Thread: Should Blue States Join Canada?

Sir,

Donnie has as much right and expertise to speak about Quebec seperation from Canada as these two Canadians have about the Blue States joining Canada. Frankly, both Canadians have very little insight towards just how much manouvering and posturing occuring in both referendums.

Smiling's quote about the Bloc Quebecois's letters to the R22eR (VD) is not underhanded. It's treason.

Something about how the US feels about seperation.

New documents show repeated approaches by party to U.S. diplomat

By Robert Russo
Canadian Press
October 14, 1997

Representatives of René Lévesque's PQ government repeatedly approached a U.S. diplomat about Quebec joining the United States in the event of a nasty divorce from Canada, newly available documents say.

L. Michael Rives, a former U.S. consul-general in Montreal, suggested to the unidentified Parti Québécois representative that the United States wasn't interested in absorbing Quebec and advised the PQ to shelve independence.

Lévesque and a senior cabinet minister also provided regular and detailed briefings to a senior U.S. diplomat on the path of Quebec independence, a former foreign service officer said.

The revelations are contained in an unvarnished and often barbed series of recollections by U.S. diplomats who served in Canada from the 1930s to 1985.

The retired ambassadors, consuls and counsellors were interviewed by fellow U.S. foreign service officers over the past decade as part of a research and training project established by former state department officials.

Transcripts of the taped interviews are housed at Georgetown University and were made available to the Canadian Press.

Rives, who was posted in Montreal during the 1980 referendum campaign, said he told the PQ representative during an off-the-record conversation that he thought Quebec independence was ``absolutely stupid.''

``They kept saying to me, `Well, if worse comes to worst, we can always ask to join the United States.' I asked, `Are you sure we want you? You know, don't we have enough problems. . . ?' ''

Quebec's highly educated workforce and natural resources would likely mean the province could survive on its own but would be enfeebled, Rives said.

``But as I said to the man, `What you'll become in Quebec, you'll become like Senegal. You'll be a small unimportant country. As long as you're part of Canada, you're one of the two most important provinces in Canada and you're part of Canada, which is one of the five big powers in the economic sphere. If you break up Canada, Canada will be nothing and you'll be even less than Canada.' ''

The Parti Québécois continues to make good relations with the United States a cornerstone of its post-independence scenario.

Francis McNamara, consul-general in Quebec city from 1975 to 1979, said he was regularly kept informed of the PQ's plans on independence by Lévesque and Quebec's intergovernmental affairs minister of the day, Claude Morin.

``I was taken into their confidence, especially by Claude Moran (sic), who was their effective foreign minister . . . and by Lévesque himself. They told me what they were up to, what they wanted to do, how they were going to do it, in some detail, more than you would expect.''

For years rumours have circulated that the United States was preparing diplomatic, if not military, plans in the event of Quebec independence.

Officially, Washington favours a united Canada but stresses non-interference in the unity debate.

Unofficially, the transcripts suggest a U.S. disdain of Quebec independence.

No one made this clearer than Paul Robinson, the blustery U.S. ambassador to Canada from 1981 to 1985.

Canada's policy of two official languages made no sense to Americans, he said.

``Bilingualism is absurd as far as the United States is concerned.''

He thought Lévesque's democratic pursuit of separation would have made him a candidate for the noose south of the border.

``To me, it is treason,'' Robinson said of separation. ``I mean, if the governor of Illinois was saying the thing Lévesque said, we would hang him. And then we would try him later, I suppose.''

Robinson said he loathed Lévesque, the beloved father of the Quebec independence movement, because he refused to fight during World War II.

Lévesque's decision to duck a Remembrance Day ceremony in Quebec city in 1981 enraged Robinson. ``Lévesque was, I thought, a despicable man,'' he said.

Sniper,

The stench is everywhere.

Do let me know where it is not. Maybe I will go there. :)

hate to crash a figurative jumbo jet into your tower of delusion neo, but there is no right to seccession for states of the United States of America.

USSR had a secession clause!

http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/kreptul.pdf

Were they more amenable, more democratic and more tolerable?

Originally Posted by Officer of Engineers

Allow me to remind you that I've lived through those years, including being in military service for the 2nd time around, up to and including contingency plans of what orders to be issued to CF units throughout Quebec. I've watched and observed both events with extreme interest, not only because it affects my beloved country but also because I had a job to do.

What your resource says only skims the very light surface of what the PQ and then the Bloc was promising and they were promising the sky. The Royal 22nd Regiment (Van Doos) got letters from the Bloc asking them to join a new Quebec Army. They also stated that Canada would be paying a lion share of Quebec's defence. The Bloc perfectly expects that even upon seperation, all their pay and pensions would continued to be paid by Ottawa.

So, know your facts before you tell me what I know.

I'm a big enough person to admit when my knowledge has been surpassed. I bow to your superior knowledge of the situation, namely because you were there. My resources were limited, and I argued with what I had, but as I said, I know when my information isn't thorough enough.

Originally Posted by Officer of Engineers

Declaring this thing light hearted and then starting to ignore important points raised by others, including the fact that over a million Americans died to perserve the Union and indierectly suggesting that we Canadians are not willing to do the same do not reduce your insults any.

Now this, on the other hand, I will not defer to. I never said that Canadians would not be willing to do the same. I am proud of my country and of it's soldiers, and believe that the vast majority of Canadians would come together to keep our country united. Please do not imply that I do not love my country as it is.

Originally Posted by Officer of Engineers

And this is a forum. What you put up, I am perfectly within my rights to shoot it down.

Shoot away, but then please, do not take offence from any unintended insults I may make.

Originally Posted by donnie

becuase this countrys founders where christian, and the tradition has stayed.

Those not Christians can then lie without a quirk on their conscience.

In India, you take the oath in whatever religion you believe in, placing your right hand on the religious book.

Atheists Affirm.

Originally Posted by Ray

Maybe the Colonel. Similing, Boxcar, Pyken, Pineinthewoods (I forget the nic) are worth listening to.

i dont have a problem listening, i have just found that when canadians say they have a mechanism in place to leave canada simply by having a 51% pop vote, they can not back it up, where as those canadians that tell me that seperation is just a theory, and there is no true mechanism in place to secede, usualy can give me law reference, such as the clarity act. ill believe those with cold hard proof over those with emotion anyday.

Originally Posted by Ray

Those not Christians can then lie without a quirk on their conscience.

well there is still the threat of prison for purgery.

Originally Posted by Ray

In India, you take the oath in whatever religion you believe in, placing your right hand on the religious book.

Atheists Affirm.

i believe you can do the same in the US, jehovah witnesses for instance are not forced to swere on the bible when giving testimony.

Originally Posted by NeoLiberal

I don't see all the read states mounting an attack on blue states in order to force them to remain in the union. Do you?

i see those inside the blue state who do not want to leave the US fighting those who do, but your assuming that everyone who voted kerry would want to leave the US, thats crazy, insane even.

Originally Posted by NeoLiberal

you tell me why should the blue states keep subsidising the red states if they are culturally so different
from the blue states and have imposed Bush on the blue states twice now?

big deal, you think your state would do better if it split? do you honestly think canada would even touch that hornets nest if (im saying if just just for arguements sake) your state did secede? not a chance, and then you would have to hope every other state succeeded in secession, astronomicaly unlikly for one stae let alone multiple states, your borders would be shut down, sanctions placed against you, you would lose all those rural people that help keep your economy going, and you would be reduced to a third world country, unable to even maintain your interstate highway system, not that it would matter, since you wouldnt be able to leave the state using it anyway.

Originally Posted by M21Sniper

After the civil war the right to secession was removed from the states. There is no right to secession in the US.

Constitution is silent on the issue of secession, it does not specifically bans it.

No, it would be just as ugly as the first one. There would be a fight.

That is your opinion, I disagree with that. In my opinioni will done in a peaceful manner.

No, it would be the federal gov't leading the attack. As i told you, there is no longer a right to secession, and federal gov't is the body responsible for enforcing that.

You are forgetting that federal govt. is located in very blue Washington DC which voted 90% for the Democrats. It is going join Canada along with the rest of the blue states!

You will have first set up a federal govt. probably in Atlanta or somewhere else in the south.

I'd argue that it's the red areas of the blue states that pay for the urban fishbowls in blue states to begin with. There really is no such thing as a 'blue state' outside of N.E. A Blue state is just a red state that has a big city in it.

Look at my state- Pa. It voted blue because of the numbers in the fishbowls of Philly and Pittsburgh. 90% of the rest of the state voted Red. If you look at the county by county map, over 90% of Pa by geography voted red.

I think you are totally wrong on that one. Wealth of America is created in the cities/urban areas. You can only generate so much wealth by growing corn, for the rest you will have to head to cities.

Geographical land area is a bogus argument, most of the people live in cities/urban areas. In urban areas upto 1000 people may be living in 1 sq. mile area whereas in rural area maybe only 1 person would be living in 1 sq. mile area.

Cities are failed experiments of cummunalism. They seem to bring out the worst in everyone, and are dens of socialist thinking.

Cities are where the wealth of America is created.
If you take out the cities US will become one very big rural country!