Word: pq
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...seven-week champion PQ against the ruling Liberal Party in a familiar situation the PQ campaigned strongly as the voice of change in government, condemning the liberals inability to manage the economy and blaming the Liberals endlessly for Quebec's slow recovery from the recession. They won on the slogan "une nouvelle facon de gouverner" (a new way of governing), but what Quebeceta were not told about was the insidious double entendre of this slogan: although Parizeau campaigned on a promise to change the way the provincial government manages its economy, his real agenda to the public separation...
...provincial election last night, for the first time in nearly a decade. The Parti Quebecois, led by Jacques Parizeau, won 45 percent of the popular vote and captured 77 of the 125 seats in the Quebec legislature. But the size of the win was a major disappointment for the PQ loyalists; opinion polls taken before the election had indicated the reigning Liberal Party would be trounced by a much larger margin. The lukewarn endorsement of Parizeau's party indicates that Quebec residents are not ready to jump the Canadian ship. The party has pledged to hold a referendum on independence...
...unequivocal fact, however, emerged from the returns: the etapiste--or "step by step"--strategy for separation, fashioned by prominent cabinet member Claude Moran and adopted by Levesque despite objections from the more radical elements of the Parti Quebecois, has floundered. In the wake of the loss. various cadres of PQ intellectuals will convene to chart a new course for the party before the next provincial elections. Levesque, whose book An Option for Quebec enshrined separatism as a legitimate aspiration, will have to square off in tiffs with impatient party members...
...WORD REFERENDUM question was far from extreme. It outlined the PQ program of "sovereignty-association"--which the plebiscite described as "a new agreement with the rest of Canada based on the equality of nation." According to the PQ's platform, sovereignty-association would enable Quebec to acquire axclusive jurisdiction over law, taxation, and foreign relations while at the same time maintaining an economic association with Canada, including a common currency. The question also stated that no change in Quebec's political status would occur without approval through another referendum. The vote last week, then, simply requested a mandate to negotiate...
Trudeau delivered the most impassioned speeches of his lengthy career in an effort to undermine the PQ's initiative. He said he would under no circumstances--Yes victory or otherwise--negotiate sovereignty-association. Himself a bilingual Montrealer and the only politician in Quebec with greater than Levesque, Trudeau pledged to reconstruct Canada's archaic, watery constitution. For his part, Levesque appealed to solidarity, and fostered engroupements, community-level organizations designed unity. The touchy and emotional issue split families right down the middle. As one middle-aged No voter said, "I don't discuss the situation over dinner with my children...