A few important facts: Difference between revisions

The community of descent comprised of people who can trace some ancestry to the French settlers of New France is vast and dispersed in the whole of North America. A great percentage of those people are actually native English speakers living outside Quebec. Unlike some other ethnic communities, there is nothing uniting French North American.  

There is however, in Quebec, a human community whose members share a common identity based on language and culture: They are Francophone Quebecers. The members of this community are not united by ancestry but by shared culture & language. This identity can be adopted by anyone who wishes to learn to speak French and become ''Québécois'' and has in fact been adopted by quantity of people from Ireland, the United States, Acadia, Scotland, England and Germany during the 19th century and by people of an even greater number of human origins during the 20th century. Quebec nationalists want this identity, socially transmitted from to generation to generation, and passed on to immigrants and their children by assimilation, to keep existing and stop being threatened to disappear because the people who make it exist can only govern their common destiny by the means of a provincial government whose status as a national government is denied by the nationalist & centralist power in Ottawa.  

In addition to the main French-speaking national group, Quebec is home to 10 distinct Amerindian nations, the Inuit nation and a minority of Anglophones who tend to identify as Canadians first. Despite the plurality of identities found in Quebec, all its citizens are de facto and de jure part of the same political nation as the laws adopted by the National Assembly of Quebec apply to all. The same goes for all citizens of the federation who are de facto and de jure a part of the same political nation whether they identify to it or not.

The advocates of Quebec independence argue for a Quebec State that would grant citizenship to all current residents of Quebec. Of course, there is no point in denying that one of the central reasons for the creation of this new State is to allow its people to govern itself freely through political institutions that give control to the majority. It is the right of Quebecers as a people to determine, in full freedom, "when and as they wish, their internal and external political status, without external interference, and to pursue as they wish their political, economic, social and cultural development."

==2. The people of Québec was never consulted on the adoption of any of the constitutional acts enforced to rule them==

The people of Québec was never consulted on the adoption any of the constitutional acts enforced to rule them. Québec has yet to democratically choose its constitution. As a people, Quebecers can legitimately claim its right to self-determination just like all the other peoples on Earth. Read Article VIII of the Helsinki Act.

The British North America Act is the works of British imperialists and would have been rejected by Québec at the September 1867 election if it had not been for a blatant electoral fraud. (See the history section) In order to create the confederated Dominion of Canada, the non-elected colonial government first had to neutralize the elected leaders of Lower Canada (Papineau and the Parti Patriote) and unite the two Canadas (Upper and Lower) with the 1840 Union Act, hence forcing the Canadiens to become a politically weakened minority destined to assimilation in the new political system of the colony. The constitution of 1867 changed nothing of this reality.  

On October 27, 1864, after the signing of the confederative pact, George Brown, founder of the Toronto Globe and one of the Fathers of the Confederation, wrote a note to his wife while packing his things before leaving for Toronto: "All right... Constitution adopted - a most creditable document - a complete reform of all the excesses and injustice we have complained of: Is it not wonderful? French Canadianism entirely extinguished."

The Indirect Rule and the massive immigration of British subjects to Canada were still in effect under the centralizing Federation disguised as a Confederation. From a democratic standpoint, the legitimacy of the Confederation can be considered null. Even worst, in 1982, the constitution was amended and repatriated without the signature of the National Assembly of Québec. Quebecers are governed by a constitution they officially rejected.

==3. The majority of Québec's independentists favor a republican form of government==

The majority of Québec's independentists favor a republican form of government, an elected President and a modern proportional voting system to elect the National Assembly's representatives. We are not fools: we want the real democracy our people has dreamed of for over a century and a half.

The majority of the independentists recognize the right to self-determination of the Amerindians and the Inuit. They are to be a part of all negotiations between Québec and Ottawa in the advent of secession. Despite Indian affairs being a federal jurisdiction, the Québec government has worked with native communities to help them strengthen their economic, social and cultural autonomy. See the current proposal for an agreement in principle with the Innu people.

A minority of the independentists recognize the right to autonomy of the Amerindians and the Inuit inside Quebec. The main reason for that is that some adversaries of Quebec's independence have threatened to partition Quebec. So it is believed that were Quebec to officially recognize the right to self-determination of the Amerindians and the Inuit, it would play against the right to self-determination of all Quebec peoples.

Quebec nationalism, in the context of British colonialism, must be understood for what it is: a desire for national liberation. The starting point of our movement is the American revolution. The political adversaries of the Quebec independence movement have been expecting the world to believe that a people that was 1) neighbour to the revolutionary colonies, 2) in the majority native speakers of the French language, the dominant language of the Enlightenment Era, could have been completely immune to the philosophy of the 18th century.  

The word "Québécois" is not an invention of the Parti Québécois. It has been used to designate the citizens of Québec since the confederation and also the citizens of Québec City long before. The French-speaking majority of Québec has not always used this term when referring to itself and the English-speaking minority never did, except when deprived of its very meaning. As a term referring to a political nation, it only appeared when the French Canadians of Québec chose to adopt it as their main defining identity during the Quiet Revolution. Read on the Quiet Revolution to learn more. The main cultural group constituting the Québécois are the descendants of the 19th century French-speaking Canadiens and immigrants who have integrated this people. Canada used to be the name of what is essentially the two shores of the St-Laurent river, where the most important settlements of New France were located. Today, this land is called Québec, so we call ourselves Quebecers (in French Québécois ). Read The Québécois Identity is for All to learn more.

In the 19th century, the Parti patriote of Lower Canada had the support of an overwhelming majority of the Canadien population, including a significant number of English-speaking subjects, especially of Irish and American origin. The Patriotes movement is nothing marginal in Québec's history. The leaders of the time, very often speaking both French and English (along with Greek and Latin), were not completely disconnected from the world, on the contrary. They had read the literature of the American and French revolutions and were aware of the various other liberation movements in other parts of the world. See the section on other independence movements. The Canadien people wanted to establish a free and democratic Republic that would have been one of the most egalitarian state of its time. See the Declaration of Independence by the Patriotes of Lower Canada. (1838)

The mandates of arrest issued against the patriot leaders were illegal. The massive repression of Lord Seaton (called Milord Satan by the Canadiens) is proportionally 5 times worst than the one ordered by the Comité du Salut Public in France during the period of the French revolution called La Terreur.

Québec is a nation in both the sociological and political meanings of the word. In the English language, nation comes from Old French nation which itself comes from Latin natio which means "to be born". This word is unfortunately vague for it can designate different ideas or concepts. Nation can mean a people or a nationality which is a human group who shares some or all of the following attributes: customs, culture, religion, institutions, language and history. That is the United Nations's definition at least. A more modern definition is the political nation, a human group that is politically organized under a single government, i.e. the government represents the whole people. These two definitions are not in contradiction with each other; as a matter of fact, they often complement one another: you typically have a nation (people) under a national government (state) for example.

For centuries, the Jews were a stateless nation persecuted all over the Earth because they were considered a dangerous minority in every country they settled. After the horrors of the Second World War, the Jews were given a state of their own, Israel, and today there is a solid Jewish majority able to govern itself democratically in this country. For as long as the state of Israel stands, there will be a dynamic living Jewish community in the world, contributing to our planet's richness and diversity. Quebecers are like the Israelites. French Canadians are like the Jews. But the comparison stops there of course. French Canadians are better compared to another famous persecuted people: the Irish.

Another meaning of the word nation in English is an independent country. Often, people will say that Québec is not a nation, meaning that it is not an independent country and in fact is just a province, a federated state. They are absolutely right on this. That is precisely why there is an independence movement in Québec.

The existence of a political nation within Québec goes back to at least 1663 when New France was made a royal province of the [[wikipedia:Kingdom of France|Kingdom of France]]. With the cession of 1763, this provincial state, its code of law and some of its key civil institutions, were detached from the Kingdom of France and attached to the Kingdom of Great Britain. French Canada became the Province of Quebec.

In 1792, the Lower Canadian population elected its first representatives to the Parliament of Lower Canada. The Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, located in Québec City, was the only institution representing the people of Lower Canada, in the majority French Speaking and Catholic. This representation was totally powerless, as was the corresponding representation in Upper Canada.  

Indeed, the force legislative union caused the disunion of the ''Parti patriote'' leaders, who became divided into those who sought reforms within the new union framework and those who wanted to repeal the ''Union Act''. The conquered people of the late French Canada was finally divided. But the political agitation was far from being over and the stability of the new union regime proved uncertain. The federal system, presented to the electorate as a "confederation", became a reality in 1867, with the adoption of the ''[[wikipedia:Constitution Act, 1867|British North America Act]]''. This Act of the UK Parliament created a new Parliament for a new Dominion federating all British American colonies. This federation was given the name of "Canada". The late provinces of Upper Canada and Lower Canada were re-separated as "Ontario" and "Quebec". The people of Quebec, thus finally obtained a full Parliament. Unfortunately, this one came without the full legislative powers needed by Quebecers to control their own destiny. Conflicts of jurisdictions between the federal State of Canada and the provincial State of Quebec have been a permanent issue ever since.