What's the role of the federal NDP in Quebec if sovereignty remains a hot issue?

Yeah...switching your allegiances that drastically would kind of make your head explode.

Then again, it wouldn't be as weird as the Equality Party MNA who crossed over to the PQ.   Has ANYBODY figured that one out yet?

cco wrote:

Because it works. One side will always vote for you to stop a referendum, no matter what else you do. The other side won't be drawn specifically to vote for a referendum, so it doesn't hurt you to bring it up. It can only help. I've lived here since I was 17 and in every campaign the Liberals have hammered "no referendum, no referendum, no referendum". It's [i]all[/i] they have.

So if we all acknowledge that fear of a referendum is the way the Quebec Liberals win mist elections in Quebec, maybe it's about time that people who don't want the Liberals in power simply renounced ever having a referendum and then Quebec can start having "normal" provincial elections where people debate things like health care and unemployment. The Liberal chant of " no referendum, no referendum, no referendum" is very effective because the PQ never rules it out and every other time the PQ has been in power they have had a referendum.

I think the PQ should simply announce that it will NEVER initiate a referendum. Ever. There is a popular initiative law in Quebec, so I thinks that if 50% of all eligible voters in Quebec sign a petition asking for a referendum on independence then one can happen! but it should be a totally spontaneous popular movement that has no funding from the provincial government

 The problem is if the PQ promise not to have a referundum then there is no point to the PQs existance at all.

 The PQ really has a fundmental issue, when your sole idealogy is soveriegnty and you can't even run on having a referundum one has to wonder what the point of existing is.

The same reason a huge swath of British Columbians voted NDP provincially and Reform federally in the 1990s. Working class populism is neither exclusively left- nor right-wing.

Ken Burch wrote:

It's insane that the CAQ gets support from federal NDP supporters.  Why the hell would they vote for a party that is opposed to everything they stand for?  They don't even have "but we're federalist" as an excuse...since the Caquistes are ambiguous on that issue.

Stockholm wrote:

cco wrote:

Because it works. One side will always vote for you to stop a referendum, no matter what else you do. The other side won't be drawn specifically to vote for a referendum, so it doesn't hurt you to bring it up. It can only help. I've lived here since I was 17 and in every campaign the Liberals have hammered "no referendum, no referendum, no referendum". It's [i]all[/i] they have.

So if we all acknowledge that fear of a referendum is the way the Quebec Liberals win mist elections in Quebec, maybe it's about time that people who don't want the Liberals in power simply renounced ever having a referendum and then Quebec can start having "normal" provincial elections where people debate things like health care and unemployment. The Liberal chant of " no referendum, no referendum, no referendum" is very effective because the PQ never rules it out and every other time the PQ has been in power they have had a referendum. I think the PQ should simply announce that it will NEVER initiate a referendum. Ever. There is a popular initiative law in Quebec, so I thinks that if 50% of all eligible voters in Quebec sign a petition asking for a referendum on independence then one can happen! but it should be a totally spontaneous popular movement that has no funding from the provincial government

Well, obviously it couldn't be the PQ that announced that, because then the PQ would no longer have any reason to exist(just as Sinn Fein would no longer have any reason to contest Northern Ireland Assemby elections or UK parliamentary elections if they announced that they accepted the partition of Ireland as the permanent state of affairs, or the Scottish National Party if they called of THEIR referendum and announced they were fine with the current situation where Scots have pathetically limited home rule).

But a strong showing for QS could be a path to moving on...not renunciation of the consciousness of Quebec-as-a-nation, not surrender to federalist(and therefore corporate)domination, but a new, more inclusive, democratic and egalitarian model for both Quebec and, through inspiration, Canada as a whole.  a model created not be ceasing to see the world through the lens of the national consciousness(and it's not EVIL to be a sovereigntist, Stocks, just as it's also not fair to act as if ALL Quebec sovereigntists are neo-Vichy French just because Marois has opportunistically turned her party's program into right-wing Islamophobic-and probably covertyly antisemitic-hate speech)but to find a way to express and fulfil that national consciousness in a progressive, inclusive way that could even with creativity and good will, keep Quebec within Canada as a nation-within-a-nation(as it should always have been, since it was always insulting to treat Quebec as "a province", as it was insulting for the Crown to treat Ireland as a province before 1922 or Scotland and Wales as, effectively, provinces now).  QS, even though it is sovereigntist, is the way forward, the path to new choices and new ideas on the future of Quebec AND Canada.  And sovereigntism is not fascism...it's simply one organizing principle of a person's perception of life.   Demanding that all Quebec francophones renounce sovereigntism means demanding that they forget their entire history, all that shaped their parents and themselves, and all that made them, if they are on the left, decide to fight for a better world.  It means asking them to stop being who they are(to reverse your earlier anglophones as blacks-in-Mississipp analogy, its the equivalent of telling U.S. blacks to "stop being angry" and settle for being "happy little Negroes" who know their place-and in the U.S., the black president we currently have, whatever you may think of the guy, keeps getting told that).   Even if that's not what YOU mean in saying that, that's what it's always going to sound like to Quebec francophones,

QS presents, with its current program and its anti-oppression values, a way to create something different, something that is neither dogmatic old-school PET federalism OR the 19th century nation-state values that ended up preventing the PQ from being the great party it could have been...but they need to be given a chance, and anglophone/allophone left support for QS is the way to start that dialogue.  QS are NOT the PQ, and supporting them, rather than sitting it out hoping for a party that probably can't ever exist in Quebec, is pointless.

Voting QS on Monday is the positive, hopeful, radical choice.  Sitting it out over the now-meaningless question of a referendum is cynical and defeatist.  What matters is building the left, not what flag that left MIGHT eventually exist under,  

QS has pledged the following - the only time "referendum" appears in the platform:

Quote:

2.1 CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

Québec Solidaire recognizes Quebecers’ right to choose their institutions and Quebec’s political status.

On the day it takes office, Québec Solidaire will launch a constituent assembly process. Throughout, it will defend the objective of making Quebec into a country, while guaranteeing that the Constituent Assembly remains independent.

The Assembly will:a. be elected by popular vote, be composed of an equal number of women and men, and will represent Quebec society in all its diversity;b. conduct a far-reaching, participatory democratic process to consult the population of Quebec on:• the values, rights, and principles upon which community life should be based;• the political status of Quebec;• the definition of its institutions;c. draft, from the outcome of the consultation, a constitution which will be put to the population via referendum.

This is definitely not a pledge to hold a referendum on sovereignty or back the PQ stance. It's not agnostic, but it does not pre-suppose an assembly will opt for independence either. 

Francois david said in the debate that if elected Premier she would call a REFERENDUM on independence. GONG

http://m.thestar.com/#!/canada/quebecers-elect-new-captain-canada-in-phi...