XPost: can.politics, ont.politics, qc.politique   
   From: ConzRconz@YOW.ca   
      
   To take part in the Quebec referendum - and maybe to try to influence   
   those who plan to separate?  Why not?   
   It would be fair 'international reciprocity' during a country's   
   referendum process.   
   _____________________________   
   thestar.com - Monday, March 10, 2014   
      
      
   Parti Québécois promises to hold a referendum on sovereignty when time’s   
   right   
      
   LAVAL, QUE.—Pauline Marois yearns for a sovereign Quebec “as soon as   
   possible,” but promises not to rush the province into its third   
   referendum to split from Canada.   
      
   “The time has come to newly reflect on our future,” the Parti Québécois   
   leader said, speaking forcibly for a partisan crowd of placard-waving   
   Péquistes in a Laval hotel ballroom, where she formally unveiled the   
   party’s election platform.   
      
   In a speech that was as self-congratulatory as it was deprecating toward   
   her chief opponent, Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard, Marois positioned   
   herself as the true defender of the Québécois nation, the heroine who   
   can steer its people toward their collective destiny, declaring a PQ   
   government would publish a white paper on sovereignty before the end of   
   its next electoral mandate. The party platform pledges to hold a   
   referendum “when it is deemed appropriate.”   
      
   “When we arrived in government, Quebeckers’ pride was at half-mast,”   
   said Marois, who took power as the province’s first female premier with   
   a minority government in September 2012. It’s time to put aside   
   moroseness and renew the determination that characterizes our people. .   
   . . The Québécois won’t apologize for existing.”   
      
   Since calling an election Wednesday morning, Marois has concentrated on   
   ridings held by the Liberals and Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ), mainly   
   in the environs of Montreal and the Mauricie region.  The emphasis of   
   Marois’s speech, as well as the PQ’s platform document, suggests the   
   party is betting its controversial secularism charter and policies to   
   entrench the language rights of Quebec francophones can carry them to a   
   majority in the province’s National Assembly.   
      
   The platform also contains a pledge to create 115,000 new jobs over   
   three years without raising taxes.  The details of the economic platform   
   range from committing more money for research and innovation, helping   
   businesses increase exports, the responsible development of natural   
   resources and electrifying the province’s transportation system by means   
   that include installing 10,000 charging stations for electric cars.   
      
   In her speech, Marois claimed Couillard doesn’t have the true interests   
   of Quebeckers at heart, accusing him of acting like he’s the Liberal   
   leader of Canada.   
      
   “What’s more important to him: defending the interests of Quebec or the   
   interests of Canada?”   
      
   Earlier Saturday, the PQ’s democracy and citizenship minister, Bernard   
   Drainville, launched another barb when he claimed the Liberals’ high   
   profile candidate Gaetan Barrette told him he voted for Quebec   
   independence in the 1995 referendum.  Barrette boasted in a TV interview   
   Friday night that Marois had tried to recruit him to run with the PQ in   
   2012.   
      
   “It would be interesting to ask Mr. Couillard if there are   
   sovereigntists in his party,” Drainville remarked.   
      
   Barrette later tweeted that he told the PQ it was his family who voted   
   for independence, not him.   
      
   The PQ’s sovereignty agenda has become a focus for many campaign   
   watchers given the prospect of a separatist majority in Quebec City for   
   the first time in more than a decade.   
      
   CAQ Leader François Legault, a former PQ minister running a   
   right-leaning campaign to curb spending and balance the budget within a   
   year, said Saturday he would vote against independence in a possible   
   third Quebec referendum.   
      
   The prospect of such a vote has also caught the attention of Prime   
   Minister Stephen Harper, who discussed the prospect of a PQ majority   
   with federal Liberal and NDP leaders, as well as premiers from the rest   
   of Canada, according to several media reports. Marois brushed off the   
   news before her speech Saturday.   
      
   “We’re capable of governing ourselves, and we know the choices that are   
   in front of us,” she said. “We don’t occupy ourselves with the federal   
   agenda.”   
      
      
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     When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one   
   by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.   
   																					~  Edmund Burke   
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)