[LINK] Yakabuski on "Ethnic" Separatists

[rfmcdonald]

Continuing the theme of my post this morning, in today's The Globe and Mail Konrad Yakabuski examines this new trend more directly.

[A]bout 200 people, most of them from the multi-ethnic Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood nearby, have gathered to hear Parti Québécois Leader André Boisclair give a stirring speech about immigration, discrimination and unemployment among visible minorities. And, of course, about sovereignty.

There are Arab women wearing head scarves, an Indian woman in a sari. There are Haitians, Asians and North Africans. No one seems to notice, or care, that they're meeting where clean-cut French-Canadian Catholic boys once came to pray. This crowd is overwhelmingly young and most have no memory of Quebec as a fief of the Catholic Church. And while many of their elders might still reject the sovereigntist movement as one made up of francophone ethnic nationalists, those gathered here are enthusiastically approving of Mr. Boisclair's message that they are as Québécois as he.

It would be hard for many of them to feel like anything else. They are the "children of Bill 101" -- either first- or second-generation immigrants who grew up in Quebec attending French-language public schools, as mandated by provincial law since 1977. Their education and, more important, their socialization among francophone Quebeckers, has led them to define themselves as Québécois as much as, if not more than, Canadian. Many see sovereignty as merely the formalization of what is already a reality for them: Quebec, they will tell you, is their country.

"There's no doubt. In Quebec, I feel chez moi. In Canada, I feel like a visitor," said Akos Verboczy, 30, who immigrated with his parents from Hungary in 1986. "I wouldn't say all the children of Bill 101 are sovereigntists. But we are a lot more sovereigntist than our parents."