From: cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: Plan S -- Quebec separation
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University of Ottawa
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 92 20:40:11 GMT

In article <schuck.721246968@sfu.ca> Bruce_Schuck@sfu.ca writes:
>(Gerry Gryschuk) writes:
>
>>From article <schuck.721174910@sfu.ca>, by schuck@fraser.sfu.ca (Bruce Jonathan Schuck):
>
>>> 
>>> The federal government becomes illegitimate the moment
>>> MP's from a secessionist province are allowed into the PM's office [a
>>> distinct possibility], the cabinet [also likely], or vote on any bll
>>> [also likely].
>
>>Why the province has not yet passed formal declarations as being a new
>>Country? Considering that negotiations detailing how Quebec would eventually
>>secede would go on for years it would be imbecilic not to keep them as
>>part of Canada. 
>
>You are insane if you think Canada would allow Jean Chretien to sit at
>a table with Jacques Parizeau to negotiate how much of the national
>debt goes to Quebec, how much land it keeps, which region stays, etc
>etc.

You're certainly lumping all of the "evil francophones" in one pile.
There ARE some differences between Parizeau and Chretien.  (Parizeau
speaks more fluent English than Chretien, for one thing :-)).

Would the fact that someone knows French, or something about Quebec
culture disqualify them from negotiating with Quebec?  That would be
pretty limiting - and mean that only the Quebecois (that probably know
quite a bit of English) would be able to understand what was being
discussed.

I doubt that Chretien would be the best choice for the HEAD
negotiator, but he COULD be useful to have on the team.  Who are you
to say that all Quebeckers are disloyal to Canada?

>>> If such a move is not taken the federal government would and could not
>>> play a role in the nations business. 
>
>>Oh Bull. The nations business would continue to run while a mutually
>>beneficial agreement was reached on exactly how Quebec would leave.
>
>You are a wishful thinker. That is a recipe for civil war.

I guess that civil war would be unavoidable then.  Your recipe would
just cause the war to be more certain, more soon, and involve more
hatred.

People can't fight if they're busy trying to keep the status quo
going.  It's far easier to recruit/conscript people that are
unemployed than it is to recruit people that are busy working.  And
your set of unilateral actions would pretty much shut down the Quebec
economy, and would throw a lot of extra people out of work.  If
extensive unilateral action were taken, there'd be a lot of
disgruntled Quebeckers with TIME ON THEIR HANDS.  That's hardly good
for TROC.

People are less likely to fight while negotiations are going on.  They
can at least hope that the negotiations may help.  If fighting seems
to be the only answer, then fighting is likely.

>Nobody in the BC would allow a Quebec Prime Minister or Quebec
>Cabinet Ministers or Quebec MP's to negotiate for us during talks on
>such an agreement with a Quebec government.

I don't think anyone would be so stupid as to try to try to show off that
kind of conflict of interest.  If Plan S went into effect next week, I
don't think that BM would be likely to be one of the primary
negotiators.

The Quebec MPs SHOULD be trying to do their best for their
constituents - that's supposedly why they were elected.

-- 
Christopher Browne                |     PGP 2.0 key available
cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca           |===================================
University of Ottawa              |  The Personal Computer:  Colt 45
Master of System Science Program  |  of the Information Frontier
Newsgroups: can.politics,soc.culture.canada