I’m surprised it didn’t get more press. I’m an individual with multiple personalities: Canadian, federalist, Québécoise (13th generation), Quebecker, Historic Anglo and bilingual. I find it slightly insulting that I’m not considered Québécoise in Mr. Blanchet’s eyes just because I don’t want Quebec to be its own country.
I don't know why it should shock you, nationalist movements often degenerate into exclusive movements primarily concerned with defining themselves in opposition to a group.
I disagree with the most Quebecers comments considering the policies pushed post secularism charter or language laws are affiliated with the far right in the rest of Canada and the Anglosphere in general. Bouchard and Parizeau for all their faults were intelligent enough to realise such policies would tinge their movement that way.
This is a really striking piece—the shift from persuasion to exclusion really lingers. If a movement starts defining a large portion of the population as “not real Quebecers,” it risks narrowing its own path to legitimacy.
It also makes me wonder if we’ve been debating the wrong question for years. Most of the focus has been on whether Quebec should separate—but much less on what follows if it actually happens.
What happens the day after a Yes vote in Quebec?
How do governments respond? What happens to First Nations lands, to resource mobility, to constitutional authority across the rest of Canada? And just as importantly—what happens internally, in a society that has just drawn such a sharp line through itself?
If the conversation is now shifting toward defining who belongs, it feels like we’re getting closer to that moment where a society either resolves that question—or risks debating it indefinitely without ever confronting the consequences.
Those are the questions I tried to explore in my novel, The True North Talks—because strangely, we don’t talk about the day after nearly enough.
I’m surprised it didn’t get more press. I’m an individual with multiple personalities: Canadian, federalist, Québécoise (13th generation), Quebecker, Historic Anglo and bilingual. I find it slightly insulting that I’m not considered Québécoise in Mr. Blanchet’s eyes just because I don’t want Quebec to be its own country.
I don't know why it should shock you, nationalist movements often degenerate into exclusive movements primarily concerned with defining themselves in opposition to a group.
René Lévesque did not think that, neither did Lucien Bouchard, nor do most Quebecers, for that matter.
I disagree with the most Quebecers comments considering the policies pushed post secularism charter or language laws are affiliated with the far right in the rest of Canada and the Anglosphere in general. Bouchard and Parizeau for all their faults were intelligent enough to realise such policies would tinge their movement that way.
This is a really striking piece—the shift from persuasion to exclusion really lingers. If a movement starts defining a large portion of the population as “not real Quebecers,” it risks narrowing its own path to legitimacy.
It also makes me wonder if we’ve been debating the wrong question for years. Most of the focus has been on whether Quebec should separate—but much less on what follows if it actually happens.
What happens the day after a Yes vote in Quebec?
How do governments respond? What happens to First Nations lands, to resource mobility, to constitutional authority across the rest of Canada? And just as importantly—what happens internally, in a society that has just drawn such a sharp line through itself?
If the conversation is now shifting toward defining who belongs, it feels like we’re getting closer to that moment where a society either resolves that question—or risks debating it indefinitely without ever confronting the consequences.
Those are the questions I tried to explore in my novel, The True North Talks—because strangely, we don’t talk about the day after nearly enough.