Former PM's sure got balls

[Epinephrine]

Chretien retired last year and the party elected Martin as his replacement. The two had been rivals for the Liberal party leadership since 1993, and though Martin worked as Chretien's finance minister for a couple of terms, they often clashed politically. Chretien retired at just about the time that the AdScam scandal went public and the backlash from AdScam affected the results of the recent elections. The result was a minority Liberal government.

And to explain AdScam. Basically a large portion of Quebec wanted to seperate from Canada for the last 25 years or so and make an independent country. They held a refrendum in 1995 and the 'no' side won with 50.1% of the vote or so. Basically Quebec was 10,000 votes from leaving Canada.

After that the Prime Minister (Chretien) created a program to promote nationalism in Canada by paying advertising agencies and the like. It was later discovered that of the $250 million spent on this program, a lot of the money went to companies as political favours and to seemingly pay off political friends as it was millions for very little work actually done. Therefore a huge scandal.


And to Americanize it more clearly: In Canada we don't have a president. The Queen of England is our head of state, and her representative (the governor general who is appointed) basically signs all bills into law without hesitation. Our senate is appointed and generally signs all bills into law without hesitation. So all the power lies in the house. The House majority leader becomes the Prime Minister, and therefore has supreme control over the country. The Finance minister who sets the budget is generally seen as the 2nd most powerful person in the country.

[Nickname]

Omfg, that is so funny. That reminds me of Grand Theft Auto III, when Lazlow is taking calls on the radio show, K-CHAT, and he gets a call from a member of an anti-phone organization called: Citizens Raging Against Phones.

Then Lazlow says, "CRAP?! Your organization is called CRAP?"

I can't believe nobody noticed it. It must have been a stunt to get media attention, or something.

I doubt it because they changed it back so quickly. It was really quite odd with the words Reform and Canadian Alliance all being tossed around as if to show they had put on some new face, when they clearly hadn't. It's all for not though, the Canadian Alliance lasted only a handful of years until merging with the COnservatives to try to overthrow the Liberals.

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

First off, excuse me if I come off as misinformed. I had a vague sense that Quebecers wanted their own separate state, but didn't know any of the specifics (numbers and such).

Could Quebec actually function as an autonomous country? Serious question. I know that all countries don't necessarily have to have large amounts of trade to survive, and I know that Quebec is a fairly large squat of land to begin with, but would it work? Obviously someone's thought about this, but could someone explain to me exactly WHY Quebec would want to secede? Who or what is exactly being so repressed and non-represented that it warrants seceding?

Am I missing out on a genocide or something?

Sorry if I'm getting way off topic.

[Volcs]

I'm so pissed about the sponsorship scandal...
Quebec gets 70% of Canada day funding. In Quebec, Canada Day is moving day. They use the money to celebrate St. Jean Baptiste day, WHAT THE FUCK!?

In Quebec, they do not need license plate stickers (which cost 100 dollars a year in Ontario.) If someone from Ontario drives to Quebec without said sticker, they would receive a $300 fine.
If someone from Ontario drives 5 over in quebec, they get pulled over.
I'm considering becoming a police officer so I can target the frogs for some spiteful revenge.

Ooooh if I were prime minister, I would have rigged the referendum to have Quebec seperated. I remember watching the vote on TV and it being so close, I was absolutely shocked that these people wouldn't want to be part of such a great country. Now- I don't even want Quebec to be part of Canada. You want a prominantly french country, move to France. If you hate Canada so much, stop accepting more federal money than you're contributing. Quebec receives more tax funding than all of the Prairie provinces added together.
And don't get me started on the million dollar funding a stupid circus school was receiving..

PS - Canadians are in the same position as Americans when it comes to leaders, nothing good to pick from.

Epi, I remember it being like a 2-5% majority against seperating.

Maybe someone can tell me what this circus will attempt to eventually prove? What good can come out of this? I don't see the point of wasting MORE money on this... what good can happen?

[Jerome Scuggs]

Woah. That's pretty cool. I wish politicians in america were that cool. I predicts though in 20 years the younger, raunchier people will be the voting majority and politicians will have leeway to say crazy things like that

[Epinephrine]

It was 50.56% NO to 49.44% YES (http://educ.queensu.ca/~citc/august9...m_webquest.htm)



Why does Quebec want so seperate? To those of us living in the rest of Canada it's a huge mystery. Actually if you look at the demographics, it's more of the younger people in Quebec who want to seperate than the older people. Also moreso of the people living away from Montreal who want to leave.

But why?

Basically there's some vague notion that the rest of Canada is somehow 'screwing over' the French in Canada. Somehow we're not being nice to them, or repressing them or destroying their culture or not respecting them or something. It started off as a cultural thing. English Canada wasn't giving Quebec any respect, and their culture was slowly being eroded by the rest of Canada. So Canada became officially multilingual (at HUGE cost in the government). And then it became about money, so we started sending them huge transfer payments to their province from the general federal tax revenues (along with other poor provinces, although quebec is relatively rich compared to some others).

But still that wasn't enough. Law after law was enacted to show how important Quebec is to Canada, but still it's not enough. In many ways it makes no sense. I've talked to a few people on SS who are from Quebec who think seperation is a good idea, and not a single one of their arguments makes any logical sense. It's more just a general 'we got screwed by you Anglos' feeling that they seem to have in that province.

The other thing they complain of is not enough power in the government. Well they represent a huge number of our parliment. Most of the prime ministers of the last 35 years have been from Quebec or represent Quebec ridings. So I don't get that either.

I'd ask some of my Quebec friends but I don't care enough in writing this post. Also keep in mind that while Charles de Guelle famously said 'Vive la Quebec libre' (yay for a free Quebec!) France basically wants nothing to do with an independent Quebec officially nowadays. They don't see them as 'real' French anyway.


Now can Quebec actually become it's own country? Well... it has large natural resources, a population of 6 million, it has enough agriculture to support itself and has a major city. The only problem is the top 3/4 of the province wasn't even part of Quebec until the middle of the last century. Previously it was part of the Canadian Northwest Territories, and was just given to Quebec to take care of. It's mostly populated by the natives, who have said over and over that if Quebec leaves, they want to stay in Canada.

How about the money? Oddly enough, part of the official plan of seperation was that Canada would CONTINUE to give transfer payments to a new independent Quebec. Other people have a vague notion of joining the United States as the 51st state (although how that would stop cultural erosion I don't know).

Basically it doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. I think deep down it's a huge scam to get the rest of Canada to keep conceding things to them but I don't know.

[Jerome Scuggs]

We don't want Quebec.

[Volcs]

How about the money? Oddly enough, part of the official plan of seperation was that Canada would CONTINUE to give transfer payments to a new independent Quebec.

WHAT THE FUCK!? I DIDN'T KNOW THAT! I want them to seperate and be INdependant, I want to cut off ties. Fuck having a boarder, build a big wall.

I'd sacrifice good snowboarding to get rid of those fuckers.

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

The whole things reeks of Petoria to me. I'm planning on annexing Joe's pool tomorrow.

[froedrick]

TK, what's your view on the whole, "Atlantic accord" and Newfoundland and Labrador situation. If you don't mind me asking that is. Just a lot of conflicting views going around and it's nice to hear the view of someone who's not totally ignorant to the situation (margeret wente).

[Jerome Scuggs]

The whole things reeks of Petoria to me. I'm planning on annexing Joe's pool tomorrow.

o shit
do that thing you infidels do conc
the one you do before you're about to kill people

[Troll King]

TK, what's your view on the whole, "Atlantic accord" and Newfoundland and Labrador situation. If you don't mind me asking that is. Just a lot of conflicting views going around and it's nice to hear the view of someone who's not totally ignorant to the situation (margeret wente).

Well, I think that Newfoundland is getting screwed over in this, though I thought it was immature how they protested by removing all Canadian flags from government buildings. Their beef is with the government, not with the country istelf and the flag should be above being a political gimmick.

Their situation is sort of like being on the edge of a low tax bracket. If you make any more money you'll pay more in taxes, but if you make any less money you're still stuck with having less money. In either case they are stuck with the same situation in the end and they'll need more if they want to turn their economy around.

[froedrick]

Well, I think that Newfoundland is getting screwed over in this, though I thought it was immature how they protested by removing all Canadian flags from government buildings. Their beef is with the government, not with the country istelf and the flag should be above being a political gimmick.

Their situation is sort of like being on the edge of a low tax bracket. If you make any more money you'll pay more in taxes, but if you make any less money you're still stuck with having less money. In either case they are stuck with the same situation in the end and they'll need more if they want to turn their economy around.

I wasn't actually in agreement with taking the flags down, But it did accomplsih what Williams wanted. It got the attention of the whole Country. It's not often that Newfoundland is on the front page of the Globe. But yeah, The whole argument was over the clawbacks on equalisation, and all Newfoundland is trying to do is become a bit more self sufficient, and less Ottawa dependent.

[Troll King]

They may have gotten the attention they wanted but Premier Williams comes across as a whiny baby in the process. I agree with his stance but I disagree with the means in which he strives for it.

[froedrick]

They may have gotten the attention they wanted but Premier Williams comes across as a whiny baby in the process. I agree with his stance but I disagree with the means in which he strives for it.

I dislike Williams. I voted for John Efford In an attempt to get the Liberals back into power. I do not support the conservatives in any way, shape or form. Another reason Williams did this was to draw attention away from the fact that he basically forced layoffs all over the province. He froze Newfoundlands economy and thousands lost jobs. But conveniently he has gone from a 21% job approval rating to a 60+% job approval rating in a matter of 5 months...eurgh