Québec Nationalists Continue to Dream the Impossible Dream

Support for another referendum is at a low point, but Québec's politicians continue to rattle the sabres of sovereignty.

Saturday marked the fifteenth anniversary of the incredibly close 1995 Québec referendum. And although polls show support for Québec sovereignty is at its lowest point now than any time since then, Bloc MP Daniel Paille said in the House on Friday that Canada is “a country that we do not identify with and a country that does not bring us together … Moving Quebec toward sovereignty, continuing this fight … is why we are still here and we will be here until Quebec is free and independent.”

If the sovereignty movement is still afoot, it is increasingly divided. The National Post’s Graeme Hamilton reports that several people close to sovereigntist folk hero Jacques Parizeau recently denounced PQ leader Pauline Marois, and on Monday 50 young PQ members issued a missive slamming her for taking too soft a stance on sovereignty. You’d think she was wallowing in the polls, but as Hamilton notes “What is remarkable about the latest onslaught … is that it comes as the PQ enjoys a comfortable lead in recent polls ... Once again, the PQ is showing that one of its prime talents is devouring its own.

The Post editorial board, which has never liked the separatists even un petit peu, writes, “If it is possible, Quebec nationalism is becoming even more intellectually inconsistent.” Nationalists have always paradoxically campaigned on leaving Canada while retaining most of the benefits of being a Canadian province, but what really gets the Post’s goat is that under Canada’s political party subsidies, the Bloc receives 90 per cent of its funding from Canadian taxpayers. “Mr. Separatist Hero would be unable to turn on the lights in his party’s offices were it not for the generosity of Joe and Jane Canadian.”

Rumours swirled recently that former PQ minister Francois Legault might form a new party made up of federalists and moderate sovereigntists, which would drastically undercut the PQ’s position as the only alternative to the unpopular Liberals. According to the Montreal Gazette’s Don MacPherson that dream is all but dead, for the simple reason that no one wants to join.