Look at that: the separatists are so relaxed in Canada right now they don't mind being photographed sucking a sausage in public. Seriously though, there's a moderate chance these guys are going to be part of a coalition government in Canada, provided no party gets enough for a majority.

I don't believe that anybody should be paid by my government to try to find ways of removing a large part of my country. I believe that if you want to be a separatist, you should not be paid by the federal government, you should not receive federal offices, you should not be permitted to be part of a coalition government -- in short, you should be as disenfranchised as a son or daughter who, tired of the family house, decides to move out. You should be allowed to family meetings -- on-air debates and to have your leadership convention covered by the news and the like -- but you should not get one half cent of the funding a normal political party does. And you should be proud and excited to not get that money -- you don't need us, you don't need our sinful lucre, you are pure and virtuous.

Instead, the Bloc lies around, aging and eating all the hot dogs, leaving not enough for everyone else. Quebec has provided over 60% of Canada's prime ministers and it's still greedy, grasping and unattractive.

I also don't believe in a special case allowing self-government for the aboriginals. I think the high suicide levels among young people in that ethnic bracket prove that the traditional community methods are not viable now, however depressing that may be. The Canadian government should not make laws a few thousand people at a time.

The problem is that Canada is large, and has a number of cultural enclaves that are essentially allowed to set their own rules arbitrarily, with no regard for balance across the board. The solution is to establish a framework of minimum behavioral standards. Everybody gets educated, even women, even in Bountiful, where they practice polygamy despite it being illegal, and pull girls out of school at 15 to get married. The age of marriage should be unilateral; there should not be parental consent -- as there are cases of 12 year old girl immigrants being forced into arranged marriages -- and everybody gets to learn calculus.

Fairness will not breed homogenity; if anything it will allow more free expression. If you've ever had roommates, you've seen how differently the same grocery dollar can be spent -- but the purpose is the same, to feed the body so the head can live. Sometimes it's in your interests to pool your money and get a really big piece of food. Sometimes you want the Mexican Cheese Whiz all to yourself -- but generally you don't want it so badly that you think the government should fund your Cheese Whiz and nobody else's. The separatists say they're going to move out if we don't buy only Le Fromage Whiz and only for French people and everybody else can have plain toast. I believe if the country paid for the Cheese Whiz, the Cheese Whiz stays in the country, and if you don't want to be in the country, don't ask it to buy you Cheese Whiz, unless you're also asking it to buy Cheese Whiz for everyone else.

So give self-government to the aborginals -- and also to to the Acadians, the communes in BC and the Metis in Saskatchewan. Give everybody enough that they can express and develop new ways of dealing with modern problems but which represent their traditional ways sufficiently that now is an extension of then. Quebec is not superior to Vancouver's gargantuan Chinatown. Both should be equally recognized, equally funded proportionate to their size, and equally prevented from enacting methods that are detrimental to its inhabitants -- no child marriage, no preventing people from learning English, no warping the treaty that says aboriginals can fish for sustenance to mean vacuum trawlers.

The point is, it must be systemized, balanced and fair. Making a set of rules for Quebec and a set of rules for Nunavut and allowing Bountiful to flout the rules is inefficient and unfair. Yeah, that could mean Canada ends up with a population of people who declare they're Jedi. Or, we could just keep making concessions to pissy French hot dog eaters.

Posted by GeeTee at June 20, 2004 05:25 AM | TrackBack 0