André Pratte is a political journalist in Québec and I'm finding his Aux Pays des Merveilles fresh and fascinating. (It's from VLB Editeur, 2006.) Pratte's French is a pleasure for this anglo to read; I wonder if it will be translated. Pratte voted Oui in both referendums (believed it would help renew federalism, he writes!), but this book is a very tough critique, asking why independence is necessary and what it would achieve, and totting up the damage loyalty to separatist ideologies does to one's perceptions of reality.
Québec independence remains a political force to be reckoned with, but has ceased to be intellectually compelling. That's my aphorism, not Pratte's, but he sure helps me sustain it. Like Pratte, I'm all for the flourishing of Québec's distinct society. Like the majority of Quebeckers, I don't see how separation is necessary or sufficient for that.
On a related subject, poor Gilles Duceppe's "now I run, now I don't" antics make me say again: parties should entrust leadership hirings and firings to the elected caucus. That's how it works in nearly every parliamentary democracy in the world. Canadians have this ignorant horror of the whole idea. We tell ourselves vast vote-buying competitions are "democratic." But where the caucus is accountable to the electorate and the leader is accountable to the caucus, you have not only efficiency but accountability. And none of these stupidities!
