Thursday, November 23, 2006

Debase the Nation

OK let's review Prime Minister Stephen Harper's "blockbuster" statement yesterday in the House of Commons:

"Our position is clear. Do the Québécois form a nation within Canada? The answer is yes. Do the Québécois form an independent nation? The answer is no and the answer will always be no."

Now Andrew Coyne makes some interesting observations as to what all this means for Canada and I certainly won't try to top him.

But I do have a few questions of my own.

For instance, does this mean Canada is now officially nine provinces and one nation? Does this mean Quebec can now have a seat in the United Nations? Will Quebec soon have its own national anthem?

And most importantly of all, how in the heck can the House of Commons pass a resolution stating Quebec will never be an "independent nation"?

Never is a long time.

Do our MPs have access to a time machine or something?

And if they do have such a machine, I wish they would let me know when our federal political leaders will stop pandering to Quebec nationalists.

1 comment:

Monkey Loves to Fight said...

The problem here is the word "nation" has a different meaning in French than English and the Bloc Quebecois tried to expoit this difference while Ignatieff was dumb to fall for this trap throwing both the Liberals and Tories into a precarious position. In Germany they recognize Bavaria as a nation and Spain recognizes Catalonia as a nation with out any fanfare, but if the US recognized any state as a nation all hell would break lose. The simple reason is German and Spanish like French see nation in sociological terms while English sees it in political terms. As Stephane Dion said, Quebec is a nation in sociological terms as are many other groups in Canada, but politically it is not a nation.