I’m not sure why the truth
hasn’t been told to people in Québec. The immigrants, for example, who are
after wealth and not integration have somehow been convinced by English Canada that it’s in
their interest to stay in the poorest province per capita (I’m talking about
the actual money you have to spend) in Canada. So they come here and run around
talking about how great all the anti-colonial movements were in their
countries, but then prevent us from doing the same thing. By calling its
own shots, Québec could provide the possibility of generating much more wealth
than it is currently in this Canadian federal regime.
Since racism is attacking
people for their race and not for what they actually do, I don’t need to excuse
myself merely for saying what I see. Of course it’s fashionable among SJWs
to say I am “privileged” because of supposed past wrongdoings. Before some start
bringing up First Nation genocides to shut up Québec nationalism, I’ll just get
it out of the way that Québec never massacred Amerindians. So, in today’s Québec, to immigrants, I say:
“You do realize that you force us to stay in Canada and prevent us from
acquiring the wealth that is ours and would also be yours? You force us to give
them taxes and soldiers to bombard your brothers and sisters. Why believe the lie
that it’s in your best interest to vote NON?”
Nobody seems to realize how rich Quebec is, including Anglophones who almost unanimously vote NON and Liberal, no matter what the Liberals do. They blindly give them carte blanche every time.
Doesn’t anyone ever ask why
we have several enormously high bridges crossing the Saint Lawrence?
It’s because of the huge vessels that pass through our territory, toll-free,
from and to Ontario and the ocean. The new Champlain Bridge is supposed
to cost us around $5 billion. Even though this bridge falls under the
responsibility of the federal government, they want to make it a toll road. And
who’s going to be crossing that bridge? Why Québec taxpayers of course!
Certainly not anyone from the supposed have provinces (since they say
Québec is have-not in federalist Newspeak). Doing a little
math, the bridge will probably cost between $1,200-2,000 for each person paying
taxes in Québec, depending on how expensive it actually ends up being.
Regardless, it will cost a fortune because it has to be of a certain height for
passing ships.
Next to the Champlain Bridge
there is a much lower and unnoticed two-lane bridge, the Estacade du pont
Champlain, which is a great deal less expensive. Let’s say that constructing a
similar bridge, with six lanes, as is planned for the new Champlain Bridge,
would be more in the ballpark of $1.5 billion. That being said, since the $1.5
billion would cover the needs of the average Montréal commuter, wouldn’t it be
fair to say that the $3.5 billion difference ought to be paid through tolls of
the passing ships? That’s not what our dear federalist friends tell us though.
Oh no. They say that we are going to pay for it all!
However, we don’t need a bridge that high. The ships do. And they
pass through our territory free of charge!
I am not saying to shut down
the Saint Lawrence Seaway, but tolls, taxes or whatever else on English Canada
to move their products is what should be paying the enormous difference in
price for that bridge, not us. And that us includes our fellow
anglophone citizens from the West Island as well.
An independent Québec will be
able to control the strategic geographic position of the Saint Lawrence as well
as having the right to impose or to not impose a toll to cross through our
territory as is done in every other country, such as the Suez or Panama canals.
In 2013, the Suez Canal generated $5.5 billion. Currently, the Saint Lawrence Seaway has less activity because of
the deindustrialization in the Great Lakes region (except of course the paradox
that is Toronto—where wealth is arbitrarily concentrated in the Golden
Horseshoe for political reasons, certainly not because of its geography).
Landlocked territories,
without access to the ocean are generally poorer. Look at Laos, Bolivia, Mali,
Mongolia… even in Canada, Alberta has its tar sands, but Vancouver is the one
always cited as having the best quality of life on tons of lists. Montréal has
a navigable access to the ocean, but is poorer than Toronto. And no, it’s not
because of sovereignty movement or the French language, as the distributers of
the federalist kool-aid love to say. It’s because Canada has made a political
decision that Toronto will be its metropolis and Montréal will become a
satellite city of that metropolis, like all the other Canadian cities.
Political and economic
sovereignty, however, would transform Montréal into a financial metropolis on
an international level, with large multinationals headquartered there again
(and the huge salaries that go with it). Montreal’s airport would be an
international hub instead of having to go to Toronto for everything. Quebec
City would greatly benefit from becoming an international capital—imagine the
30-40 embassies that would spring up and the wealth it would generate. For a
city with such an inferiority complex with Montréal, vote OUI and
watch Quebec City renovate itself into a capital on an international scale.
No country has ever regretted
attaining its sovereignty.
It’s becoming clear that the
old victim discourse (the historic betrayals of English Canada that are usually
the backbone of independence arguments) isn’t reaching Québec’s youth anymore.
The younger generation has pretty much moved on from the victim phase and they
want to hear a positive message about how independence would benefit them by
defending their values and economic interests. It’s things like having a
population that is 50 times superior to that of, say, Prince Edward Island, but
having more or less the same amount of political power as that tiny island that
seem ridiculous.
Furthermore, independence
would eventually bring back those $150,000 salaries from Toronto to Montréal,
because Montréal would once again become the great financial metropolis of an
independent country instead of an outpost of Toronto—Canada’s chosen
metropolis. Montréal will regain its Stock Exchange, as it was moved/merged
with Toronto’s purely for political reasons, despite what our federalist
friends will tell you when they blame nationalism.
Look at cities like Oslo.
Norway has a population of about 4.5 million and they have a stock exchange. So
do the other Scandinavian countries. Imagine if the three Scandinavian
countries were one united country, since their languages are 90% similar and
they share a common history, do you think Oslo would have the same importance
that it now has as an international capital?
Canada is a very long and
narrow east-west strip where 85% of the population resides. For political unity,
to make this costly arrangement work they try to push economic trade in and
east-west direction, instead of the more natural north-south axis, as 70% of Québec’s exports are to the United States. When counting trade with
the rest of the world, that doesn’t leave much activity for the ROC east-west
thing. Hydro-Québec was probably created with the north-south axis in mind, as
it sells a good part of its electricity to the New England region.
What about the deplorable
state of our roads? The Maritimes move the product by truck, and a truck can do as much damage as 10,000 automobiles on our roads—and they pass
through our territory free of charge! The enormous wear and tear of truck
transport coupled with our Québec winters means that the cost of our road
maintenance will always be high. However, we in Québec rarely traipse around
the Maritimes or Manitoba; we don’t need to pass through their territory. But
they do in ours. Could that be one of the big reasons why our roads are worse
off than theirs? Why are we letting this go on?
What about the whole
Equalization payment comedy? They portray it as if Canada gives poor Québec a
gift of around $9-10 billion every year. They call Québec a have not. If we were
really such a heavy burden for Canada, wouldn’t they be happy to get rid of us?
Yes, Québec receives a sum around those figures, but it isn’t as if Québec
doesn’t pay equalization payments too. The federal government admits that
Québec pays 18% of it. With that, the “gift” gets reduced to around $6-7
billion. It’s also organized as if there were only ten provinces, without
counting the northern territories, in the Territorial Financing Formula (TTF).
That’s another huge sum to subtract. There are also three times more
Amerindians in English Canada than in Québec, many more millions that we pay
and from which we benefit nothing. Québec’s 8 million population is the second
largest in Canada, and the amount in equalization payments per person in
2014-15 was around $915 as opposed to Prince Edward Island’s $2,320 per person.
The federal “gift” is enormously less than they are claiming in the media, especially considering the many millions we forego by not
managing our own affairs. Is their “gift” worth it? The Saint Lawrence Valley
currently generates little wealth for us, when it ought to be producing a lot
more given the traffic going through it. The mirage of equalization makes
people in Québec think they are receiving handouts. The reality is that Canada
is organized in such a way as to take what is ours. They don’t give us
anything.
What about the environment in
all this? Look at it this way: Alberta produces expensively extracted oil from
the tar sands. Alberta has no access to the ocean. British Colombia refused a pipeline. For political reasons, they are obliged to pass through
the Saint Lawrence Valley. Not only should Québec impose a passage toll, as is
done everywhere else on earth, the wealth generated could, for example, finance
our existing electrical transportation network. The big picture is that Québec
produces cleaner hydroelectricity, which currently equalizes dirtier petrol
based energies coming from other provinces. Québec makes Canada look good
environmentally. Without Québec, Canada would be seen more as a polluter and
would perhaps even be pressured by the international community to pay carbon
credits to Québec — the UN initiative currently acting on a local level that
gets big polluters to pay money to smaller polluters. Whether or not it’s a
scam of the “New World Order” approach, it’s an interesting way to look at ways
Québec could benefit.
What about the “dreaded”
3rd referendum? Well, is democracy good or bad? If you believe democracy
good, referendums are a much better way to measure what a given population
wants about a specific thing, rather than some election on vague and
unimportant stupidities like the candidate’s hair. As a superior form of democracy, referendums win with 50% +1 on a
specific issue, instead of something like 30-40% of the voting population with
an election. When federalists say that they don’t want another referendum, what
they are really saying is that democracy is harmful—so we should just eliminate
elections all together because the separatists are crazy! Rather than
convincing the population that federalism is superior, federalists have decided
to destroy their own patrie with massive immigration that is already
preventing them from demographically defending themselves. They even put forth
the idiocy that the Syrians coming to Montréal should be allowed access to English language schools with the idea that they have
already suffered so much that it would be cruel to impose French
upon them. Studying in French is a form of torture, you know.
In any case, I think I’m
going to have to do a part II to this article. For now, let me close with this:
some say that we need to reinforce the Québec state before concerning ourselves
with independence. Just the opposite is true! By using the enormous benefits of
independence, we could finally address the problems that are currently plaguing
us. The polls show that the majority of Québec youth consider themselves Quebecers first. Younger and older, whatever
language, we just need to realize that independence really pays.
It's not radical, nor extreme. It's just moral.
