Talk:Quebec referendum, 1995

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I really wanted to see this on the site, so I've put up the raw data. I'll look into improving things later on but I thought it was important to get this much up now. I'm looking for any help I can get on arguments for/against, general attitudes, and build-up. -- Matty j 22:28, Jan 8, 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] rejected ballots and alleged systematic electoral fraud

Can someone please edit this who has proper english. we in quebec do not:) I made a graph of the percentage of rejected balots in each riding, versus the percent of 'no' votes counted in each riding, to draw a (statistically) significant correlation. The significance was the result of a few ridings with extraordinarily high rejection rates but there was a residual trend. The graph is about 10 years old - if I can find it again, I will post it to the article. The source of the data was the results published in the Globe and Mail after the referendum. bcameron54

Interesting... What do you call a "residual trend"? I saw the figures for the ridings with a higher percentage of rejection, but if I remember correctly, it never went beyond 5% of the total number of votes in the riding. Is this what you call "extraordinarily high rejection rates"? -- Mathieugp 17:14, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Scrutineers were appointed by the provincial governement (the ruling PQ), which was not a neutral player in the referendum. Residual trend means after excluding the statistical outlier ridings, there is a less striking but persistent association. This would suggest non-randomness, at least. Extraordinarily high rejection rates were well over 5% in some polling stations (the limit of any one scrutineer's reach). respectfully, bcameron54

Here's the raw data of the '95 referendum result, also published in The Ottawa Citizen page A4, Wednesday Nov 1, 1995. It is a bit unwieldy for the article (which needs cleanup, I agree) itself, but it does illustrate the basis of controversy around electoral fraud. A graph may be appropriate, if anyone agrees. Bcameron54 08:50, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I will try to make it a table, sorry...

Riding Yes ballots No ballots Rejected ballots Rejected ballots (%)
Abitibi-Est 16447 11980 511 0.57%
Abitibi-Ouest 17969 11093 418 0.71%


Riding # YES # NO # rejected

Abitibi-Est 16447 11980 511

Abitibi-Ouest 17969 11093 418

Acadie 9167 32423 425

Anjou 15419 15722 522

Argenteuil 21475 21637 485

Arthabaska 22235 17225 712

Beauce-Nord 12733 15794 450

Beauce-Sud 15365 20813 626

Beauharnois -Huntingdon 16821 19537 585

Bellechasse 12425 13927 386

Berthier 25884 15251 723

Bertrand 19867 17080 453

Blainville 23132 13585 581

Bonaventure 12914 13761 411

Borduas 18864 13470 579

Bourassa 13063 17084 639

Bourget 17260 14857 750

Brome -Missisquoi1 3476 21425 497

Chambly 25241 20734 722

Champlain 24534 15978 511

Chapleau 14354 37788 895

Charlesbourg 23346 20534 745

Charlevoix 15702 12029 381

Chateauguay 18473 20216 406

Chauveau 28574 23855 1091


Chicoutimi 29262 13348 369

Chomedey 11273 29988 5450

Chutes-de-la -chaudiere 29465 19587 531

Cremazie 17120 18041 799

D'Arcy-McGee 1401 37228 741

Deux-Montagnes 29831 20780 1068

Drummond 24866 18267 753

Dubuc 22850 9651 326

Duplessis 20741 12319 366

Fabre 23546 22341 905

Frontenac 17044 15112 324

Gaspe 15186 10771 410

Gatineau 10873 25153 357

Gouin 21854 15977 805

Groulx 22143 16879 782

Hochelaga -Maisonneuve 18511 9759 660

Hull 12394 28553 683

Iberville 23400 18178 872

Iles-de-la -Madeleine 5478 3946 134

Jacques-Cartier 4016 40689 409

Jeanne-Mance 18654 26449 719

Jean-Talon 14921 16158 495

Johnson 17507 14670 538

Joliette 25096 14194 744

Jonquiere 28385 11584 705

Kamouraska -Temiscouata 15632 14055 451

Labelle 21053 11631 485

Lac-Saint-Jean 25858 9541 340

Lafontaine 17779 26373 766

La Peltrie 26381 218444 843

La Piniere 14006 28261 379

Laporte 17447 25141 801

LaPrairie 30007 19919 708

L'Assomption 29095 16614 487

Laurier-Dorion 15384 25921 1552

Laval-des -Rapides 19035 17146 751

Laviolette 17356 13094 537

Levis 19811 15210 634

Limoilou 21109 19566 881

Lotbiniere 13263 13205 441

Louis-Hebert 20292 17790 431

Marguerite -Bourgeoys 10157 27517 2194

Marguerite -D'Youville 23778 16520 693

Marie-Victorin 22731 14814 1137

Marquette 13627 21739 482

Maskinonge 22504 16914 667

Masson 28636 11683 813

Matane 15511 9381 329

Matapedia 17294 9600 383

Megantic -Compton 13042 14535 390

Mercier 24687 14744 803

Milles-Iles 22668 21231 819

Montmagny -L'Islet 12289 15273 566

Montmorency 28350 20914 728

Mont-Royal 5059 32355 908

Nelligan 9441 42498 775

Nicolet-Yamaska 16992 13114 470

Notre-Dame -de-Grace 4855 31305 864

Orford 20773 23130 655

Outremont 13362 25269 649

Papineau 12371 21561 282

Point-aux -Trembles 21425 13768 550

Pontiac 4484 30920 446

Portneuf 19304 16235 662

Prevost 26097 15746 1001

Richelieu 22490 13593 654

Richmond 15719 13856 352

Rimouski 22292 12684 280

Riviere-du-Loup 14561 12114 401

Robert-Baldwin 4772 38430 485

Roberval 25194 13541 305

Rosemount 18814 16282 758

Rousseau 24147 13514 629

Rouyn-Noranda -Temiscamingue 20553 17249 512

Saguenay 23037 8386 604

Saint-Francois 19211 19203 770

Saint-Henri -Saint-Anne 17104 19373 910

Saint-Hyacinthe 22938 18552 676

Saint-Jean 25496 20025 847

Saint-Laurent 7213 34856 965

Sainte-Marie -Saint-Jacques 23879 16832 987

Saint-Maurice 17779 13973 639

Salaberry -Soulanges 26068 19614 900

Sauve 11870 17372 710

Shefford 23986 21782 840

Sherbrooke 19826 17385 705

Taillon 28453 18366 866

Taschereau 17234 12038 687

Terrebonne 26046 12659 831

Trois-Rivieres 19331 15450 736

Ungava 9187 10396 318

Vachon 21374 16384 873

Vanier 25117 20354 989

Vaudreuil 18856 29104 626

Vercheres 22477 11118 701

Verdun 16269 24062 683

Viau 10746 23620 681

Viger 10982 23207 666

Vimont 24519 24475 841

Westmount -Saint-Louis 6995 38180 746

tabular or aggregrate data (on this talk page) to follow.

Maybe it is time to write a full article on this case. How about an article named: Valid ballots rejected by scrutineers during the 1995 referendum? I found the full French language Quebec Court of Appeal ruling on the case however, I could only find a short summary of the ruling in English. Here it is:
Directeur général des élections du Québec c. Fortin (Directeur général des élections du Québec c. Lefebvre) December 17, 1999 ruling by the Quebec Court of Appeal.
Summary of the case in the Compendium of Election Administration in Canada for the year 2000
Same thing for The Gazette v. Conseil du référendum. The ruling is available in French here: [1] and in an English summary here: [2]
The annual reports of the DGEQ don't seem to be available in English either. There are all available in PDF here: Publication du Directeur général des élections du Québec -- Mathieugp 22:44, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
There is another related ruling (Alliance Québec c. Directeur général des élections du Québec) which can be read in French here: [3] -- Mathieugp 23:00, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I think we should clean this one up before making another, make sure of accuracy and detail, and wait for more input. The issues of corruption and fraud belong in the main article, in my opinion. Bcameron54 22:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I was not suggesting we remove it from this article, just to cover it all in a full separate one. There is a lot of material not yet covered, especially since the release of Les secrets d'Option Canada. Before this book, a lot a people thought Option Canada had something to do with the Unity Rally in Montreal. The book shows it was not the case. So this means there is even more money that was spent in violation of Quebec's law on spendings during referendums. Regarding the valid ballots being rejected, there are numerous facts we are missing to understand what happened, but we can write a full article on the court cases, the evidence presented, the analyses of the judges and all that. I don't understand why only two people are referred to in the ruling when about 29 people were prosecuted. I don't understand why a lot of the people who should have been interrogated were not. I am not a lawyer, so it might be normal. -- Mathieugp 23:18, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsubstantiated text removals

1) I removed the following paragraph:

  • "A $4.8-million subsidy from Canadian Heritage, originally destined for the promotion of Canada's official languages, was awarded to Option Canada prior to the referendum. This information is available in the records of the Public Accounts of Canada. This information is however nowhere to be found in the CCU's annual report for 1995."

This general reference needs to be substantiated and then reinserted if appropriate. A. Lafontaine 15:12, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

2) I removed the following paragraph:

  • "In order to get an estimated 10 000 people from the other provinces to join the rally, the No-side benefited from friendly corporations such as Air Canada and Via Rail which offered greatly reduced tickets to citizens who wanted to travel to Montreal. The costs associated to the travel expenses was estimated at over $4 million."

This general reference needs to be substantiated and then reinserted if appropriate. A. Lafontaine 15:15, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I also modified the comment about the Electoral inquiry to state: "Quebec's Chief Electoral Officer consequently had to interrupt the conduct of his inquiry and drop the charges." This situation needs clarification as I understood all charges had to be dropped and the illegal inquiry was shut down. However, if this can be referencered properly by someone then the proper text might be worth including. A. Lafontaine 15:24, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 1) $4.8-million subsidy

This information can be read in much detail in English in at least one article published in The Gazette:

Source: http://www.vigile.net/ds-actu/docs4/2-16.html#mgca

Quote: "A $4.8-million federal grant earmarked for the promotion of Canada's official languages financed an anti-separatist operation prior to the 1995 referendum, The Gazette has learned.

The Heritage Canada subsidy was awarded to Option Canada, a Montreal lobby group set up eight weeks before the Oct. 30 referendum vote. How the lobby group spent Ottawa's money - along with an undisclosed amount from anonymous sources - remains a closely guarded secret, nearly 1 1/2 years after the No side's slim victory.

Using a name identical to a political party that died in 1992, Option Canada was incorporated on Sept. 7, 1995, government documents show. Seventeen days later, the first $1 million of its funding arrived from Ottawa and was quickly pumped into the campaign, say participants in the exercise. Another $2 million followed nine days later, on Oct. 2, and the final $1.8 million - to cover outstanding bills - was sent Dec. 20, 1995. Although organizers claim Option Canada used the money to extol the merits of federalism, the organization kept such a low profile that its name doesn't appear a single time in the library data-banks of La Presse, Le Devoir, Le Soleil or The Gazette. The $4.8-million grant to Option Canada is recorded in the Public Accounts of Canada. "

-- Mathieugp 19:49, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 2) Unity Rally

That information can be found in a good number of articles in French, but in English the coverage was very different. I will keep looking into it. The estimate is that of the DGEQ I believe. I guess I will have to do some translation so the facts brought up by Francophone journalists be known to English-speakers too. -- Mathieugp 19:49, 19 July 2005 (UTC)


This section of the article disturbs me greatly, for it's blatent separatist POV:

"The No-side committee organised a rally in Montreal for October 27" "This amount was not authorized nor entered in the expenditure report of the No Committee. This, according to Quebec law, is a case of referendum fraud.[1]"

No, the no-side did not organize the unity rally. This debate has already been settled by the courts. Phil O'Brian, a Quebec business leader - later joined by Brian Tobin, a federal cabinet minister - organized the Unity Rally. The Unity Rally was NOT part of the Non campaign - a mistaken view held by many sovereignists, such as Mathieugp, who apparently wrote this whole article and is helping to maintain its bias. The unity rally was a show of patriotism by Canadians in Montreal, legallly outside of the referendum. The Non campaign had nothing to do with the unity rally. This line is blatently biased and simply untrue. It should be edited, or simply removed. --Willmolls 07:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I am aware that the Unity Rally was organized by then federal minister Brian Tobin. There are two ways to look at it:
1) The No committee was never informed nor involved in the organization and its leaders were only put before the fact at the last minute. The participation of No committee leaders and volunteers was forced upon them. If they had not participated, then the event would have been clearly illegal as the private organization behind it was based in Montreal. Since they have participated, this is not in dispute, then it was only illegal because the spendings went over the limits allowed to the No committee.
2) The leaders of the No committee knew everything from the start but we have not yet found evidence.
Personnally, I believe in 1) because a) it is the most plausible scenario and b) there is much evidence to support this scenario. Le Référendum volé by Robin Philpot has a lot factual details. I lent the book to someone, but as soon as I have it back, I will source the article better. -- Mathieugp 14:30, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
If you are aware that it was a body outside of the Non campaign (the Quebec Business Council; later promoted by Brian Tobin) that organized the rally, then why does the article still read "The No-side committee organised a rally in Montreal for October 27"? Legally, the Unity Rally was above and outside of the Non campaign - the Non campaign was not responsible for the costs associated with it. Therefore it is not "a case of referendum fraud", as the article insinuates. --Willmolls 00:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Because the "Quebec Business Council" and the No committee did not ignore each other's actions during the campaign. There is evidence of this. To claim such as thing is to take people for fools. If I remember correctly, the No committee furnished microphones and other kinds of equipment for the speeches held on Place du Canada. Some of the expenditures were listed as part of the comittee's expenditures. But don't quote me on this, I'm only going from memory here.
You are mistaken on what makes the thing a case of referendum fraud. If, as you say, the rally had been organized above and outside the No campaign, then it would definitely have been a case of referendum fraud as section 404 of the Quebec Referendum Act rules out third party expenditure. See Libman v. Quebec (Attorney General) article for the Supreme Court of Canada ruling which invalidated some parts of the Referendum Act, at the time forcing the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec to interrupt the conduct of his inquiry and drop the 20 criminal charges of illegal expenditures he had filed. I guess we could write that in the article, just to be on the safe side with facts. That is until I get my book back so I can refresh my memory with the details of how the No committee was directly and indirectly involved in the rally. -- Mathieugp 04:46, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Being aware of a rally being organized and actually doing the organizing are different things. What I am telling you is that the article states "The No-side committee organised a rally in Montreal for October 27", which is misleading. My point is that the Non side did not organize the rally, which is exactly what the article claims. The Unity Rally was organized outside of the Non campaign. You admit the Non side may have known about it, but they did not do the brunt of the organizing, correct? If so, this sentence should be edited to reflect this, instead of insinuating that it was the Non campaign itself that organized the entire rally. (P.S. I got the term "Quebec Business Council" from the CBC Archives page on the Unity Rally, if you were wondering where I came up with that one.)
Yes, I agree. It is not entirely correct and is misleading indeed. I wrote the Unity Rally section on July 9, 2005 according to the article's history. I was relying on press material solely then (not a good idea in general). I think maybe the Quebec Business Council refers to the Conseil du patronat du Québec, something akin to the Business Council of British Columbia?
As for the case of referendum fraud - as an aside - the Supreme Court ruling on Libman v. Quebec (Attorney General) states "the limits imposed under s. 404 . . . come close to being a total ban" of political expression, a Charter right, which, as you say, invalidated parts of the Referendum Act. Legally, the ruling meant that the Referendum Act itself was in violation in the charter - therefore, the Unity Rally was not legally a case of referendum fraud, as the laws about the referendum were struck down by the Supreme Court.
That is innacurate. The ruling Supreme Court ruling came in October 1997, 2 years after the referendum. It was clearly illegal under the law which was then enforced on the territory of Quebec. The Supreme Court, unlike the other courts, found that the limits to third-party expenses was too much. The ruling suggests the Referendum Act could for exemple attain its objective (to give an equal chance to both sides by regulating expenses) by allowing third parties to finance activities up to a certain amount. On Section 404, the judges said:
"The forms of expression provided for in that section are so restrictive that they come close to being a total ban. There are alternative solutions consistent with the Act’s objective that are far better than the exceptions set out in s. 404. An exception to regulated expenses permitting citizens, either individually or in groups, to spend a certain amount on an entirely discretionary basis while prohibiting the pooling of such amounts would be far less intrusive than the s. 404 exceptions."
If the Supreme Court's suggestion had been written into law in 1995, the organizing of the Unity Rally would still have been illegal. That is beside the point however since what matters is the law that was actually being enforced at the time.
I see your point: that, regardless of the Supreme Court's ruling, the Unity Rally was in violation of Quebec provincial law at the time. But let's look at the article. It reads "This, according to Quebec law, is a case of referendum fraud." The phrase "at the time" isn't there, nor is any explaination about those very laws violating the charter. This sentence - and the article as a whole - ignores the Supreme Court ruling, which found Quebec law at the time to be in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. While we can speculate about whether or not it would have been illegal if s. 404 had been reformed before the fact, the law itself was struck down. Therefore, legally, you can not say that the Unity Rally was illegal - except to say it was illegal according to Quebec's laws at the time, which were in violation the Charter, and were later struck down by the Supreme Court.
I agree the phrasing can be changed to reflect the complex nature of the events, but to remain neutral we will have to expand more than that. The Libman case goes back to the 1992 referendum on the Charlottetown Accord. The Referendum Act goes back to before 1980. The Unity Rally was organized for the 1995 referendum in a manner that was against Quebec law in principle and in practice. It would have been pretty easy for the organizers to do what they did against the principle of equal chance to both sides yet technically not against the law just by making sure they do everything from an address outside Quebec (since Quebec law can only be applied on the territory of Quebec). That was not very smart. However, the Supreme Court ruling landing just while the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec is suing a bunch of liberal friends, that was smart and oh so convenient. You can read this unfortunately not very balanced 1997 article from the Ottawa citizen to see for yourself how touchy the subject is http://www.efc.ca/pages/media/ottawa.citizen.10oct97.html . -- Mathieugp 12:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Regardless, "This, according to Quebec law, is a case of referendum fraud" should be expanded to explain the controversy better. At the moment, the way it is explained is biased and does not tell the whole story.
On that note, perhaps an article focusing on just the Unity Rally itself would be a good idea? That way the controversy surrounding the Unity Rally could be explained in much greater detail than simply in a few sentences. What do you think? --Willmolls 07:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Sure, we can make it into a full article. I think that more than 10 years after, there is enough solid material to write a full article on the subject. At the same time, there remains a lot of unanswered questions and we can see that lots of speculation made it into the press (in both official languages). :-) -- Mathieugp 17:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree that Libman v. Quebec (Attorney General) and the Supreme Court's ruling should be added to this section of the article, to make the legal implications of the Unity Rally a little more clear, rather than what's currently in the article: "This, according to Quebec law, is a case of referendum fraud", which is rather general, and misleading.
Regardless, this section of the article needs some cleaning up. Maybe wait until you get that book of yours back, though ;-). --Willmolls 06:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I will do that. :-) -- Mathieugp 17:57, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I found an online copy of a source that is used in both Le référendum volé and Les secrets d'Option Canada. It is an article by journalist Claude Arpin first published in print in The Gazette. You can read it here: Unity group waged secret referendum battle, Claude Arpin, The Gazette, March 20, 1997
Arpin found that "there are 65 telephone and fax calls to Option Canada on long-distance telephone bills from Liberal Party offices in Quebec City" and this is made him state that "the corporation was a player in the campaign". It is also the conclusion reached by Norman Lester and Robin Philpot. In Les secrets d'Option Canada, they wrote (my translation): "Let us note that Claude Arpin, of the daily newspaper The Gazette, discovered, after consulting the official report of the Comité pour le NON, that the Parti libéral du Québec, which directed the committee, made no less than 65 long distance calls (telephone and fax) from its office in Quebec City to the office of Option Canada during the month of the referendum. That is to say, more than two calls per day."
Only a serious public inquiry by Quebec's Chief Electoral Officer would have allowed us to know the full truth. And the Chief Electoral Officer was prevented from doing this when, on Oct. 17, 1997, the Supreme Court rendered its ruling on the Libman v. Quebec case.
I suggest we try to distinguish the facts from the interpretations as clearly as possible by making a timeline of events. If you are interested, I invite you to contribute to the draft I am going to prepare soon for a Timeline of the 1995 Quebec referendum. This might be difficult as we will have to dig in old newspapers articles. Hopefully this is made much easier with the Internet. The guys at Vigile.net have archived a lot of the articles we might be interested in. -- Mathieugp 16:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
This is an interesting debate. I'm a Quebec resident, but at the time of the rally, I lived in Ontario. I went to the rally, along with almost everyone I knew at the time. In fact, my recollection of that period in time is that there were very few people I personally knew who did not fully support it, and while I'm aware that that's a typical fallacy (thinking your circle represent the whole,) given the political polarization of the country at the time, I'd have been amazed if, even if the rally hadn't been 'organized' (I've been to plenty of rallies that had *no* organizers at all) it hadn't just happened anyway. It's hard to imagine, under those circumstances, how a provincial law against political expression (ludicrous, insulting, patronizing, and totally illegal as such a law would have to be) might have been enforced against people from outside the province. What were they going to do, stop us at the borders? Arrest us? Absurd. The law and the spirit behind it, as well as the assumption that any organizational effort *wouldn't* have simply sprung up without the involvement of Option Canada. After all, Clearchannel has repeatedly learned what happens when you try to organize rallies that there is no support for. *Nobody comes*. It's as simple as that. You sure as hell don't get 10,000 people (though coming from someone who was there, that number does seem awfully low. A stadium can seat as many as 20,000, and there were certainly many more people there than in a packed stadium. I can't fault the Yes side for wanting to lowball the figure though.) Sigma-6 04:42, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
It also seems odd to see this: "A massive rally was held in downtown Montreal where Canadians, who had benefited from up to 90% discounts on train and plane tickets from federal public institutions, came to express their support for a 'no' vote." Because, besides the fact that I travelled on a citybus, and lots of people took their own vehicles, and a huge amount of the transport was offered by private interests with federalist intentions, *making the statement utterly false*, that's also how rallies are organized. That's hardly the point. You got a rally to organize, you get buses, because you have people who want to go, and while they're probably going to go anyway, it's way easier if you tell them there's a bus leaving at such and such a time. It's also more fun. We sang songs. I came on an OC Transpo bus. I was amazed to find that people were angry at OC Transpo for sending city buses to Montreal. They did it for (*surprise*) political reasons. What were those reasons? They were federalists. They wanted to see their country stay together, and they were not looking forward to the strife that would necessarily have been caused, in their personal lives, in their *border town* had their country split in two right down the middle of a city where half the place works on one side, and the other half on the other. Hard as it might have been for separatists to believe, the separation of Quebec in 1995 would have had a *very deep emotional effect* on the *entire country*. This sort of thing *motivates people*, (and companies are made up of people, and when almost everyone in a company feels the same way, it tends to leak into policy) and, motivated, they take action. Usually, that kind of thing motivates people to get together somewhere and tell other people what they think, because trust me, the referendum hit the whole damn country right in the heart. In this case, we were saying: "Please don't leave Canada." Yes. They were Federalists, and yes, they wanted you to vote no, and yes, it was political, and yes, the ticket discounts were politically motivated. Personally, I love Quebec so much I moved here. Would I vote for separation in the next referendum? Hell no. If there was a rally, would I call all my friends and attend? Yes. If I owned an airline and all my employees wanted to offer free tickets to it, would I agree? Hell yes. Call it partisan? It is. That being the case, I hardly see why it's relevant to point out that the attendees benefitted from cheap tickets. Perhaps some context would be good. At the moment, it looks a bit like sour grapes. Sigma-6 04:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3) DGEQ Inquiry and charges

The DGEQ had to drop his inquiry, that I am sure of. I do not yet know who is behind the court case against the DGEQ's inquiry. Regarding the charges, I think it is in one of the annual reports of the DGEQ. I will find the quotes and translate them. -- Mathieugp 19:49, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What legal evidence?

A paragraph was modified by user Krinberry:

"These facts have lead many people in the Quebec sovereignty movement to believe that, despite all legal evidence to the contrary, the 1995 referendum was in reality won by the Yes side."

What legal evidence are you referring to? What do you call "legal evidence" exactly? Since there has been no court cases on many of these issues, I don't see how there could be much legal evidence in one way or another (for sure, not all legal evidence). The only things that went to court had 1) the scrutineers judged not guilty, 2) many Bishop students found guilty and fined. As for the big inquiry of the DGEQ, we will never know because it was shut down by the Supreme Court before it was over. -- Mathieugp 21:03, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] POV

This paragraph strikes me as being very POV and doesn't really contribute any factual information to the article:

"Provincial laws did not applied to federal government who spent over 30M$ between october 1st and october 30th on federalist propaganda such as public held and flags. It was later recalled in the sponsorship scandal as a complaint from quebecers. However no illegal behavior where seen in those acts since provincial laws should not be applied to federal government."

On the question of provincial laws applying to the federal government, well that simply isn't true. The federal government is not above the law even though it has often acted as if it were the case. The link between the illegal money of 1995 and the sponsorship scandal is pretty obvious, but nothing in this paragraph helps to support it. -- Mathieugp 07:59, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

The Quebec government can pass laws applying to people operating withing its jurisdiction. The Canadian government does not operate within its jurisdiction, but outside it. Thus Quebec laws do not apply to the Canadian government.

I am not sure what you mean. Your sentences are not very clear to me. What I know for certain is that the Canadian government cannot just ignore laws passed by a provincial government. For example, if a building is considered historic by the Quebec government and a law has been passed to protect the said building and the surrounding areas, the federal government cannot just ignore it, destroy the building and build something else over it. However, if the Quebec government were to pass a law which is very clearly outside the constitutionally defined jurisdictions of the provinces, then the federal government could very well decide to ignore the law. That's the theory at least. -- Mathieugp 14:47, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
I think that's precisely what he said. The Quebec Government cannot pass laws applying to people outside its jurisdiction. On the other hand, neither can the Quebec Government pass laws which contradict federal law, which is to say, the federal government can pass laws which affect existing Quebec legislation. That's not necessarily being 'above the law,' or even 'acting as though this were the case,' (though I've lived in Quebec long enough to know that provincial politics here is quite often dirtier and more twisted than much of what we see at the federal level . . . while we're on the topic of the perfectly healthy elephants living in the closets of people who are opening others' closets to reveal elephants) it's simply a fact that since Quebec is a province of Canada, it isn't necessarily in a position to decide which of its somewhat peculiar legal vagaries are free from federal meddling. If Quebec behaves unconstitutionally, then going on about jurisdiction is . . . more than a little pointless. It's long been an underpinning of Western political thought that those who didn't vote for the sovereign in a democracy are still subject to its laws. On the other hand, Quebec law, if constitutionally sound, certainly *does* apply to federal actors operating within Quebec. It was clear, but if he's saying that the federal gov't can operate with legal impunity in Quebec, then he can certainly be clear and wrong at the same time. Sigma-6 05:13, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Brings up an interesting, somewhat unrelated, but perhaps analogous point, however. Take the American Embassy in Ottawa. The Embassy plans violated Ottawa's building codes. The building was too tall for the area of the Byward Market in which it was placed, and this threatened not only the aesthetic beauty of the area, but also the values of a large number of million-dollar condos on Sussex which had previously commanded a view of Parliament Hill. The building is also a dreadfully ugly monolithic structure which was obviously (and openly admittedly) intended to evoke a sense of the military might of the country it represented; an evocation totally out of touch with the architectural tone of the rest of the downtown core. The general opinion in Ottawa was that it ought to be redesigned, or at the very least reduced in scale to comply with the city's long-standing codes. The Americans simply went ahead and built it anyway. I am of the opinion that not only does this fit your example pretty well (however transposed,) but it also illustrates that there is nothing novel in the powerful simply doing what they like when faced with the objections of the relatively weak. The real solution lies in compromise; or in the case of Canada/US relations (and maybe its analogues?) the ability of the weak to grin and bear it, gaining their concessions where they can feasibly make their stands and refusing to yield where it is a crucial matter of principle to do so. . . we do, after all, have to get along, since we can't really physically fly our nations elsewhere. . . ;) Sigma-6 05:26, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
It's not analogous. My recollection is that the laws of the foreign country apply within the embassy. The US embassy (or an embassy in general) is considered to be American soil with American jurisdiction, and they can do what they want with it provided they comply with international law and the agreements made with the host country. Entirely different from what amounts to domestic federal-provincial dispute over jurisdiction. 24 June 2007

[edit] Neutrality

Got the impression that this was written from a separatist point of view. Very anti-federalist in my opinion

Could you give some examples, or otherwise subtantiate this comment? HistoryBA 00:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
just read Disputes over the conduct of the referendum or After Effects Thetrump 00:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I just read those two sections. What is your complaint about them? HistoryBA 01:22, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
their point of view and being rather slanted towards a separatist point of view Thetrump 03:28, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
We seem to be going in circles. You say the article has a separatist POV. I ask for details, and you ask me to read it. I read it and ask again for details. You respond that it has a separatist point of view. What's separatist about it? (And please don't ask me to read it again or reply that it has a separatist point of view.) HistoryBA 14:22, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Maybe we ought to insert more inline sources in "Disputes over the conduct of the referendum". I wrote most of it and the reason I put all the sources at the bottom of the article (in Further information and External links) is that most are in French and useless to the average English-speaking visitor of en.wikipedia.org. If I ever get the time, I will produce a Timeline of the 1995 Quebec referendum based on the information in Robin Philpot's Le Référendum volé. While reading it, I hilighted all the sentences which included dates and money figures with the intention of compiling it all in one comprehensive Timeline. I find this form to be the better one, especially in an Encyclopedia.
By the way, the Option Canada "case" is still active. I was reading in the Wednesday December 14 edition of Le Devoir that historian Robin Philpot and journalist Normand Lester are currently working together to compile all the financial information that could be found on the Option Canada case. Maybe we will be able to know exactly how the federal government subsides meant for the French-speaking minorities of Canada ended up being spent on advertizing, airplane tickets etc. during the referendum campain. -- Mathieugp 17:19, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
to be honest, I don't have the time to go through and analyze the article in great detail. However, it is in my opinion that this particular section of the article is given a once over by someone with no vested interest on the subject. I'll admit that I'm a highly dedicated federalist, which may be contributing to my objections to the neutrality of the article
Tagged for review in regards to the neutrality of this article. Does a section on the sponsorship scandal really belong here? Do we need to know that there's a law in Quebec which prohibits spending more than X dollars on a campaign, but that the federal government spent "30 million" ? Provincial laws do not apply to the federal gov't as noted, therefore I fail to see how this spending is noteworthy.
I agree that the section "Disputes over the conduct of the referendum" has become very long. The solution is to move it to its own article, where it can be expanded further. It needs to include more annotations to support the many controversial statements it contains. It is certainly worthy of mention that the federal state broke its own federal laws by channelling taxpayers' money meant for francophone minorities to private groups which, by operating from within Quebec's territory, broken provincial referendum law. -- Mathieugp 16:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
"The federal government is not bound by provincial laws or statutes."

= Completely false. The Canadian Constitution and eventually the Supreme Court determines the scope of action of a province or territory. Roux17

If this discussion has ended (seems it has), can we please remove the 'neutrality' tag from the article? GoodDay 21:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rampage by Bcameron54

There has just been a rampage of biased edits by user Bcameron54, whose behaviour reminds me of our favorite hard banned user DW/Angelique/JillandJack/Lafontaine ...

Any objection to a full revert? -- Mathieugp 15:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... not all of the edits are biased, and some corrected some POV in the article. Overall, however, these edits are clearly intended to impose Bcameron's federalist point of view on the article, and are very problematic. I would support a wholesale reversion. Some of Bcameron's edits could be restored if he/she is willing to work toward the goal of Neutrality instead of imposing his/her view. Ground Zero | t 16:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Fine by me. -- Mathieugp 19:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the "complex legal document" the June 12 agreement is supposed to be, here is the full text in English:
Text of the AGREEMENT between the Parti Québécois, the Bloc Québécois,and the Action démocratique du Québec -- Mathieugp 20:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1995 question modeled on 1992 one

For many years now, the Liberals in Ottawa have been saying that the 1995 question was unclear. This assertion has been repeated so often now that a lot of people have started to think it has become a fact, despite much evidence to the contrary. One of the main evidence being that, Jean-François Lisée, adviser to Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard has stated on TV that the question was drafted by himself taking as a basis the 1992 question on the Charlottetown Accord. Indeed, the 1992 question asked the citizens if they agreed on a constitutional reform on the basis of an agreement previously signed just before the referendum. Here is the question:

"Do you agree that the Constitution of Canada should be renewed on the basis of the agreement reached on August 28, 1992?"

The Charlottetown Accord is objectively more difficult to read for the average citizen than the June 12 agreement. Oddly enough, the clarity of the 1992 question was never questionned by federalists. Maybe because it was written by federalists?

It should also be pointed out that the referendums on the Maastricht Treaty and more recently the European Constitution also followed the logic of "We, the politicians have agreed on A, do you the sovereign people approve us or not?". -- Mathieugp 17:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it's a question of the fundamental validity of polling. In a practical sense, the question Quebecers responded to in 1995 was 'Do you want Quebec to leave Canada?'
Unfortunately, that's not what the question *said*. That's pretty simple, and, I would think, obvious to even the meanest understanding. People (everywhere) have a tendency to obfuscate and cloud discussion. They don't have to be Sovereigntists or Federalists; they just want you to see it from *their* angle. That's a fact of life, not an example of your political opponent's dishonesty. To put it simply: that's politics.
That said, polling is a dangerous game, and referenda in general have a nasty way of being just as forked up. People who don't know the terms of reference respond based on their own internal ones. If I ask fifty people if they think I should stop beating my wife, for example, nearly all of them are going to say *yes*, despite the fact that I don't actually beat my wife at all. (and further, despite the fact that I'm not married.)
That's the nature of the beast, and there's no escaping it. If the question is clarity, then make it clear; you're not asking a poli-sci class, you're asking a body of (largely) disinterested people who are generally disengaged from the political process. The question they're going to ask when they get the ballot is: "what agreement was that? You want me to read *that*??" Shouldn't they simply be sitting down and answering the damned question? Wouldn't it be simpler to *ask the one they're answering*, since they didn't come there to ratify an agreement, or put their stamp of approval on a document they have never even heard of and are never going to read?
Now I understand that there's a lot more at play here, but the fact is, the question was unclear in a way that referendum questions are often unclear. It's endemic in referenda. That's the complaint: why wasn't it the one that was answered, stated plainly? The answer to that question is that it wasn't because a: it couldn't be because it had to be pinned to something, and b: because the people who wrote it wanted people to vote a certain way. It's always like that, so the complaint is perhaps irrelevant, but that doesn't necessarily invalidate it. Sigma-6 05:52, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources for illegal spendings and citizenship scandal

This goes way back. The illegal spendings by the federal governement and various private groups revolving around mostly the Liberal Party of Canada were reported in the French language media even during the 1995 referendum campain. However, the first serious journalistic enquiry into Option Canada was the work of Claude Arpin who published this article in the Montreal Gazette on March 20, 1997:

Later, Radio-Canada journalist Normand Lester continued the enquiry and made a lot of his findings public on French television. After publishing The Black Book of English Canada, he was demoted to different job and subsequently quit Radio-Canada. This event caught of lot of media attention at the time.

Nothing got more media attention however than his recent publication of Les secrets d'Option Canada which is the most boring book to read as it contains mostly a series of evidence in the form of bills and cheques incriminating Option Canada members and collaborators. The evidence was kindly given to Heritage Canada (which requested an investigation by the RCMP the minute they learned about the publication of the book, something they had neglected to do since at least 1997) and also the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec which announced yet another inquiry on the illegal spendings of 1995.

There are a lot of online sources on this suject if you read French:

The first source for the other scandal, that of the illegal attribution of citizenship papers to about 11 429 permanent residents just during the month of October 1995 is a Le Devoir article. I have yet to find an English media that also covered the topic, but I am still searching. The said article, published by Pierre O'Neill on November 8, 1999 can be read online here:

I can translate it upon request. -- Mathieugp 00:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


Mathieu, about that last source you reference, regarding the citizenship list theory. Unfortunately I cannot read French very well, so I can't be sure what's said in the Le Devoir article, so I thought I'd ask.
I'm looking at two reports from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, from 1993 and 1995. According to them, the numbers used in your source regarding the number of people granted citizenship in Quebec, found on the last page of each PDF, are correct.
However, currently this Wikipedia article claims:
It was the first time that Quebec residents received more citizenship certificates than Ontario residents, which has not occurred again since.
According to the numbers I'm looking at, this is false.
  • In 1993, the Quebec : Ontario ratio of granted citizenships was 23 779 : 85 525.
  • In 1995, the Quebec : Ontario ratio of granted citizenships was 43 855 : 127 998.
The article does not refer to the ratio over that period. Here is what the article says:
"In the course of the sole referendum year of 1995, Ottawa a thus attributed citizenships to 43 855 new Quebecers. For the sole moth of Octobre, 11429 certificats were emitted, that is to say 1/4 of the total attributions of the year. It was the first time Quebec saw itself get more citizenships than Ontario. And it never reoccurred since."
Maybe that was not clearly what was implied in the Wikipedia article.
Lost in translation, I'm sure ;-).
The verification to be made would be, using the data Le Devoir got from Ottawa in 1999, is is true that for the sole month of October, 1/4 of all citizenships were granted and that 11429 beats the number Ontario got during the same month. Comparing today's data with that of 1999 would be a good check also. -- Mathieugp 16:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I'd have to agree, but unfortunately the reports by Citizenship and Immigration Canada only show annual totals rather than monthly. I'll keep looking, though. --Willmolls 22:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Which means Ontario still received more granted citizenships in 1995 by a difference of 84 143. Not only more than Quebec, but a larger difference than 61 746 in 1993.
Further, according to these reports, from 1992 to 1995 Ontario consistently had not only the most citizenship grants, but a majority of citizenship grants throughout the country, pulling in over 50% of citizenship grants every year.
This article goes on to claim that:
The data also shows an increase in certificate attributions by 87% between 1993 and 1995.
I'm not the best with math so I ask you to be patient with me. I asked Dr. Math to help me on this one, because I haven't had to do a problem like this for a while. My girlfriend took a course on statistics, but unfortunately she's out of town and can't help me with this, so this is all my own work =D.
Using the formula Dr. Math gave me, I found:
  • In Quebec, between 1993 (23 779) and 1995 (43 855) there was a 84% increase in citizenship grants.
Meaning the article's claim is almost correct, but is, however, out of context, as I also found:
  • In British Columbia, between 1993 (19 336) and 1995 (35 552) there was a 83% increase in citizenship grants.
Which is only 1% less than Quebec. For the sake of reference, there was 81% increase between 1992 and 1995 in Ontario, though this drops off when only measuring between 1993 and 1995 (about 50%).
It is fair to point out a spike in citizenship grants between 1993 and 1994 in Quebec, but it's important to add that this was a trend true of both Ontario and B.C. as well.
It seems to me that if there were a conspiracy to quickly register new citizens who'd vote "No" in the referendum, that spike would have occured (at the earliest) between 1994 and 1995, when the PQ took back power. Yet between 1994 (40 507) and 1995 (43 855) there was only an 8% increase in citizenship grants.
While the article makes it seem apparent that something unusual is afoot, looking into the numbers reveals how not-so-out-of-the-ordinary these citizenship grants really were. Frankly it seems a bit of a stretch to point out a conspiracy happening in these numbers. I don't think it's worth pointing out in this article.
But I wanted to ask if I've overlooked anything (which wouldn't surprise me). Again, as I said, I can't read French very well, so I can't be sure was said in the Le Devoir article. As well I'm not very good at math, so my numbers could be wrong.
Makes me think, I suppose these are all things I should work on ;-).
Cheers! --Willmolls 08:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Full translation of Pierre O'Neill's article

Did the No camp steal the 1995 referendum? New documents accredit the sovereignist thesis.

The information collected by Le Devoir shows that Ottawa conceived and implemented a wide-scale plan of intervention to substantially inflate the number of voters willing to vote against the sovereignty of Quebec.

According to statistics compiled by the analysts of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the number of attributions of citizenship in Quebec suddenly rose from 23 799 in 1993 to 43 855 in 1995, that is to say a rate of increase in 87 % in two years.

Now this is what I was talking about. I found it to be almost true (I calculate 84%), but it's still out of context. There was an 83% increase in British Columbia between 93 an 95, and an 81% increase in Ontario from 1992 to 1995. Either way, what does it really matter as the PQ didn't even take back power until 1994, and as I said before there was only an 8% increase between 1994 and 1995 in Quebec. The real spike occured a year earlier, and happened throughout the country, not just Quebec.
Either the author was wrongfully tried to show that there was a important increase in Quebec but failed to mention (or notice) that the same was true for the other provinces, or, more likely, he was trying to give an idea of the general trend before going into further details for the months just before and after the referendum. -- Mathieugp 23:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

In the course of the sole referendum year of 1995, Ottawa has thus attributed citizenships to 43 855 new Quebecers. For the sole moth of October, 11429 certificates were emitted, that is to say 1/4 of the total attributions for that year. It was the first time Quebec saw itself get more citizenships than Ontario. And it never reoccurred since.

I'm still trying to find where in these reports, or anywhere else, I'd find month-by-month numbers. They don't seem to be available in the reports published. I'm wondering where Le Devoir got this information. Is there another source to back this up?
I'm suspicious about this because of the 8% rise between 1994 and 1995. If there were a dramatic spike in October of that year that was particularly out of the norm, wouldn't it be reflected between these two years? 8% amounts to only a 3 348 change, but 11 429 amounts to 26% of the whole year. Given the upward trend of all provinces, an increase of about 8% in Quebec would be expected, but that increase isn't nearly enough to account for an unusual spike in October, unless citizenship grants in October are normally that high - meaning the year before citizenship grants in October were around 8 081.
Regardless, it'd probably just be best to find another source that can back up these numbers.
Other French language media covered the issue. I remember seeing a report on this in Radio-Canada TV. -- Mathieugp 23:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The federal government thus decreed as many citizenships in Quebec, than there were new voters registered on the electoral list.

On the other hand, the post-referendum year of 1996 was marked by a significant fall of 39 % of attributions of citizenships to Neo-Quebecers.

Of all total citizenship grants in Canada there was an average drop of 32%.
In fact, this kind of "significant" rising and falling has happened before. Between 1988 and 1990 there was a "sudden" 77% increase throughout the whole country. From there, the number steadily grows until 1996, which saw the aforementioned drop of 32%.

As of the end September 1995, senior officials at Citizenship and Immigration Canada gave the order to accelerate the process of attribution of certificates and to prioritize the requests which were on standby at the time of the launch of the referendum campain.

Again, are there any other sources that could back this claim up?
The Radio-Canada report was more detailed. Some people claimed to have received their citizenships in a gymnasium with a bunch of other immigrants. -- Mathieugp 23:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I also wonder how the federal government was going to be sure these new citizens were going to vote "No". In fact, how did they know they were going to vote at all? I suppose I can understand that you might expect them to vote "No", but you can't be sure. I don't know, to me, drawing conclusions from all this seems a bit far-fetched.
They have just sweared the allegiance to the Queen of Canada. Even I would have voted No under these circumstances. ;-) -- Mathieugp 23:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Good point, and my skepticism about how they would vote is even more definitely corrected by this article (which took forever to find) published before the vote in the Gazette:

OTTAWA (Special) - Citizenship Court judges from across Canada are being sent into Quebec to work overtime on ensuring as many qualified immigrants as possible gain their Canadian citizenship before the referendum. Most of Quebec's new Canadians traditionally are federalists and expected to vote No in the expected Oct. 30 vote. With polls suggesting a close vote, Ottawa is sparing no effort to accredit them. It is also halving the time needed to process certificates for those who have lost theirs. The goal is to have the 10,000 to 20,000 citizenship applications outstanding in Quebec processed by mid-October.

Still, this makes me wonder: Is this really underhanded or fundamentally wrong? To give residents of Quebec the right to vote in a referendum deciding it's future? It seems only natural - part of the democratic process to make sure everyone effected gets there say. I continue to think the sovereignists are over-reacting by saying the election was thusly "stolen" because of this.
Either way, now we have more than one verifiable source that something was up, so I'll remove the disputed tag, but we still don't have any other sources that back-up those specific numbers cited by the Le Devoir article - though this Gazette article puts those numbers in the ballpark, so they seem reasonable at this point. --Willmolls 04:27, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
What is the date for this article? What is not written in this article is that in order to process all these people, Ottawa had to violate its own immigration law procedures and regulations. -- Mathieugp 13:47, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
August 31, 1995 - roughly two months before the vote. The article does mention that Ottawa was "also halving the time needed to process certificates for those who have lost theirs", but it unfortunately doesn't mention anything about laws being violated.
Right around this time, a BQ member of parliament found out about this, and confronted then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Sergio Marchi during Question period (see "Immigration"). He said, in response:

Mr. Speaker, what is being done with respect to citizenship processing in the province of Quebec leading up to the referendum is nothing different from any lead up to any provincial campaign. My department has done likewise with the provinces of Manitoba, New Brunswick and Ontario. If we compare the number of citizenship processings with the year of the Ontario election, it is up some 45 per cent. Is the hon. member suggesting that we should somehow slow down the process? Is the hon. member suggesting that it is not proper to have the persons exercise their democratic right to vote? Exactly what is his point?

When further pressed later on during Question period, he again reiterated "There is a view at the lead up of every provincial and federal election, including the referendum this time as well as in 1980, that if there is an ability to speed up the processing with the viewing of granting the franchise of the vote it will be done." To further his point, he again pointed to the 49% increase in Ontario during it's election between 1993 and 1994. He also pointed out that the Bloc had "criticized [Ottawa] in the past for moving too slowly on the applications. Now they are saying we are moving too fast. Which one is it?"
The biggest concern I would have is something the Bloc member brought up - were security checks bypassed to certify these new citizens? The Bloc member suggests yes. Sergio Marchi says no. I'll keep looking for a definite answer to that question. In the meantime, I think all of this should be mentioned in the article. --Willmolls 22:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Overall, I think if you're really looking for a conspiracy in these numbers, you'll find one. But outside of that, I don't really think any of this proves anything particularly suspicious or out of the ordinary was happening. But, that's just how I see it. --Willmolls 22:11, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Other doubtful manoeuvres

It is not the first time that are facts letting people believe that the federal resorted to doubtful operations to inflate the vote of No side are brought under the light. In 1998, the PQ members in the region of Montreal submitted to the national council of their party a dossier aiming to demonstrate that more than 100 000 voters registered on the electoral list used for the 1995 referendum did not have the right to vote.

On the basis of information received from the Chief Electoral Officer and Control of Quebec Health Insurance Manager, the PQ militants had endeavoured to demonstrate that these 100 000 names registered on the electoral list did not figure on the list of recipients of the RAMQ. At the end of an exhaustive examination of the dossier, the Chief Electoral Officer had finally recognized that 56 000 people registered on the electoral list did not have the right to vote and that these names were to be erased from the list.

Are there any other mainstream sources (in English or French) that I could look at about this? (Don't worry, I wont ask you to translate another article, but thank you for translating this one.) I think a few other sources about this might clarify a few things about what was going on and what this really means.
All French language media reported on this as far as I remember. Welcome to Canada, half the citizens gets half the news and the other half gets what's left. ;-) -- Mathieugp 23:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I most certainly agree. You may be right about a lack of cynical coverage outside of Quebec of the federalist side during the referenudm, but given polls that showed Quebecers didn't really think voting "Yes" meant independence, it doesn't seem the media in Quebec was doing a very good job informing the public on the consequences of a "Yes" vote. But, to each their own agenda, I suppose. --Willmolls 22:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm also curious about whether or not anything along these lines (people voting illegally due to not being properly registered) may have happened before, in previous referenda or elections (and not necessarily just in Quebec).
There was a big fraud case involving the Quebec liberals in 1998. I can look for it if you want. -- Mathieugp 23:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Making the point that the electoral list comprised a greater number of illegals than the majority of No votes over Yes votes, the sovereignists never ceased claiming that Ottawa stole their referendum.

But when you consider all the rejected "No" ballots mentioned earlier in this Wikipedia article, it all balances out, right? ;-) Only joking.

It is also the determination of the PQ members from the Estrie region that contributed to the exposure of the electoral fraud in this area. In the spring of 1998, 32 students of Bishop University, in Lennoxville, were condemned to have voted illegally during the referendum of 1995.

Again, other mainstream sources to back this up would help. Do we know what they may have been voting for? Was it part of a systemic plot or were the students just clueless about proper procedure on voting? And while 100 000 votes may have swayed the referendum, 32 confirmed illegal votes probably would have not.
Well my friend, I must agree that it certainly seems a public inquiry into the matter would be the only way to get some concrete answers, but I don't think this would be enough evidence to expose a legitimate conspiracy that would justify one. By the sounds of things on both sides of the debate, the other side was plotting against them, but isn't that always the way with big political events like this? --Willmolls 22:11, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I'll look for other media that covered it. However, there is a limit to what we can find online. Links tend to go broken over time. -- Mathieugp 23:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fighter Jets

I think i once heard Normand Lester say that the canadian government, fearing the YES winning withdrew all of the Canadian Air Force jet fighters from quebec juste before the referendum.

should this be included in the article? and if yes, where? Simon.bastien april 17

This article doesn't need any more conspiracy theories.--Boffob 03:15, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
I heard that too. It seems relevant to know what the contingency planning was by the federal government. Joeldl 14:26, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
It's not a conspiracy theory, it's actually a fact. Watch "Breaking Point", the CBC documentary on the referendum.
But what I didn't know (until looking into the matter) was that Bouchard had very publicly said he would just take the jets for his own air force. I suppose I understand his thinking. He takes credit for the Bombardier contract to build the jets being given to Quebec over Winnipeg, which isn't entirely fair as Mulroney played a part in that deal, in order to woo Quebec voters.
Not only that, but Bouchard was enticing soldiers to defect to a Quebec national army. Wow. --Willmolls 05:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I called it a conspiracy theory 6 weeks ago because the only source given then was Normand Lester. A more reliable source on this is fine.--Boffob 19:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
There doesn't have to be any particular rationale. When countries break up the appropriate thing to do is to split the assets and the debt roughly according to population. If Quebecers' taxes paid for a quarter of the fighter jets, they should get a quarter of the fighter jets. Things don't just go to the biggest piece of the country left. Of course there are other federal assets like airports, bridges, etc., which can't be moved, and those things would have to be accounted for by adjusting Quebec's share of the debt up or down. Joeldl 01:46, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
But we're not talking about Quebec taking a quarter of the jets. Bouchard said he'd just take all of them. I'm not saying I don't think Quebec would deserve any federal assets, but that's pretty over-zealous talk from Bouchard - along the same lines of Paul Martin and Larry O'Brien's comments that are mentioned in the article. I've always respected him for being so passionate and devoted to his cause, but that's a bit much. It's as if he was looking to provoke the rest of Canada by just declaring what Quebec is going to take from the country's assets if it leaves. But as he's said before, "Canada is not a real country" anyway. Can't imagine "partnership" talks with this guy. Either way, Bouchard seems to have a knack for handling delicate issues like this with a blunt instrument. --Willmolls 19:29, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grenier Report

In light of this [4], I took sometime to update the article, mainly the section discussing the Unity Rally. It's a relatively brief edit in light of the information now available, so if anyone cares to do a more indepth update given Grenier's findings and how they effect the subject, please do. I also did some rephrasing and rewording of this section of the article to clarify some things and improve flow.

Speaking of the Unity Rally, I still believe it deserves it's own article.

I removed this setence:

"To rally Canadians of all provinces, the organizers were able to obtain important reductions on plane tickets from Air Canada and train tickets from Via Rail

I did this not because I doubt it, but because it's still awaiting a verifiable sources, which I'm sure can be easily taken care of, at which point I think the sentence should be replaced.

In the meantime, though, I replaced it with this cited paragraph from the Toronto Star (using Lexis-Nexis), which provides an example of the aforementioned illegal spending (as well as a rather arrogant quote):

Aurele Gervais, communications director for the Liberal Party of Canada, as well as the students' association at Ottawa's Algonquin College, were charged after the referendum for illegally hiring buses to bring supporters to Montreal for the rally, part of a larger accusation of illegal spending on the behalf of the No side by supporters of Quebec sovereignty. Environment Minister Sergio Marchi told reporters "Mr. Gervais, on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada, should wear [the charges against him] like a badge of honor," and "I think it's a crock and they should stop nickelling and diming Canadians' sense of patriotism to death."

I think the article as a whole is in need of citing it's sources, though I don't doubt the information is out there.

If anybody feels my edits need adjusting, feel free to do so. I did my best to keep it objective (I know this is a controversial subject). I'm open to hearing suggestions on how to improve the article with that in mind. I'm still a bit of a n00b, so if I've offended anyone at all, I most sincerely apologize (as well as apologizing for my rather obnoxious behaviour in the past on this talk page, which was brought about by too much alcohol. In the spirit of academia, I've vowed not to drink and edit Wikipedia again.) Willmolls 05:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Disputes over the conduct of the referendum"

For the sake of keeping this article concise and organized, and given the amount of information available, I think all this section should be summarized here, and given it's own, separate article, as has been previously suggested. I would nominate someone who knows a lot about the subject to do so. --Willmolls 22:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spring Cleaning (More Still Needed)

I spend a good amount time rewording/rephrasing/negotiating the content of the first half of the article (i.e. everything up to and including "The Result" section). I did my best to keep the edits NPOV, and not alter the subject matter of what was there too extensively. \

[edit] Numbers protocol

I would prefer the article to use "Systéme international" numbering (86 000 rather than 86,000), since SI is Canada's standard under the metric system.


[edit] Some Article Rewording

I removed some of the more flowery language to keep it concise and clear, particularly in the "Background" section. If anyone objects to my edits I'd be happy to discuss them. My focus is to simply keep it infomative and to the point for readers generally not in the known about the politics of Quebec. Once again, I apologize if I've offended anyone.

[edit] More Sources

For good measure I found sources on Lexis-Nexis to back up a lot of what's already in the article and a few things I added, listed under references.


Once again though, I have to reiterate a need to clean-up and summarize the second half of the article, and/or move it to it's own page. I wont touch that part of the article, but I do think it's in need of some cleaning up.--Willmolls 08:22, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Update: I lied. I've gone through it, rephrasing awkward sentences most likely directly translated from French. As well, I've been trying to keep the article up to date with the Grenier report, adding bits and pieces of information throughout the second half as needed. --Willmolls 08:28, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I haven't had a chance to really dig through the report itself, however I read what the media told us was important about it. Much disinformation as usual. First, Grenier ran a private investigation instead of a public one like people demanded. Coincidence: all the people holding offices were cleaned. Once again, some are trying to make us believe that soldiers acted without orders like during the sponsorship scandal. I am much in favour of the principle saying "considered innocent until proved guilty", but sometimes I wish it would be "considered guilty until proved innocent" for elected officials. ;-)
The half a million figure stated by the media is only what Grenier could effortlessly prove to have been fraud. The rest of the millions cannot be, according to him, proved to have been spent illegally during the 1995 referendum campaign. Would an impartial and public investigation end up with the same conclusions? Allow me to doubt it. -- Mathieugp 17:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Referendum Judged Effectively Unconstitutional

I have not seen a good reference in Wiki to this law, the one that sets up the "umbrella" committees, and their financing. Is there one? If so, where is it? If not, why not start one?Toddsschneider 17:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

On September 8, 1995, Mr. Justice Lesage of the Superior Court of Quebec, while refusing to grant an injunction against the holding of the referendum, issued a declaratory judgment to the effect that Bill 1, "which would grant the National Assembly of Quebec the power to proclaim that Quebec will become a sovereign country without the need to follow the amending procedure provided for in Part V of the Constitution Act, 1982", constituted "a serious threat to the rights and freedoms of the plaintiff granted by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms." He found that:

"All of the actions taken by the Quebec government, and the procedure stated in the draft bill, indicate that the government, through the Premier and other Cabinet Ministers, has undertaken, on behalf of Quebec, to proceed with a unilateral declaration of independence and to obtain Quebec's recognition as a state distinct from Canada.

"It is manifest, if not expressly stated, that the Quebec government has no intention of resorting to the amending formula in the Constitution to accomplish the secession of Quebec. In this regard, the Quebec government is giving itself a mandate that the Constitution of Canada does not confer on it.

"The actions taken by the Government of Quebec in view of the secession of Quebec are a repudiation of the Constitution of Canada. [ ...]

[...]

"The constitutional change proposed by the Government of Quebec would result in a break in continuity in the legal order, which is manifestly contrary to the Constitution of Canada."Toddsschneider 17:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Secession is generally a break with the rule of law and the constitutional order. No surprise there. G. Csikos, 28 November 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.239.83.200 (talk) 02:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chretien Planned to Denouce Referendum as Illegal

should this be added under the section, preparation for YES? According to his memoir, Chretien noted that he prepared a speech to give the next day, in case if the Yes side won. The speech would denouce the referendum as illegal and therefore invalid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.12.11.3 (talk) 01:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)