Actually, I am glad the referendum was defeated as this makes the best economic sense for both Quebec and Canada. Furthermore I think some of the language laws are rather silly, such as requiring French on signs in Chinatown.
However, to describe the PQ's policies as "ethnic cleansing" with its overtone of Nazism, Serbia and Rwanda, is extremely offensive hyperbole. Let's remember that official policy in Canada was to promote the disappearace of the quebecois culture and that this continued into the 1960's. This history does promote to a certain paranoia, especially given the rather large income disparities between let's say the Molson family and the average French-Canadian worker.
Having said all that, singling out minorities on the basis of language or religion is of course wrong. But it seems that Parizeau blamed "money and the ethnic vote" for the dedeat of the referendum. That's not exactly a call to genocide, especially as I suspect that Westmount did in fact have a great deal to do with the referendum's defeat. Furthermore the man was forced to resign the next day, so I don't think his words have much acceptance even in the PQ.
I am surprised that you are getting so emotional about this. What I said was that on the basis of history, culture and language, hell yeah, separatism is a good idea. But separatism does not make economic sense and it would make Canada a divided country. The example of Bangladesh does not inspire confidence in the workability of this model. Furthermore separation does put people who live in Quebec, immigrants is particular, in the position of choosing sides, and that is not a healthy thing.
Dana
>Dana,
>
>Remember the last referendum on the topic was worded by the Parti Quebecois.
>Not the Canadian Government. Since the PQ is the separatist party, you would
>figure that they would have worded the question to get the result that they
>wanted. Moreover given what Jacques Parizeau said after the referendum
>regarding immigrants and Jews and other minorities, its probably a very good
>thing that the PQ lost that referendum. I would not have been surprised if
>they would have further increased their efforts at ethnic cleansing if the
>Yes effort succeeded. Many in the PQ have the same attitudes that Parizeau
>had regarding the non-francophones.
>
>Also only about 58% of the francophone Quebecois voted yes (see
>http://newsworld.cbc.ca/flashback/1995/quebec3.html). Not exactly a
>resounding majority. Additionally over 90% of the non francophone Quebecois
>voted No.
>
>As for the PQ being in power, well how many referenda have they had since
>1995? They are acting like a general moderate to liberal (for Canada that
>is) political party now.
>
>larry
>
>>
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