Is It Time Yet?

Quebec seems set to revert once again to the Parti Quebecois as their government-of-choice. Not, we are still assured, because they are anxious for the PQ to agitate for yet another separation referendum, but because Quebecers are tired of their current Liberal government. Ostensibly mostly because of the corruption emanating from the government of Jean Charest. With an approval rating of 20%, he's pretty well down in the poll-dump.

An online website demanding his resignation has managed to collect a quarter-million signatures in a month. That should be a disheartening indication that he is not very well loved. Not that he ever was, to begin with; more that he was tolerated and given the opportunity to demonstrate what he could do in governing that fractious province. Quebecers appear prepared to vote for anyone but Mr. Charest, and the sole alternative at the moment seems the PQ.

And to think that Canada as a whole is supporting the PQ by extension through taxpayer support of the Bloc Quebecois. Which is busy keeping the banners and the agenda of the PQ on the front burner of Parliament. The BQ's sole purpose in representing Quebec in the House of Commons is separation. And our version of a liberal democracy is to agree to continue funding the BQ through subsidizing our political parties.

$2 for every vote that the BQ receives in the last election goes out to the party, courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer. The BQ sees no need whatever to do any of its own fundraising for its operations. It is 90% reliant on the generosity and good spirit of Canadian taxpayers ever so willing to fund a party determined to break the Province of Quebec out of Confederation so it may go on its merry way on its own.

This is what is called chutzpa, that a party whose sole purpose is to convince the rest of Canada that it would do well to accept the utility of waving bye-bye to Quebec, complacently receives the funding to enable it to continue its agenda from the very source unwilling to see Canada truncated. The party-funding scheme that was devised after Jean Chretien nobly determined that future political party funding should be restrained, after he had the benefit of funding-as-usual, should be put out of commission.

Political parties are perfectly capable of raising their own funds. It's tedious and tiresome and often not very encouraging when the party in question is not on the giving end of popularity, but then it becomes their business to change that scenario. And it makes no good sense for the current situation to continue, for Canadians to be forced to fund a separatist party in Parliament which has no interest whatever in the welfare of Canada.

In fact, because the majority of Quebecers feel far more identification with their province than with their country, largely expressing indifference to Canada and enthusiasm for Quebec, and because they have become so adept at extracting funding through equalization payments, the rest of Canada has become weary of these attitudes and values.

If pride and identification in and with Canada is so onerous, why then should the rest of the country continue to financially support a province whose population has no real interest in the country? Loyalty first and foremost to the province, with very little left over for the country as a whole is pathetic.

Canadians are tired of the blackmail, the whining, the threats of separation. They will no longer beg and plead that Quebec remain within Canada. If Quebecers continue to succumb to the separation blandishments by the BQ and PQ to maintain an upper hand in extracting ever more economic support to the detriment of other provinces' needs, perhaps it is time for a fond adieu.