Fresh air please

Tonight, I should not be writing since I'm tired and fed up with all the goings on in our neck of the woods and elsewhere.  Is there some place somewhere not corrupted to the bone?  A place where competent people can get a job without being suspected of being cronies of so and so or of a political party of whatever srtipes?
These days I feel that we have all become quite jaded and disillusioned by our so called leaders regardless of where we live.
Have a look around:  Harper is up to his neck in shady business within his governement, so is Jean Charest in Québec;  Obama is somehow a diappointment with his half baked health reform and his foreign policy;  George Brown in England had to sanction his people about their expenses and we will not even mention Silvio.
Karzai, the man our young ones are dying for is flirting with the Talibans and their drug money.
Heck! Should we call in Ahmadinejad or Khadafy, at least they are honest about their ruthlessness?
I did not mention France, the rest of Europe, Africa and Asia, my computer would have crashed.

One size fits all

Not long ago I wrote about our politicians changing parties and allegiance. We have a fresh new example of this interchangebility. In another life our Qébec Liberal Premier was a progressive Conservative minister in Brian Mulroney's government, at one point he was even a canditate to succeed Brian. He lost the leadership race and reappeared as a saviour for the then embattled Québec Liberals. As such he has won three straight mandates (majority/minority/majority).

Lately we have learned that he will be co-presiding over a celebration of Mulroney's political accomplishments. We all know that Mulroney is now persona non grata for Mr Harper who has forbidden his ministers from having any but private relations with Brian because the Schreiber affair.

Harpoon himself is having his very own problems with the progressive wing of his party and could be in for a rough time should he lose the next election or even stay in minority territory. Could Charest be positioning himself for another "saviour" operation only this time with the Federal conservatives? No Québec Premier, since Maurice Duplessis has ever won a fourth mandate.

As they say on TV: "Watch the next episode.

Independance (the sequel)

Commenting on my last post Rob-Bear wondered why I had not mentioned the Quebec Act of 1794. At first it did not ring a bell. Then I figured he must have been referring to the 1791 Act creating the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, now mostly Ontario and Québec. Upper Canada was to be majority Anglphone and Lower Canada was to be majority Francophone. Both provinces were to be governed by an elected parliament and a nominated legislative council under a governor named by London, he in turn appointed the members of the legislative council (kind of an unelected senate) and vetted the election of the Lower Chamber members. To be eligible to office or to vote, you had to be a male over 21 and owner of propety or commerce generating a revenue of 40 schillings or more ( in: Histoire du Canada par les textes, by Guy Frégault, Michel Brunet and Marcel Trudel, éditions Fides, Montréal, 1952).

However, because of the eligibilty conditions, very soon both governements were dominated by the elite and the wealthy. It caused much irritation at the popular level and much corruption since the sole revenue allowed these administrations were the perception of excise taxes. Since the merchants were dominant and considered those taxes as very bothering every means were legitimate to avoid them. The governements were always short of money and could not provide the general services they were called to give the population.

After some forty years of this regime, in both provinces the pot boiled over. In Upper Canada the Family Compact, closely related people controling the Governor, the Legislative Council and the Judiciary, generated much opposition but were deaf to it. A short armed uprising, in 1837, under the leadership of William Mackenzie, a York (now Toronto) journalist ensued. The army quelled it and Mackenzie fled to Buffalo. In Lower Canada, the Clique du Château de Ramezay was the exact replica of the Family Compact and caused the same type of frustration. It was compounded by the refusal of the Clique to recognize the Francophones needs and place in the society. Lead politically by Louis-Joseph Papineau a strong movement of opposition took form. parrallel to it a miltary wing, lead by the Nelson brothers, both doctors, and an Irish merchant, J.B. O'Callaghan took form involving many Francophone farmers and workers. While papineau disapproved, the militia attacked the army, in 1837, battles were fought in St-Eustache and on montreal's South Shore. Lives were lost and General Colborne, nicknamed Le Vieux Brulôt (The Old Torch), burned down farms and villages in reprisal. It petered out in 1838. Papineau fled to Britain then France, the Nelsons, with 300 armed men, fled to North Hero, Vt.

London sent in Lord Durham to inquire. His report is famous and led to the dimantlement of Upper and Lower Canada and the Union act of 1841 destined to mate the Francophones and assimilate them to the Anglophone population...problem was that in the new entity the Francophones were a majority. It did not work and in 1867 the Confederation was born re-creating Upper and Lower Canadas as the provinces of Ontario and Québec, joined by New Brunswick and Noca Scotia.

1791 was a total failure, some would say 1867 also...but that is another story.