Curtis: Do separatist movements around the world have anything to learn from the PQ?

By: /
6 September, 2012
By: John Curtis
Adjunct Professor at Queen's University and Chair of Statistics Canada's Advisory Committee on International Trade Statistics

Yes; the PQ has been a well-organized, umbrella, and relatively moderate political organization since its founding in the late 1960s, attracting as candidates and spokespersons generally highly intelligent persons from its core constituencies – academe, unions, social groups, and small business, all within the mainstream of Quebec society. The overall (but unique) overall context of a loose Canadian federal system, with a linguistic minority in charge of its own government with clear constitutional responsibilities, has been helpful to the PQ as a successful political organization as well.

Before you click away, we’d like to ask you for a favour … 

Journalism in Canada has suffered a devastating decline over the last two decades. Dozens of newspapers and outlets have shuttered. Remaining newsrooms are smaller. Nowhere is this erosion more acute than in the coverage of foreign policy and international news. It’s expensive, and Canadians, oceans away from most international upheavals, pay the outside world comparatively little attention.

At Open Canada, we believe this must change. If anything, the pandemic has taught us we can’t afford to ignore the changing world. What’s more, we believe, most Canadians don’t want to. Many of us, after all, come from somewhere else and have connections that reach around the world.

Our mission is to build a conversation that involves everyone — not just politicians, academics and policy makers. We need your help to do so. Your support helps us find stories and pay writers to tell them. It helps us grow that conversation. It helps us encourage more Canadians to play an active role in shaping our country’s place in the world.

Become a Supporter