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We. Fucking. Did. It.
People of Mercier: you rock! Verily.
ETA: I have this smile that Just. Won't. Go. Away...
Pauline Marois just gave (or maybe is still giving, who knows, I can't stand it any more) her "victory" speech. She said she had spoken to Charest and offered her assistance in these difficult economic times. She said her views had diverged sometimes with Dumont, but that they shared views when it came to the "defence" of Québec, and that history would recognize his "contribution" to Québec... She said not one word about a new party winning its first seat in the NA - because of course QS's very existence is a challenge to the PQ's loss of its social conscience.
Agreed on all points. I'm smiling this evening. Although I'd like the Greens to have a chat with QS and do a little coalition/merger. It's the flavour of the month.
ETA: I just realized I said "agreed on all points" to a post by Stockholm. What is the matter with me? Have I lost my marbles? Where is the @#$@#$@ "delete post" button in this new babble software? Help, I need an alibi or something...
Really glad to see the back of the ADQ. And QS is in the house! Sweet!
Also, I remember 1982. Had a very long vacation from school.
Marois has taken the PQ into Union Nationale ideological territory. Ugh.
Actually there is only a narrow strip of about 2 blocks that is both in Mercier and Outremont (between de L'Esplanade and St-Laurent). A lot of NDPers worked on the Quebec Solidaire campaign, but I wonder if there is any reciprocity. Remember, Quebec Solidaire isa sovereigntist party too...
It's just words - reflecting her recognition of the external QS threat and the internal SPQ Libre pressure, perhaps. I'd rather someone act progressive than call themselves progressive. She has a long way to go.
The fourth-best QS candidate was Ruba Ghazal in Laurier-Dorion, with 13.06%. Interesting how many QS candidates are from the "cultural communities." Do I understand she is Lebanese-Palestinian?
In fact, the ADQ machine run Harper's last Quebec campaign. With resignation of "Super Mario" Dumont, Harper has LOST his strongest ally in Quebec.
Interesting that a pollster from outside of Quebec came closest to the final result. Angus Reid had Liberals 42% PQ 36% (while everyone else was predicting a Charest landslide)
http://www.angusreidstrategies.com/polls-analysis/opinion-polls/angus-reid-poll-liberals-lead-parti-québécois-close-behind-quebec-race
Mario is gone. Some of their best candidates were badly defeated (Sébastien Proulx in Trois-Rivières). The ADQ (officially the Action démocratique du Québec/Équipe Mario Dumont - I kid you not!) is a one-man show.
With him gone, what remains of his caucus might well decide to jump the fence and join either the Liberals or the PQ (or maybe both).
Oh, I am so very very happy for you lagatta, I have been visulaizing renzo's return to you since you first noted at BnR he had gone missing. I refused to believe he would not return. Tis a wonderous thing for you!
___________________________________________________________ "watching the tide roll away"
You're off about me, on more counts than I can count, despite your puerile attempts at humor. But this is not about me, per se.
You're on about a francophone federalist writing about mon pays. (It's my home, too.) Give us an example; I couldn't find any.
Credit where credit is due department: Defence of public health care is a given in a progressive platform.
As for integration, I have to admit that QS is at least talking about staffing the public service with cultural communities at their proportion among the population.
Does that mean anglo-bashing will be history? Even among the independentist and soft-nationalist trade unionists in the public sector?
In a reversal of the historic election-day trend, the PQ performed far better than expected and closed so much of the gap between itself and the Liberals that it nearly deprived Charest of a majority.
The PQ's share of the popular vote was just seven percentage points less than the Liberals - this after polls just days ago placed it 14 points behind - and it held Charest's troops to a three-seat majority.
Jean-Marc Leger, president of Leger Marketing, said a poll suggested 14 per cent of Quebecers changed their vote on the last day, with half making that flip-flop while at the ballot box.
Leger said the largest contributor to the discrepancy between pre-election polling and the final outcome Monday was Harper's anti-Quebec rant in the home stretch of the campaign."
http://www.news1130.com/news/national/article.jsp?content=n1209133A
If my comments were read as pro-Liberal, that's a serious mis-reading. As for opposing the PLQ, I would rather vote for someone than against someone else. Better luck next time, I hope.
As a product of working-class parents, one of whom was a shop steward in the public sector, I understand the class line very well, thanks for asking.
At first, I laughed at that line about anglos not feeling comfortable in Quebec City. (As if the entire civil service works there). It's the same reasoning given by golf and country club members for excluding non-whites, to this day.
If we represent 9% of the population and 1% of the civil service, I think the lack of hiring is systemic alright, and is demonstrably systematic.
Then I stopped laughing.
By the way, I will quote Jean Charest on Amir Khadir's election to the provincial legislature: "Our democratic life has been enriched."
Would that we were all as charitable to our opponents.
toddschneider: "Would that we were all as charitable to our opponents."
Does this mean you are defining yourself as one of our opponents?
When it comes to the bigger picture, you're right, i.e. it's not so much the scale of the defeat, as what came after: Super Mario resigning, etc. (I think a couple of incumbents sunk below 15%--Laprairie + St Maurice?) In general, it might as well go the way of the Creditistes post-Real Caouette at this point.
Interesting to note, parenthetically, that the two ADQers who bolted to the Liberals, lost as Liberals. (Were they the only losing Liberal incumbents?)
Decades ago, before the Quiet Revolution, there was little public service to speak of. As soon as one class of serfs took over the manors, and built more, they kept the others out. Not all anglos lived in Westmount mansions.
The same goes for the private sector; lagatta herself admitted minorities are over-represented amongst the under-employed, Haitians in particular. That waste of potential is what we and they and all of us, need protection from.
To quote Mike Harris, the best social program is a job. (That would probably be where he and I part company, other than being WASPs; identity can be a marvelously nuanced thing in the right minds.) Ask my erstwhile Trinidadian partner and boss at the bilingual tutoring service I work for, with passion, preparing a rainbow coalition of young Quebecers for a reasonably accommodating future, what kind of "bigot" I am.
I'm just on this board for Quebec-bashing? That's inaccurate, as a cursory glance at my rabble record will show. I'm on this progressive board because I'm a progressive. Quebec a historically oppressed nation? Not since my parents' day, myself and not a few francophones would argue. We've come a long way, and yet the struggle continues.
If I'm an opponent of anything, it's of demonizing our adversaries.
Down with long posts!
But you are trying to, in mine. To the best of my research, I never said anglos are an "oppressed minority" in Quebec, just discriminated against. (You don't want to read Wikipedia's definition of oppression). We're certainly aggressed.