Brave Liberals, Men of Courage….
A day after the House of Commons passed a Conservative motion to recognize the Québécois as a nation, the federal Liberals say they will not debate the contentious issue.
Liberal leadership candidates had been squabbling over their own motion, which was expected to be a flashpoint at this weekend’s party convention in Montreal.
William Hogg and Marc Belanger, who launched the move to discuss the Québécois nationhood motion at a meeting of Quebec Liberals in October, said the motion removed the need to discuss the issue.
“We have other important issues facing this country to discuss,” Hogg said Tuesday, citing Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan, the Kyoto Protocol and the country’s fiscal imbalance as priorities for the convention.” cbc
The last thing the Liberals - or at least the Iggy/Rae end of the party - want is an actual debate on the floor of the convention. No matter that the nation (er, the Canadian “sea to shining sea” nation) has been convulsed with this debate for the last two weeks and that Iggy, more or less, started it. Let’s talk about something else, please; just change the subject.
I have to bet that the great and the good in the Liberal party have been reading the polls and realize that “Quebec is a nation” is clobbering the Grits outside Quebec (and doing very little to help inside La Belle Nation).
However, like most things in politics this decision cuts a lot of different ways. First,it kicks the chair out from under Kennedy’s run as a man dedicated to the “One Canada”, the sentimental favorite of Trudeau era Grits. Second, it palms yet another card for Iggy who no longer needs to be both for and against “Quebec nationhood”. I am inclined to think it is a push for Rae and Dion; but by screwing Kennedy it makes it more likely that the Dion run up the middle might work.
The one thing which is certain is that Canadians are not going to given a clue where the Liberal Party stands on the Quebec “nation” question or the more interesting question of who might be counted as the citizens/members of such a nation.
Written by jay on November 29th, 2006 with
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