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The threat to quebec culture is quebec culture. I was often amazed at my past work to hear people talk about "getting out of Canada" in on breathe, and then discussing what they saw on ER the night before - watching in english, of course. The french language and culture is always under attack, from the inside!
Seperation is a pipe dream, filtered with the rosiest glasses around. No sane seperatist ever talks about the reality of seperation, just the flag waving moments of "vive le quebec libre!". They never point out that Quebec has slipped in the last 20 year from a have to a have not province, that our population exceeds our output in GDP, etc.
Most importantly, they never discuss and choose to selectively ignore what happened the first time around, the mass exodus of companies, head offices, and people down the 401 to toronto and down the 417 to Ottawa. Montreal was once Canada's largest city and most prosperous, now, well... it is slowly slipping away. Rural citizens never get to find out that the slipping of the montreal and quebec city economies is the reason why the roads suck, services suck, and why there are no jobs (Rural Quebec's unemployment rates run anywhere from 10 - 30%, depending on the area). Many smaller towns are supported by single industries, which are often propped up by endless government dollars. Paper plants, mineral processing, etc... all built, maintained, or somehow supported by the quebec government tossing millions at the companies to stay. As soon as the money stops, the plants close and the people are unemployed again.
They get told it's the english people's fault, the foriegner's fault, everyone else's fault. Never does the government mention how unnatural their employment was to start with.
Quebec as a province suffers financially every day from pending possible or implied threats of seperation. If all the money, time, efforts, and such had been spent on improving the province and lowering taxes, quebec would be flying. Instead, we have language police out checking the size of english on signs on businesses to make sure that french predominates. Quebec shuns company executives and professionals from outside quebec because if they move here, their children will be forced to go to french schools, even if they are coming here for only one or two years. They have worked hard to make this the least inviting place in north america to do business.
Oh well. I can assure you of one thing, my house will be for sale before the next provincial election - the economic hit of a PQ government would take 10 years to recoup in that market.
Alex
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