Funding Secession

What country in the world permits and gives credence to, allowing full parliamentary participation to, an avowedly and openly active secessionist party, other than Canada? It is one thing to respect the democratic process, quite another to foster, aid and assist a party whose single purpose is to take the province it represents out of Canadian Confederation.

Is this a legitimate role of the democratic process? To encourage, use taxpayer funding to ensure the health and well being of a single-purpose, single-focus political party whose success in partitioning the Province of Quebec away from Canada would spell the end of a united Canada? Countries go to war with disparate provinces or territories who espouse separation.

We would not, because that is not the way that Canada settles its internal disputes. Nor should we, because that would not express the values and orientation of Canadians. On the other hand, we are continually bombarded with demands from the Province of Quebec to enshrine special status for Quebec, above and beyond what is offered to the country's other provinces and territories.

And still it continues, through its political voice in Parliament, to threaten separation, should all its demands not be forthcoming, all its grievances be adequately satisfied. Well, they never are, they just keep coming. And the threats for separation swing through periods of resurgent determination, or muted defiance and a quiescent hiatus.

No amount of succumbing to Quebec's needs to distinguish itself as self-administering, as autonomous in virtually all spheres of government action has thus far soothed its collective sensibilities of being hard done by, as a province of Canada. Despite that the province has been able to coerce the federal government to grant it authorities generally deemed those of the federal government.

Nothing appeases the sense of grievance continually emanating from that province. Not the financial support given it through federal apportioning, topped up handsomely by equalization payments, nor any other entitlements, including the recognition of its status as a 'sovereign' nation. A nation exemplified by its cultural and traditional differences, its language.

No matter how often the rest of Canada attempts to give Quebec a vote of confidence, assuring it of how valued it is in the rest of Canada, respectful of its cultural differences, allowing as how much Canada is enriched by those valuable differences, Quebec remains disgruntled, dissatisfied, edging toward unappeasable aggrievement.

And here's the real kicker. While all of Canada's political parties sit in Parliament for the express purpose of representing the well being of all of Canada, the entire population of the country, the Parti Quebecois sits in Parliament for the solitary purpose of representing Quebec, having no interest whatever in the well being of all Canadians.

Moreover, while Canada's (now disputed) system of taxpayer-funded support of political parties is meant to top up what those parties are able to collect through voluntary political donations from individuals and groups within the communities they represent, the funding received by the Parti Quebecois through taxpayer payments-per-vote represents more than 80% of their funding.

The party is too lazy to fund-drive, and remains dependent on the taxes paid by the general population of the country, creating the truly absurd situation where other Canadians are blackmailed into supporting Quebec separation. Another truth: Quebecers don't tend to support their major political party sitting in Parliament; they are not given to making charitable donations for any purpose.

All of which points to the utter nonsensicallity of the current system. Time things changed. If the Parti Quebecois continues it sole-focused mandate, it should pay its own way.