General

Pour Un Quebec Lucide

INSTAUPDATE: WHOOPS, just noticed Phil already blogged this. What he said.

From an open letter sent to La Presse, written by two former Bloc Québecois operators, Maxime Bellerose and Benoît Demuy, encouraging Quebecers to vote for the NDP:

Pour la première fois de notre vécu politique, la social-démocratie est à la porte du Parlement! Il serait dommage pour les Québécois de ne pas profiter de cette opportunité pour envoyer à Ottawa des députés portant haut et fort les valeurs toutes québécoises d’entraide et justice.

Nous sommes et resterons profondément convaincus que la souveraineté reste la meilleure voie pour que le Québec et son peuple puissent poursuivre leur épanouissement, mais comme le disent plusieurs, la souveraineté du Québec se fera à Québec et non à Ottawa. D’ici là, tous nos concitoyens devront, de gré ou de force, vivre dans le régime fédéral canadien.

This is remarkable. For ages now, we’ve been told that a vote for the Bloc is not necessarily a vote for sovereignty, that many Quebecers simply park their votes with the Bloc out of some sort of french-speaking solidarity. My view has always been that that is precisely the problem: ethnic or linguistic solidarity is toxic in any democracy, and it advances neither the aims of Quebec nationalists nor the interests of Canada.

What Bellerose and Demuy are doing is keeping their eye on the ball: the ultimate goal is sovereignty, but that is a something they know has to be done in Quebec, not by continuing to send Bloc MPs to Ottawa. And, they argue, to the extent that Quebec remains a part of Canada, it would be a shame not to take the opportunity to send to Ottawa MPs who support Quebec values of social democracy.

It is extremely heartening to see that not everyone in Quebec puts ethnic solidarity above political ideology.

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