The self-proclaimed Republic of Montreal

With good reason, we are concerned about the electoral divide between Montreal and the rest of Quebec.

However, as we see everywhere in the West, we must understand that this is not just an electoral fracture or a social question opposing the big metropolis to the regions, but an identity fracture resulting from mutational demographics. The Montreal area was born out of the massive immigration waves of the last quarter century.

No surprise here: a country cannot be indifferent to the population that composes it.

Unless the population of Montreal shifts from a Quebec identity to a Canadian identity, under the sign of multiculturalism and open bilingualism, in a way the people of Montreal, a new people in the metropolis, are being formed. The mask of the new Anglo-conformity.

Although we try to hide this by constantly manipulating the meaning of words, newcomers are invited to integrate into this Montreal society rather than into a Quebec identity. The Canadian state naturally functions in this perspective and contributes to this disconnect between Quebec and its metropolises.

For those who claim to speak their name, this new Montreal is central to the current identity dynamic, constituted by the rejection of French-speaking Quebec, which is viewed as too homogenous, backward, closed, xenophobic, and focused on identity withdrawal. .. He imagines himself dominated by regions and wants to free himself from them. This can be seen as an effective ideological strategy: he gives himself the right to reject Quebec by claiming that the historical French-speaking majority rejected it. We ourselves want to exclude in the name of inclusion. One need only read the most active anti-nationalist columnists to find this discourse.

Moreover, within the territory of the metropolis itself, the historic French-speaking majority tends to become a minority among others – but it is a community largely rejected because it is associated with white privilege, systemic racism and a form of Linguistic hegemony associated with Bill 101, the metropolis must free itself to reinvent itself under the banner of inclusion and diversity. We keep this in mind: once again French is trampled today in the name of inclusion and diversity. These “collective” activists often exploit the Aboriginal cause, going so far as to transform the struggle against the French in the name of the English into a struggle for decolonization.

To be accepted in the new diverse Montreal, francophones must go through a phase of identity self-criticism and mock as much as possible the French-speaking Quebecers in the regions and suburbs, who are not as open as them and who have the bad taste of voting for nationalist parties like the CAQ and the PQ. Joining Vocism is a good representation of this identity self-criticism.

This identity fracture is now reflected in a new political rift that brings back the post-1995 separatist movement associated with Howard Galganov, without naming it. It was a question, in a strategy of intimidation linked to what was then known as Plan B, declaring that, upon independence, west of Montreal would seek its annexation to Canada. Speech is developed. It was no longer defined by the fear of independence, put on ice for a while, but by the rejection of recognition laws designed to free Quebec from Canadian multiculturalism and better protect the French. What we mean to secede from Quebec is now the whole of the island, which is not even on the threshold of independence.

This movement was not confined to the radical fringes of English-speaking society, although it expressed itself incessantly among them. Balarama Holness was its most militant representative. This ideology is now advancing in mainstream political discourse, as can be seen on social media.

This distinct neo-segregationism is also available in a more “moderate” version, which has been widespread since the reasonable accommodation crisis of 2007–2008 – one that portrays Montreal as a separate society relative to the rest of Quebec and calls for it. Right to escape from identity laws. This discourse is prevalent among municipal political elites.

Some consider this psychological separation and, perhaps, tomorrow, an administrative separation between Montreal and the rest of Quebec inevitable. They believe in the sorry, but insurmountable. We can look at things differently and consider the Quebec government to be politically recaptured, relying strictly on the historic French-speaking majority, which for some time still retained its political power.

We do not have to agree to the emergence of the self-proclaimed Republic of Montreal.

From this perspective, it is a question of reintegrating the metropolis into the Quebec national imagination, by pursuing a policy of active francization throughout the island and, more broadly, by placing Quebec culture in its thousand varieties at the heart of the metropolis. This is permitted by Law 21. It allows strengthening of Law 96. It will also require, and I apologize for rewriting it, but the teaching is repetitive, significantly immigration thresholds. Quebec’s independence allows this, without which Quebec society is condemned, in the current historical context, to secede.

It is also a question, and an important one, to criticize a different neo-separatism and remember that the historic French-speaking majority that represents the core identity of the people of Quebec cannot be symbolically or politically expelled from its metropolis. The state of Quebec must make its presence felt everywhere in Quebec’s largest city. The nationalist movement had to play its part in this by starting to mobilize again in the heart of the metropolis, as it did in the 1960s to the 1990s. Ultimately, these measures allow immigrants to better integrate, as we all should do regardless.

Montreal is unimaginable without Quebec, and Quebec is unimaginable without Montreal, whose vocation is a cosmopolitan and French-speaking metropolis, which, at the same time, prevents it from being Canada, which anglicizes and conflicts with multicultural ideology. The country of Quebec.

It was a question of reclaiming Montreal, symbolically. For the greater good of Montreal and Quebec.