They(1) believed that the aspirations of the Quebecers and their project for emancipation belonged to the past. Yet, on October 5th, new generations voted overwhelmingly in favor of the project. They thought they could silence the movement with a scaled-down version of the sovereignist project. It worked for more or less two decades.
They believed that by flooding Montreal with newcomers from around the world, the project of emancipation would lose ground. But the reality was that most newcomers’ offspring (the youth) integrated the Quebecers aspirations as their own cultural project.
They believed that there were no longer men and women who could engage in politics out of conviction and for the sake of defending a people’s culture – which is going to die within the next few decades if nothing is done.
They were wrong!
Last week, they woke up and were shocked to discover that the project for the emancipation of the Quebecers people is still alive. The event that provoked this shock made the headlines in Quebec and Canada and seems at first trivial, yet the symbolism reveals the scope of the neo-colonial logic of the eatablishment of the Anglo-Canadians society.
The Canadian federal government’s through Mark Carney Premier, refused to allow the new Premier of Quebec Paul St-Pierre Plamondon to speak during the meeting of European Union leaders held on Quebec soil— in Montreal.
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon had hoped to deliver a speech to the group of representatives of the European Council. According to the Premier the federal government has decided to enter into negotiations with the European Union which concerns Quebec’s interest without any form of consultation and didn’t allow Quebec to seat at the negotiating table. Plamondon points out that Quebec was, in fact, involved in the negotiation of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), a free-trade deal between Canada and the EU several years ago.
In most Canadian newspapers, this story suggests that the implication of the new Premier was to seek discord and confrontation with the central government since he refused the attend the dinner, given the fact that he could not deliver a speech.
But in reality, Plamondon is neither someone who always seeking confrontation nor a coward or someone who exploits the system like previous prime ministers— he is someone who has a vision, a project of society and who holds convictions and that does not sit well with neo-colonialist Anglo-Canadians.
With all due respect to those who may disagree with the choices that the Quebecers made on the election of October 5th. Quebecers exiercised their fundamental right to choice.
Quebecers have the right to choose the conditions under which they wish to live. Choosing a vision of society—selecting one’s own culture among the conditions imposed—is far from being an impulse that inevitably sparks conflict, as the neo-colonialists would like us believe.
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(1) They – involes the Canadian federal system and the central government which on many issues concerning Quebec future is acting as a neo-colonialist entity.
