General

The Righties are coming! The Righties are coming! (And they’re speaking French…)

So, Réseau Liberté Québec, then.

I saw the group’s spielmail in my inbox this morning and figured it was another sovereignist/separatist/nationalist cabal springing up to protest the Queen, or some such. The first clue that this was something entirely different is the ‘.ca’: no self-respecting separatist group worth his/her epaulettes would ever use such a domain. It’s a mark of the conquest, for Christ sakes.

In fact, RLQ is a brand new righty initiative that aims to favour  the coming together of all Quebecers who share the ideals of liberty and individual responsibility.” There’s some Foxy sounding language in here, including the necessity to “defy the media establishment” in Quebec, encourage “climato-scepticism” and “redefine nationalism”. The thing is set to formally launch in October, with keynote speaker (wait for it) (actually, don’t; it’s not at all that surprising) former Stephen Harper flack Kory Teneycke.

It’s already making itself known. Simon Durivage of Radio-Canada’s all-news network just referred to RLQ spokesperson Joanne Marcotte as “Quebec’s Sarah Palin”. I’ll leave that one well enough alone; suffice to say that Marcotte is a smart, articulate woman whose central belief–that Quebec society simply isn’t tenable, economically speaking–has been endorsed by noted non-wingnuts like Lucien Bouchard and La Presse’s André Pratte. Her movie, Illusion Tranquille, was a rare critical look at the big-government, big-union and anti-English tenets of Quebec society. I won’t pretend to agree with everything she says, but it was refreshing to hear the sound of a Quebec filmmaker not preaching to the choir.

There is a considerable conservative vote in Quebec, one largely orphaned since the near-complete collapse of the ADQ. Maybe these people are coming home to roost. Or to be loud, proud and organized, at the very least. Interesting.

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