Who Is A Quebecer?

"This week has shown me that, even though Montreal is my home, I will never be accepted as part of the Quebec represented by the events of this election."
"Believe me when I say I never wanted to be the other. I never wanted it to be me versus you. I wanted it to be us, but it seems to me that Quebec has an unparalleled ability to make people feel excluded."
Angela Larose, Concordia student

"I believe that a person must show they have the will to live in Quebec for a long time or in permanence. Yes, in permanence ... Do they have a Quebec driver's licence, a medicare card, do they pay taxes here? These are all questions that must be raised."
"We will remain vigilant on this question, because when someone tries to commit fraud by voting while he does not have the right, that is not acceptable in our democracy."
Parti Quebecois Quebec Premier Pauline Marois

"The coming week will be crucial for democracy. This is very, very worrisome. Will the Quebec election be stolen by people from Ontario and from the rest of Canada?"
Quebec Justice Minister Bertrand St-Armand

Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press -- Justice Minister Bertrand St-Arnaud gestures while Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois listens on Monday

When one of the leaders of 2013's student protests against a hike in university/college tuition fees that would still have left Quebec university students paying less than half the annual tuition costs compared to students of other provinces, felt it his right to incite unlawful activities on the part of protesting students, and decrying the government's actions in response, he and his student confreres lamented the lack of "democracy".


This year he is a PQ member of the provincial legislature. Now, he views it as darkly "disturbing" that students of English or allophone background might wish to register to vote. Illegitimate, taking political action. Voting, he tweeted now, represents "the foundation of our democracy" and those who vote must respect the legitimacy of being French to vote in Quebec.

It is a privilege reserved for francophones to determine whether or not the province remains within confederation. His mind frozen from the reality that his low-cost university education comes courtesy of the rest of Canada in generous transfer payments enabling that low cost; the very rest of Canada he shudders at the prospect of throwing a spanner in the clockwork of inevitable separation. He is a true-blue Pequiste.

In every province and territory of the country lamentations ring out that the election-day turnout of young Canadians is abysmally low. Only in Quebec can a ruling party that convinced itself it was headed for a majority re-election go into panic mode at the real prospect of an election loss because of a voter backlash of Quebec voters sick of talk of separation and referendums now claim that a treacherous English/allophone conspiracy is leading Quebec astray.

To charges by the Parti Quebecois that students who had no business voting in Quebec are attempting to steal the election from the PQ, and that electoral officers were carelessly permitting such students to register to vote, there was an indignant response from a spokesman for Quebec's chief returning officer. Claims by the PQ of a spike in anglophone students planning to register were false: "Confidence in the system was attacked, and we don't like it at all", he fumed.

In fact, of the five districts named as being in peril from an illegal English vote, he asserted four had fewer voter registrations for the April 7 vote than had occurred in 2012. Philippe Couillard, Liberal leader, spoke of the behaviour by the PQ leadership as "grotesque", pointing out the obvious; that the party is desperate to divert attention from referendum plans. "It's literally an attempt to intimidate an independent institution, the chief electoral officer."

Out-of-province students are routinely encouraged to vote in provincial elections so long as they are bona fide Canadian citizens, meeting minimal residency requirements. Someone must be "domiciled" in Quebec, according to the provincial law. Domicile, according to the official electoral website, involves residency, having a bank account, paying income taxes, and having a Quebec medicare card.

And this year, with the PQ in power, students attending English universities in Montreal, some of whom have lived there for years, are being rejected because they have been unable to 'establish their domicile'. Angela Larose, born in Ontario, has lived in Montreal for four years She said an elections worker told her that since she was from "another country", she could not vote, and turned her away.