From: Rémi Tremblay [email him]
Jonathan Tepperman’s assertion that Canada’s multiculturalism and mass immigration were first implemented to crush French Canadian separatism is the only part of his article that is actually true. This is no longer debated in Quebec—especially since 1995 when the federal government fast-tracked the immigration of thousands of newcomers in order to make the balance tip on the “No” side in the referendum. The ROC (Rest of Canada) may be starting to see the obvious: mass immigration, despite the rhetoric about aging population or supposed labor shortage, was never planned in order to benefit them.
For Pierre Trudeau, an ardent anti-separatist, multiculturalism was meant to make Quebecois “one national groups among many” and therefore ending the biculturalism that was the very basis of Canada’s 1867 Confederation. By making French Canadians only one ethnic group among others, French Canadian nationalism would lose its legitimacy.
Quebec’s independence makes sense because the province is inhabited by a distinct people. So by drowning Quebecers on their own land, a strategy rightly denounced in the 1960s by the Socialist activist Raoul Roy, Quebec’s separation would lose any justification.
No one in Quebec fails to realize this. Unlike in the Rest Of Canada, politicians in Quebec are able to engage in critical thinking on topics like immigration and are not blinded by Political Correctness. Pierre-Karl Péladeau, just before becoming the leader of the Parti Québécois, said it bluntly: “We are losing a riding [legislative district] a year because of immigration.”
Tepperman asserts everyone in Canada is happy with immigration, but he is certainly not familiar with the situation in Quebec. In fact, there is currently no Quebec politician risking his political future promoting higher immigration levels. The Liberal Party of Quebec, currently governing the province, is supported by ethnic blocs and has always been in favor of increased immigration. But raising immigration quotas now would be political suicide and the LPQ masterminds know it. The Coalition Avenir Quebec, a party with no fixed ideology that chooses its program according to the polls, announced recently that it would support a sharp decrease in immigration. And the separatist Parti Québécois just elected a new leader, Jean Francois Lisée, who campaigned specifically on reducing immigration, attracting the usual denunciations. [PQ under Jean-François Lisée similar to European far-right, Philippe Couillard says| Quebec premier congratulates new Opposition leader, suggests he's bad for humanity, by Jonathan Montpetit, CBC, October 8, 2016]
Quebec does not fit well into Tepperman’s view of an immigration-happy Canada. Actually, neither does it fit Trudeau’s plan—Electing A New People is backfiring here.
Rémi Tremblay (email him) is the editor of Le Harfang and a contributor to the Council of Euro-Canadians. His latest book is Le Canada français, de Jacques Cartier au génocide tranquille
