Quebec now wants to be a nation within a nation within the constitution. Who didn’t see that coming? Oh right, these three dimwits.

Ouch!

“In a sovereign Quebec, we wouldn’t have this debate over fiscal imbalance, the Kyoto protocol would be implemented,” PQ Leader Andre Boisclair told reporters in Montreal on Sunday.

So how’s that “nation within a nation” strategy working out for you, Stephen, Jack, Stephane?

Have at it.

Update 5: Steve Maynard’s results for LNC in the recent general election: 23.7%. Megan Walker in the by-election: 14.2%. I don’t blame Megan for this. This boondoggle rests squarely on whoever is making the big campaign decisions at NDP HQ.

Update 4: From A BCer In Toronto is the list of MPs who stood up for Canada.

Garth Turner voted no, along with 15 Liberals. All the Dippers and BQ presented voted yes.

The Liberals to vote no were Joe Commuzi, Maria Minna, Diane Marleau, Joe Volpe, Raymond Chan, Jimmy K, Hedy Fry, Dan McTeague, Bill Matthews, Scott Sims, Don Bell, Ken Dryden, Paul Steckle, Andrew Telegdi and Navdeep Bains.

Update 3: It looks like the status quo will be maintained with Pearson taking LNC for the Liberals and Gravel taking Repentigny for the Bloc.

Update 2: Early LNC results.
LP 31.2%
GP 29.1%
CP 21.2%
NDP 17.7%

Update 1: 266 MPs voted to piss on Canada. Only 16 believe in a united nation.

London North Centre results.

Repentigny results.

Parliament has moved to limit the debate on the Quebec as a nation motion in order to force a vote tonight. Really. A limited debate. I guess it doesn’t make much sense to have a long debate since every party has already decided they have nothing more to say than it’s a good thing that you wished Canada to the cornfield, PMS, it’s a real good thing.

It’s nice to see at least one member of Parliament hasn’t forgotten that he represents Canada.

In fact, why did the Canadian prime minister, without notice or apparent provocation, ask this House to declare the Quebecois to be a nation within Canada? His charge is to protect the Canadian federation at all cost and to preserve the integrity of our nation-state, after all, since a prime minister has no other option. If he puts some other goal above the continued existence of the country whose voters made him prime minister, then he must resign.

He’s also holding an online vote.

On Monday evening, November 27th, a vote will occur in the House of Commons to accept or reject Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s motion that Québecois are a nation within a united Canada.

Should Garth vote YES or NO on the motion to recognize Québecois as a nation within a united Canada?

Go help Garth send a message to Ottawa that federalism will not go gently into the night.

I think it’s time to revisit it.

Dear Premier Klein:

During and since the recent federal election, we have been among a large number of Albertans discussing the future of our province. We are not dismayed by the outcome of the election so much as by the strategy employed by the current federal government to secure its re-election. In our view, the Chretien government undertook a series of attacks not merely designed to defeat its partisan opponents, but to marginalize Alberta and Albertans within Canada’s political system. One well-documented incident was the attack against Alberta’s health care system. To your credit, you vehemently protested the unprecedented attack ads that the federal government launched against Alberta’s policies – policies the Prime Minister had previously found no fault with.

However, while your protest was necessary and appreciated by Albertans, we believe that it is not enough to respond only with protests. If the government in Ottawa concludes that Alberta is a soft target, we will be subjected to much worse than dishonest television ads. The Prime Minister has already signaled as much by announcing his so called “tough love” campaign for the West. We believe the time has come for Albertans to take greater charge of our own future. This means resuming control of the powers that we possess under the constitution of Canada but that we have allowed the federal government to exercise. Intelligent use of these powers will help Alberta build a prosperous future in spite of a misguided and increasingly hostile government in Ottawa.

Under the heading of the “Alberta Agenda,” we propose that our province move forward on the following fronts:

• Withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan to create an Alberta Pension Plan offering the same benefits at lower cost while giving Alberta control over the investment fund. Pensions are a provincial responsibility under section 94A of the Constitution Act. 1867; and the legislation setting up the Canada Pension Plan permits a province to run its own plan, as Quebec has done from the beginning. If Quebec can do it, why not Alberta?

• Collect our own revenue from personal income tax, as we already do for corporate income tax. Now that your government has made the historic innovation of the single-rate personal income tax, there is no reason to have Ottawa collect our revenue. Any incremental cost of collecting our own personal income tax would be far outweighed by the policy flexibility that Alberta would gain, as Quebec’s experience has shown.

• Start preparing now to let the contract with the RCMP run out in 2012 and create an Alberta Provincial Police Force. Alberta is a major province. Like the other major provinces of Ontario and Quebec, we should have our own provincial police force. We have no doubt that Alberta can run a more efficient and effective police force than Ottawa can – one that will not be misused as a laboratory for experiments in social engineering.

• Resume provincial responsibility for health-care policy. If Ottawa objects to provincial policy, fight in the courts. If we lose, we can afford the financial penalties that Ottawa may try to impose under the Canada Health Act. Albertans deserve better than the long waiting periods and technological backwardness that are rapidly coming to characterize Canadian medicine. Alberta should also argue that each province should raise its own revenue for health care – i.e., replace Canada Health and Social Transfer cash with tax points as Quebec has argued for many years. Poorer provinces would continue to rely on Equalization to ensure they have adequate revenues.

• Use section 88 of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Quebec Secession Reference to force Senate reform back onto the national agenda. Our reading of that decision is that the federal government and other provinces must seriously consider a proposal for constitutional reform endorsed by “a clear majority on a clear question” in a provincial referendum. You acted decisively once before to hold a senatorial election. Now is the time to drive the issue further.

All of these steps can be taken using the constitutional powers that Alberta now possesses. In addition, we believe it is imperative for you to take all possible political and legal measures to reduce the financial drain on Alberta caused by Canada’s tax-and-transfer system. The most recent Alberta Treasury estimates are that Albertans transfer $2,600 per capita annually to other Canadians, for a total outflow from our province approaching $8 billion a year. The same federal politicians who accuse us of not sharing their “Canadian values” have no compunction about appropriating our Canadian dollars to buy votes elsewhere in the country.

Mr. Premier, we acknowledge the constructive reforms that your government made in the 1990s – balancing the budget, paying down the provincial debt, privatizing government services, getting Albertans off welfare and into jobs, introducing a single-rate tax, pulling government out of the business of subsidizing business, and many other beneficial changes. But no government can rest on its laurels. An economic slowdown, and perhaps even recession, threatens North America, the government in Ottawa will be tempted to take advantage of Alberta’s prosperity, to redistribute income from Alberta to residents of other provinces in order to keep itself in power. It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta, to limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can encroach upon legitimate provincial jurisdiction.

Once Alberta’s position is secured, only our imagination will limit the prospects for extending the reform agenda that your government undertook eight years ago. To cite only a few examples, lower taxes will unleash the energies of the private sector, easing conditions for Charter Schools will help individual freedom and improve public education, and greater use of the referendum and initiative will bring Albertans into closer touch with their own government.

The precondition for the success of this Alberta Agenda is the exercise of all our legitimate provincial jurisdictions under the constitution of Canada. Starting to act now will secure the future for all Albertans.

Sincerely yours,
Stephen HARPER, President, National Citizens’ Coalition;
Tom FLANAGAN, professor of political science and former Director of Research, Reform Party of Canada;
Ted MORTON, professor of political science and Alberta Senator-elect;
Rainer KNOPFF, professor of political science;
Andrew CROOKS, chairman, Canadian Taxpayers Federation;
Ken BOESSENKOOL, former policy adviser to Stockwell Day, Treasurer of Alberta.

Harper plans to hammer another nail into Canadian federalism’s coffin.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is poised to play a second national unity card by limiting federal spending powers in exclusive areas of provincial jurisdiction, CTV News has learned.

The plan is to prevent the federal government from launching new national programs without the consent of the provinces and any province could opt out with full compensation.

Are you clapping now, Mr. Layton? How about you, Mr. Graham?

Some reaction to Parliament stabbing Canada in the back. This post will be updated throughout the day.
Tart Cider

Interesting. Quebec federalists partial to the whole “nation” thing would probably have found Harper’s Conservatives an even more “palatable federalist alternative” if this decision hadn’t been made at the point of a separatist gun. The Prime Minister had ample time to decide this was the right decision, and he opted against it.

They Call Me Mr. Sinister

Recognizing Quebec as a “nation”, even “within Canada”, is a disaster waiting to happen. It legitimizes the old idea that ethnic nationalism trumps civic nationalism (that ethnic nationalism is the only “real” nationalism), that Trudeau fought against his whole life. I never liked Trudeau, for many reasons, but I always agreed with him on this issue (as did the NDP at that time). Ethnic nationalism was the cause of most of the bloody history of the last 200 years. Whenever you get ethnicity trumping civic rights, you are bound to have “winners” and “losers” decided by genetic lottery. Why anyone would rush to endorse such an obviously bad idea, is beyond me.

The Northern Liberal

The worst-case scenario is that this will be the first step towards the destruction Canada. If Ted Morton becomes Premier of Alberta, he will use this announcement to push for a new round of constitutional negotiations; and despite claims to the contrary, its only a matter of time before Quebec Premier Jean Charest sees it as being in his own political self interest to use this for the same.

Warren Kinsella

Last night, watching the élites - that is, every politician in Canada - clapping each other on the back for their statesmanship, their lack of partisanship, and so on, I could have sworn I had been flung back in time to nearly 20 years ago, when another batch of politicians gathered at picturesque Meech Lake and praised each other for statesmanship and lack of partisanship and whatnot. Thereafter, as all of us old guys will remember, the country was flung into a downward spiral of misunderstandings, division and brinkmanship. The economy took a shit-kicking too, as I recall.

The Toronto Star

As leader of a minority Conservative government with no mandate to stir the Confederation debate, Harper would have been more prudent to simply declare the Bloc motion mischievous and urge all federalist Members of Parliament to join the Conservatives in voting it down.
Instead, he chose to play a dangerous game. Now MPs must debate and vote on two troublesome resolutions that will heighten concern about the country’s long-term unity. Both deserve to be voted down.

Andrew Coyne

So let us give thanks for one thing: at least the pretense is over. The Prime Minister’s statement in the House yesterday, a statement no prime minister has ever made before, marks the moment when the idea of Canada finally shrugged, sighed, heaved and expired. The hollowing out of the national idea — of a vision of Canada as a coherent national entity, capable of acting with a single national purpose — is now complete. We are well on our way to Belgiumhood, and that suits our political class just fine.

Doublecool

Pandora’s box has now been opened. If you declare that Quebec is a ‘nation’, no matter how you word it, it instantly creates a rift of separatism. But this separatism is not just one that will inflame Quebec nationalism. Instead now every province will want to be a ‘nation’. What is to prevent BC, Alberta, Ontario or indeed any province from wanting to be a ‘nation’? And once we start going down this road, the links and ties that bind Canada together cannot do anything but weaken.

The Vanity Press

This latest opening up of the separatist can of worms would not have happened if Michael Ignatieff had not opened up his big yap. If he had not announced out of the blue that he thought of Quebec as a nation, then this discussion would be nowhere on the national radar. The Liberal Party would not have been thrown into a panic, the government would not have had to rush through an insta-policy on this, the Bloc would have continued their long slow slide into irrelevance, and the whole constitutional nightmare of the 1990s would have continued to fade into the background.
But no, Ignatieff had to go blundering into the most divisive possible area of Canadian politics, and just like that everything is going haywire.

The Prairie Wranglers

Now, Jack Layton being who he is, has decided to endorse both resolutions, as if the single Conservative resolution which explicitly states that the Quebecois form a nation within a united Canada was not sufficient, and the parallel resolution which does not affirm Canadian unity is also necessary. What does this say about Jack’s perception of Canada? That he doesn’t have one, and will pander to separatists if he thinks it can get him over 7.5% of the vote in Quebec, which he miraculously garnered in the last federal election. I’ll remind you all that the provincial NDP adopted a sovereigntist platform in 1989, which Layton appears sympathetic to. Once again Jack, you’ve embarrassed your self and your party.

Calgary Grit

By tying language to this, Harper is giving the va te faire foutre to Anglophone, Allophone, and aboriginal Quebecers (but, then again, they all vote Liberal anyways). He also looks like he’s selling out his principles to score a few seats in Quebec which I’m sure will go over well with his base.

Edmonton Sun

What poppycock. And what a transparent attempt to improve the Tories’ woeful third-place standing in recent polling in Quebec.
Setting up one province, or one region, of Canada as being distinct or separate from the nation as a whole is dangerous and divisive.