Thanks To A Majority Of Quebeckers, Our Canada Still Includes Quebec

A Brief Commentary by Doug Draper

As I rose at the crack of dawn this Tuesday, April 8 to retrieve the morning newspaper and feed two hungry cats, the skies were grey and rain was pelting down. Yet even through the dark clouds and rain I felt I could see a bright sun, promising better days, rising over Canada.

Ding, Dong, Marois’ drive to rip apart Canada is dead.

The headline featured at the top of the paper’s front page read; ‘PQ Crushed’, and went on to say that its leader, Pauline Marois – hell-bent on possibly dragging Quebec and the rest of the country through another referendum on separation – had lost her own seat in a provincial election the night before and had, mercifully, tendered her resignation.

As an Anglophone from Ontario, I have long embraced the slogan; ‘My Canada includes Quebec’, and it is heartening to see that in this April 7^th election, a significant number of Quebeckers, especially younger voters, prefer to see their province remain apart of Canada.

Quebec and Canada have agonized through two such referendums for separation over the past 40 some years. The last one, in the 1990s, came within a per cent or two, of tearing the country apart, and caused a great deal of emotional and economic turmoil along the way.

So it was like getting sucker punched when Madame Marois and her PQ came along a month ago with an election aimed, in part , in winning a majority government so she could force the country through this agony one more time. Interestingly enough, it came weeks after Canada’s Winter Olympic Team earned a good deal of medals at the Sochi games and so many of the medal winners from Quebec spoke of how proud they were of Team Canada and the support they received from across the country.

No matter to a relentless old separatist like Marois. She adds to the black comedy by introducing Pierre Karl Paladeau, head of the Quebecor/Sun Media corporate news chain that has gutted newsrooms across the country (including those at three daily newspapers (The Standard, Review and Tribune in Niagara, Ontario) to her party team. This plutocrat, who has an Order of Canada medal that should stripped from him, punches his fist in the air and says he wants out of Canada.

So good bloody riddance Madame.

We face enough challenges in this country these days around finding enough decent jobs, around health care, protecting our environment, and on and on. Let’s show the unity, tolerance and spirit of inclusion too build a community of communities across this country that we can all be proud.

Let’s not tear it apart. Vive le Canada!

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