds with the ROC?
(It IS the dominant language of Quebec, but in multilingual/multiethnic/multicultural Montreal I heard at least 5 varieties of French, four varieties of English, three varieties of Spanish, Brazilian
Portuguese, two varieties of Arabic, and several Asian languages during just two short weeks.)
We Americans have all kinds of tourist stores in all 50 states in which you can buy T-shirts with state flag and national flag designs, so to me, the Quebec
T-shirt simply represented a geographic place called
“Quebec.” Since most natives of any place usually don’t walk around with these kinds of “tourist-trap T-shirts”, I thought just wearing the shirt automatically screamed “tourist” to any Canadian who strolled past!
During the years since 2007, I tried to read up on the
history of quebecois French, the linguistic politics,
the dude who wrote “White Niggers of America”, the
francophone/allophone/anglophone thing, the office quebecoise de la langue francaise(still not sure if I spelled that right–pardon a moi/a thousand pardons, Good Blogfolk)et al–and I’m still puzzled by the incident in the shopping mall.
Can anyone explain to me The Nice White Canadian Lady’s reaction to my tourist T-shirt?
Much obliged et je vous remercie!
Ye Most Confused Nice Black Anglophonic ESL Teacher Tourist Lady from New Jerseyl
https://angryfrenchguy.com/2009/05/03/how-do-you-call-a-quebecois-who-is-not-a-minority/
Charity Dell
June 8, 2009 at 10:41 am
I thought my point was clear from the beginning. I’m here to save the rainforest.
allophone
June 8, 2009 at 11:13 am
Charity Dell,
A lot of people here consider the Quebec vs. Canada issue to be an “either or” type of matter. That is, that if you are wearing a t-shirt with either the Quebec or the Canadian flag, it is assumed that you are showing your disavowal of the other entity whose flag you are not wearing.
In the case of the White Lady (I would submit that she probably wasn’t all that Nice), she saw the Quebec flag on your t-shirt as though you were flaunting your disloyalty to Canada.
In the minds of a lot of people (though not everyone thankfully), one cannot be loyal to both Canada and Quebec. The two identities are mutually-exclusive in their eyes.
The fact that you are African-American (as you chose to mention) probably riled her even further, given that you are almost certainly “African” in appearance, and that some of the pro-Canada people in Quebec consider it to be their side’s “birthright” to have the unanimous support of minority communities. This has been changing very slowly in recent years, to the point where small numbers in the minority communities now support Quebec’s independence, much to the dismay of a lot of pro-Canada people in Quebec.
Finally, it sounds as though the White Lady blurted this out at you in English, a choice which could be seen as comically counter-productive.
Had you been, say, an immigrant from a French-speaking African country, who had made a new life in French-speaking Quebec, wouldn’t a total stranger making a pro-Canada statement at you, in English, in Montreal, in reaction to a Quebec t-shirt you were wearing, not provide further proof to you that the Canadian identity is no more than a Trojan horse to make Quebec more English, rather than something broader in which Quebec’s French speakers are embraced for what they are?
Acajack
June 8, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Woohoo! Orange, NJ rocks! Birthplace of the brilliant “Radium Girls”.
In Quebec, flags are ways of showing your political view about Quebec independence. While flying the lovely flag of the great state of NJ on your front lawn will only make people think you are running a local branch of the DMV –thats SAAQ for those of you who don’t speak Joisey– here in Quebec flying a flag is a way of saying that you either support “le Québec libre” or else “the True North Strong and Free”.
The only place you’ll find a non-provocative Canadian flag in Quebec is at a major sports event or a post office. The only place you’ll find an apolitical Quebec flag is at a government office (!) or liquor store.
So unless you were running some kind of minibar under your shirt, the White Lady (who no doubt spoke “White” too) surely took your shirt to be a pro-secession political statement.
Serves you right for not wearing your “Atlantic City is for lovers” shirt instead.
Edward
June 8, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Quebec is a North Korea in the Norh America, soft clone.
chuk
June 8, 2009 at 11:19 pm