The PQ's referendum promise sparks new initiatives to divide Quebec

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Canada's Quebec Party announced Monday it is exploring the possibility of creating an 11th province from secession Quebec, and a former member of the party has launched a private group that plans to hold an online public meeting on secession this week.

The resurgence of the secession debate, which began in the late 1970s as an anti-Secessionist force, comes as the Parti Québécois pledged this weekend to hold a referendum on Quebec independence by 2030. Reviving the issue of partition will have a negative effect on both groups. From the minority rights legislation passed by Prime Minister François Legault's government.

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“People are tired of everything Legault is trying to do to think about secession from Quebec,” said Mark Perez, a West Island businessman who is running for the Quebec Party of Canada candidate in D'Arcy-McGee in the 2022 general. election.

“The reason they want it is because they're tired of being treated as second-class citizens.”

Peres, who said he was kicked out of the Canadian party last year after challenging Colin Standish's leadership, said he launched Let's Talk Quebec/Parlons du Quebec in January as a Montreal-based think tank.

According to Peres, the purpose of the think tank is to consult with the public and make recommendations that will force politicians to listen to the will of the public.

The group plans to hold an online meeting Thursday evening to hear public opinion on the idea of ​​secession from Quebec, Perez said.

Meanwhile, the Quebec Party of Canada has created a “preparatory committee to create an eleventh province” to consider the feasibility of splitting Quebec, party member Keith Henderson said in an interview.

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“It's a reaction to the constant call to hack Canada,” Henderson said. “We're tired of it.”

Standish told the Gazette that Peres was removed from the party's executive committee and then stripped of his party membership “for numerous behaviors and actions that undermine the integrity and functions of the party.”

“It's not because of his problems with my leadership,” he said.

Henderson said both groups have no problem raising awareness and interest in separation.

When the term was proposed and coined by National Union leadership candidate William Shaw in 1976, secession was considered radical and fringe, he said. But it gained traction in the 1990s in response to the threat of a third referendum on Quebec independence, he added.

The name of the committee of the Quebec Party of Canada hears the “Preparatory Committee for the Eleventh Province” established in Montreal in 1976. The group believed that in the event of Quebec independence, there was a risk of secession from parts of Quebec that would remain part of Canada. weakens support for separation.

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“It's a party committee and it's about exploring the idea and seeing what's feasible, what's possible,” Henderson said. “We haven't concluded anything.”

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the 1990s that if a clear majority of Quebecers voted on a specific issue in favor of the province's secession from Canada, the country must negotiate in good faith to separate Quebec from the rest of Canada. country.

“So Canada would be legally divided under those circumstances,” Henderson said.

“And what we're asking ourselves — and I want to emphasize asking ourselves — is whether the opposite is true. If there are enough people in Quebec who don't want to be ruled by the Quebec provincial government, should they (the provincial government) be required to negotiate (separation) in good faith? If Canada is divided along these lines, will Quebec be divided along the same lines?”

The secession would be for those in Quebec who are “Canadian-minded,” who want bilingualism and multiculturalism, and who want to create a new province, he said.

The party plans to meet next week to consider existing examples of regionalization, including the case of Switzerland's Jura region, where some areas with a French-speaking minority chose to split from the majority German-speaking canton of Bern to create a canton. In 1979 Jura, Henderson said.

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