Québec solidaire - the thread

I think this was perfect:

Singh addressed the issue in a personal manner. After all, a person who dresses as he does will be a target of the CAQ's proposed new law. The NDP leader said, poignantly, that the Quebec initiative makes him sad. It reminds him, he told reporters, of his own sense of exclusion growing up.

That is why I am against the law. Not for any ideological reason. Ideologically I would support the law but I place people above ideology. The law does not serve to protect society it does the opposite. It encourages intolerance and even fear. 

Singh takes it out of the realm of ideology and into the realm of humanity. Everyone can relate to feeling alienated, excluded, sad, hurt. Most people don't want to make other people feel that way. Many people now know or have known a hijab-wearing woman at least casually. Legault knows that people would react with outrage if there were mass firings. Schoolboards are saying they will refuse to apply the law. How will it be enforced? Will there be a snitch line? 

Unenforcable laws are not good. Quebecers may support the idea of the law but in practice I don't believe that they will.

P.S. I too am done with winter. I've had two dry air nose bleeds and I'm tired of bundling up to go outside. I want to be able to think, "Oh, I think I will go pick up X" and not have it feel like such a chore. I want to sit on my balconey and get angry at the squirrels for messing with my plants. 

They have no fear, one was within two feet of me on the sidewalk  and didn't budge. 

NorthReport:

Basically correct history, but I'm pretty sure that Roncarelli himself was a JW. From the Osgoode link...

The Roncarelli case, which also ended in a Supreme Court judgement, differed from Boucher and Saumur and indeed most of the other cases involving Jehovah’s Witnesses in several respects. For one thing, it was a civil, or private suit (one citizen against another), and for another, the Jehovah’s Witness involved was the instigator (plaintiff) of the legal action.

There might be some assumption that Roncarelli couldn't have been a JW because he sold liquor, but in fact, booze is one vice permitted the JWs. I've read accounts of people getting pretty sloshed at some of their international meetings.

 

 

 

This was a huge decision

See the charts on page 153 and 154

The Deep Structure of Roncarelli v Duplessis David Dyzenhau

https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/87910/1/Dyzenhaus%20Deep%20Structure.pdf

https://books.google.ca/books?id=BLvwCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA314&lpg=PA314&dq=was+frank+roncarelli+jewish&source=bl&ots=ayYqqajoQP&sig=ACfU3U0_Kgh3Xp-h9o7ja0VQOlCHAxvncQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjw4LqupbrhAhXPv54KHYCgCEw4ChDoATADegQIBxAB#v=onepage&q=was%20frank%20roncarelli%20jewish&f=false

http://media.garybotting.com/online-books/fundamental-freedoms-and-jehovahs-witnesses/chap-05.pdf

 

NorthReport wrote:

votd 

I stand corrected - you are right it appers.

Some say the fatal stroke Duplessis suffered later that year was due to the public rebuke by the Supreme Court. A year later, Jean Lesage’s Liberal party won its first election since 1936, an event that marked the beginning of the Quiet Revolution. Stein’s clients returned. Scott became dean of law at McGill and Roncarelli moved to the United States to find work.

That statement is not quite true. The Liberals did win one election between 1936 and the election of Jean Lesage. In 1939, the Liberals under  Joseph-Adélard Godbout won the election (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Quebec_general_election).

I found the link and story about the JW in Quebec very interesting.  Unionist can't help himself. He's a curmudgeon.

 I don’t have any diasagreement with any of that lagatta it was primarily unionist’s comments that I was lecturing Quebecers that were frustrating, nonsensical and inaccurate 

They could, though it takes an awful lot of willingness to compromise among ideological currents and an awful lot of work. I think the QS model is one that can work outside Quebec. And now I am off topic too. 

Another thread on Duplessis and the like would be useful education, I’d think. 

Québec solidaire vows to fight CAQ government’s racist bill

National Council reaffirms party’s program on separation of church and state, rebuffs QS leaders’ attempts at ‘compromise’

quote:

The CAQ bill has provoked a growing wave of public opposition from civil liberties groups, school boards, and some unions. Meanwhile, many Québec solidaire members had expressed unease with statements by newly elected QS members of the National Assembly indicating support for a “compromise” that would adopt the Bouchard-Taylor report’s position. The party opened a discussion on the issue, which was placed on the agenda of a National Council (NC) meeting held March 29-31.

Three positions emerged from this debate. A relatively small “laicity collective” called for a complete ban on religious signs by public employees at all levels. Because this proposal conflicted with the party’s program, it was ineligible for debate at the CN meeting, which was confined to “interpreting” the program and had no authority to pre-empt a position adopted in a duly constituted membership congress.

A second position — endorsed by several internal QS commissions and ad hoc collectives — rejected the MNAs’ compromise and supported a position of “open laicity” that generally rejected any prohibition on display of religious beliefs by public employees.

The party executive then moved to put two options before the NC members, both of which began with the same “whereas” clause: “that in all cases restrictions on the wearing of religious signs are possible when these contravene one of the four criteria set out in article 7.5.2 of the Québec solidaire program (proselytism, duty of discretion, exercise of the occupation or safety standard).” Option A would ban such signs for persons in authority exercising “a coercive power,” as supported by the MNAs, while Option B stated that “Whereas the discretionary duty applies to the actions and decisions of persons and not to their appearance, no particular rule concerning religious signs should apply to certain professions instead of others, including those that exercise a coercive power.”

The National Council meeting voted overwhelmingly in favour of Option B.

However, this was followed by a second vote, also proposed by the party executive, which asked NC members to choose between two options: one that would bar those dispensing or receiving government services from wearing clothing that conformed to any of the four exceptions allowed by the party program; and another that would allow such services to persons wearing clothing that covers the face, “except for considerations of identification or safety.” The latter option was adopted. This position, which in practice would affect the tiny minority of Muslim women who wear a niqab or burqa, moves QS uncomfortably close to the discriminatory positions of the CAQ, Liberals and PQ on this aspect.

So in the end the party program on “open laicity” as it is often called, was reaffirmed, albeit with its explicit limitations, while the MNAs’ attempts to find some compromise with opposing positions were largely rebuffed. However, it remains for a party congress to amend the QS program to remove the caveats that have served as a pretext for the slippages of principle that have characterized the party’s public positions over the past decade.

In other decisions the 330 NC members voted to continue making the party’s program on climate change its main campaign for the coming year. That program, which presents many progressive concepts but within the framework of a general “green capitalism” approach, should also be the subject of critical analysis along with the position on laicity as the party prepares for its next convention, to be held toward year-end, and where it plans to complete and review its program as a whole.

..richard fidler

Yes, there are so many people accusing us of having a secret politburo, when actually QS is democratic to a nearly absurd degree...

On a positive note, I see signs that the NDPQ and Quebec Solidaire may be on course toward closer co-operation in provincial politics. Solidaire has moved toward the NDPQ position on secularism and religious symbols while the federal NDP Quebec section under Alexandre Boulerice are openly co-operating with known QS activists toward the coming federal campaign.

QS-NDP-Projet cooperation in Montreal is nothing new, but good to see the NDP is not demonizing QS these days. 

Pondering wrote:

Are the people leading QS stupid? 

But QS also wants to focus on the issue of Quebec independence and has announced plans to focus its November policy convention on the issue.

The NDPQ is Quebec's only hope so Quebec will be right wing for some time to come.  

If only there was a political party interested in what the people want. 

QS is either smart or mistaken on this one. If they are trying to recruit all the social democrats that are still left in the PQ, then it is smart. But if they are trying to be become a sovereignty-first new PQ, I think that is a big mistake that will disable any further growth for QS.

 

 

Quebec Solidaire has been sovereigntist since the beginning, why is it surprising that they would focus on it? Now that the PQ is at their lowest level, this is their chance to replace them as the top sovereignty party.

It turns me off from the party personally, but I understand why they're focusing more on it.

Pondering wrote:

Legault is a sovereignist that is now leading Quebec and he is hugely popular because he is willing to set sovreignty aside and run the province.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/analysis-in-the-drivers-seat-legault-tells-quebecers-to-brace-for-change

On that latter issue, Sonia LeBel, the minister responsible for electoral reform, has promised to introduce a bill creating a mixed proportional voting system by Oct. 1.

While LeBel has said the time needed to put in place such a system will mean Quebecers will vote in 2022 under the old rules, Legault himself is more vague.

What is likely is Quebecers will wind up voting in a referendum on the system at the same time as they vote in the 2022 general election.

If there is one good thing that could come from Legault being in power it would be achieving proportional representation for Quebec. 

That QS is focusing their convention on something Quebecers don't want to even discuss shows me that their purpose is not to represent the people. 

It's enough that sovereignty is off the agenda for decades to come, if not for all time.  It serves no purpose to demand that QS renounce what is clearly a moot point.

And the last election proves that NPD-Q is never going to get anywhere electorally.

Ken, it serves a purpose to ask QS to let sovereignty stay on the back burner. If they'd do that, and concentrate on climate change and social justice, it would be so swell. 

For the record, even though I stand by what I said about there being no point in people making a big deal about QS' stand on this-it's not as if the party is on the verge of forming government or anything-I never thought it made any sense for QS to merge with Option Nationale.  What's the point of trying to merge with a party that never took more than 1.89% of the vote in a Quebec election and had fallen to .73% last time?

And, as is usually the case, lagatta has it right-this is a tactical move aimed at warding off a line of attack from the PQ.

It is so weird that the PQ hasn't just completely vanished politically at this point, though.  They no longer have any core values other than sovereignty for sovereignty's sake, and their last two spells in government have made it clear that the PQ would be fine with sovereignty-austerityism.  What sort of people, even among francophones in Quebec, even among those whose origins are in a nationalist-sovereigntist sensibility, would still think that the form of sovereignty the PQ now champions-which is now nothing more than reheated 19th-century nation-state ethnic-supremacist nationalism-is going to be of any value in solving the actual problems in their lives?

 

Here's what ultimately needs to happen to create a united, democratic, and egalitarian Europe:

1) Abolish the EU as currently constituted;

2) Have "social Europe"-the Left and the unions, those who stand with the poor, with refugees, with immigrants-create a new Europe-wide democratic body from below-this time, with a European Parliament with actual powers, with ACTUAL free movement of peoples, and without the pointless restrictions the EU imposes on spending, taxation, and nationalization;

There has to be some way to get to a form of European unity that is not elitist and economic royalist-and that model of unity is not going to be achieved unless either the EU is abolished, or is forced from below, through massive protest and resistance against the existing order, to accept radical, egalitarian, and democratic change on economic and spending policy.

voice of the damned wrote:

Ken wrote:

What sort of people, even among francophones in Quebec, even among those whose origins are in a nationalist-sovereigntist sensibility, would still think that the form of sovereignty the PQ now champions-which is now nothing more than reheated 19th-century nation-state ethnic-supremacist nationalism-is going to be of any value in solving the actual problems in their lives?

I think you might have answered your own question there. The sort of PQ supporters you're talking about would be "ethnic-supremacist nationalists". Those types exist elsewhere in Canada, albeit maybe with a less narrowly defined notion of ethnicity, so I'm sure some of them are haunting Quebec as well.

 

(sigh)  I was really HOPING I hadn't answered my own question there, damn.

It's beginning to look as though we need not only a massive antiracist/antioppression movement, but an anti-nationalist movement as well.

Unionist wrote:

Before everyone explodes, calling QS "stupid" and "opportunistic" etc... could someone please show me where QS said the November congress would be focused on Québec independence? I'm a member, and that's news to me. I may well have missed something? Thanks in advance.

EDITED: Someone is doing covert surveillance on me! Here's the answer to my question, in an email I received today from QS:

Quote:

Réuni en caucus, le caucus solidaire a déterminé trois grandes priorités pour l’automne.

1. La lutte aux changements climatiques

2. Combattre les inégalités économiques

3. La promotion de l’indépendance du Québec

So, I humbly retract my question. Now I need to ask QS why Québec independence has become one of our 3 priorities. It ain't one of mine.
 

https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/analysis-in-the-drivers-seat-legault-tells-quebecers-to-brace-for-change

But QS also wants to focus on the issue of Quebec independence and has announced plans to focus its November policy convention on the issue.

The above is what made me see red. Having said that I keep having to remind myself that the MSM deliberately states things to make them sound as controversial as possible. The above is not a quote it's a paraphrase of what Nadeau said. Paraphrasing can be both technically accurate and misleading. 

I'm going to take a deep breath and wait for what comes of the convention. 

swallow wrote:

Changed my mind, the "leaders" of QS are stupid after all. 

«Moi, je n’en ai jamais rencontré à Québec solidaire, des fédéralistes de gauche», a déclaré Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois. https://journalmetro.com/actualites/national/2398299/federalistes-quebec-solidaire-gabriel-nadeau-dubois/ 

 

Yup.