This text will change your mind on Québec Sovereignty

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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.