Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Duceppe Makes Critical Omission During BSE Announcement

Gilles Duceppe has made what I see as the first losing argument of his campaign yesterday while speaking to Farmers, and if Liberals in Quebec play their cards right they can really score some points against separatism.

Speaking to farmers east of Montreal on Monday, Duceppe said that during the most recent mad cow crisis, Mexico was spared international bans on its beef because it is a separate country from Canada and the United States. Quebec would have been protected in the same way if the province were independent


What he fails to mention is that if somehow the BSE crisis or another of it's kind were to strike Quebec farmers after Quebec had separated, there would be no help coming from the other provinces of Canada; as it did for those ranchers effected by the current situation. (Now we can argue all we want about whether the help was adequate but there was help provided -Ed.) Essentially Quebec would be on its own, left to deal with a crippling economic disaster without any help from its neighbors. That is the fatal flaw of sovereignty and the strength of Federalism.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

As a little side note, while there were federal funds given as relief for ranchers in Alberta, considering that Alberta is the biggest net contributor to the federal coffers, the aid was more akin to giving some of Alberta's money back to aid the ranchers rather than having other provinces render aid. That said, your argument stands that in Quebec's case, there would have been benefit for remaining within the confederation.

-Socialist Swine