Talk:National Question

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I have made a few changes:

  • The introductory paragraph made no mention of Canada. While it may reflect the view of sovereigntists that the National Question can be discussed without reference to Canada, that is only one point of view. It is reasonable to say that, given that Quebec is currently a part of Canada, any discussion of the National Question must make reference to Canada, especially since some of the sovereigntist options relate to some form of union/assocaition with Canada, and the federalist options all relate to Canada.
  • I have removed the reference to the Quebec State from the introduction since that is a sovereigntist concept/argument, as opposed to an actual institution. I have added it to the "See also" list.
  • I removed the link to economic union since it didn't go anywhere, and added one to Sovereignty-association since that was, at least, a concrete proposal for economic union between Quebec and the rest of Canada.
  • I removed "Trudeauist" from teh description of "status quo" because (a) it is not a word - the word would be "Trudeauvian", I think, but even that would have little meaning to most readers, and so it is not very useful, and (b) there have been changes, even if they are subtle, to Quebec's position within confederation in the last 21 years.

I'm not sure that my revised introduction quite captures the issue here, and would welcome improvements, but deleting reference to Canada is surely not an improvement for the reasons identified above. The last thing I want to do here is to get into a revert war over POV. This article should aim to be as NPOV as it can about this contentious issue. Kevintoronto 14:20, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

While the dichotomist approach is a valid one in regard the the national question, perhaps it would be more acurate to describe it as a sort of "spectrum". What I mean is that you could better split people in these groups with a lot of fluidity around the edges:

- At both ends you have the "pur et dur", those that support complete independence on the sovereignist side and lack of any special status or deal on the federalist side.

- going toward the middle you have those looking for "arrangements", sovereignty-association on the sovereignist side, renewed federalism on the federalist side

- Finaly at the center you have the so-called "soft vote", these are those who would usualy consider themselves quebecois first but whose exact opinion might change depending on various circumstances.

The reason why I feel this better reflect the question is that it help explain the position of some groups such as the Action Democratique du Quebec which was on the YES side during the 1995 referendum but as since pronounced itself for a moratorium on future one.--Marc pasquin 02:08, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's extremely POV to say there are only two "answers" to the national question. -Montréalais 04:25, 24 December 2005 (UTC)