Big All-Candidates Meeting Tonight

Which seems to include only three out of five candidates in my riding. Still, I suppose it sounds better than "2/3 majority of the candidates meeting".

Today I'd like to get on with dismissing the Bloc Quebecois. They aren't running in my riding, and I wouldn't vote for them if they were, but they are a significant federal political force, and I feel it's only right to mock them democratically.

The deepest irony of the BQ is that if they ever had a sufficient majority to form a federal government, they would immediately have to hand over the reins of power, as they would near-immediately become foreign citizens.

The BQ wants:

1) To get more money into the provinces via transfer payments--without inconvenient strings like a national government auditors actually telling you that it's taxpayer money and has to be spent the way they say.

Personally, I think that allowing Quebec to separate is not neccesarily a bad idea--think of the money we'd save on transfer payments (for non-Canadians, this is how federalist republics ensure that squeaky wheels get greased).

2) To "implement Kyoto (accords) so that it's fair to Quebec". As opposed to everywhere else.

3) Ensure that federal Young Offenders laws no longer apply to Quebec.

4) "Monitor use of public funds, denounce abuse and fraud". Like oversized no-strings-attached transfer payments, perhaps? or incredible numbers of federal contracts issued to a single province? Or wasting money on painting most signs in the country in two languages?

Why, by the way, do we do this with such universal geometric signs as "stop/arrét", "cedez/yeild" etc? Surely most people can fathom what a red octangle means, and if they are either so foreign or so stupid that they can't, are extra instructions going to help or confuse?

Quebec's hefty generosities to Quebecers, such as the Baby Bonus (now discontinued), were made possible by the province consuming an inordinate share of taxpayer money. Bombardier would (should) have gone under ages ago but for the immense number of federal contracts awarded in Quebec.

Whoa. Gross!

5)Sovereignty for Quebec.

I don't object to Quebec, nor to bilingualism. Hell, I grew up there. But the notion of separatism is laughable, the ultimate expression of having one's cake and eating it too.

The recent referendum notwithstanding, most people in the province are well aware of the political reality. The narrow gap between "Oui" and "Non" camps was less a serious desire for separation than a vote to punish Ottawa.

Certainly it's hard to imagine how real separation could be acheived, short of incorporating oneself into a different federation of states. How would Canada be paid for its infrastructure and investments from 1800 or so until now?

The province, its populace and leaders, know that they're better off as they are. The Bloc Quebecois will hopefully lose seats and fall from Official Opposition status this year. But in the meantime, they provide a good way to send otherwise un-useful idiots out of Quebec to Ottawa.

6)Any extra money in Ottawa should be distributed to "the province(s)" for health and education, rather than say, addressing debt.

7) Increase social housing funding to $2 bn per year, administered from oh I don't know--shall we say, Quebec?

8)More money for families in a certain province which, safe to say, isn't Manitoba.

9) More federal money for education in a province whose name escapes me at the moment.

This party is its own raison d'etre, and I suppose that all parties are, really. But it's ludicrous to me that the "loyal" opposition has loyalty to nothing save itself. More realistic, perhaps, but saddening. Voting for these guys is wonderfully tantamount to relinquishing one's citizenship while demanding a bigger chunk of the benefits.

It's tempting to wonder what the BQ would do if Canada separated from them (the party, that is).