“The realities have changed. Anglophones and Francophones are on the same side,” co-founder states
You may not have heard of the Quebec Freedom Network, but you will now. They turned people away at the door so full was its opening meeting in Quebec City this past weekend. Over 500 people listened to Ezra Levant, Tasha Kheiriddin, Adam Daifallah and Eric Duhaime advocate for a freer, less invasive Quebec state with a dramatically reduced bureaucracy and a greater emphasis on self-reliance. The next gathering of the Reseau Liberte- Quebec will be in Montreal, perhaps even on the West Island
Conceived as an anti-statist grassroots movement to fill the emerging political vacuum in Quebec, it cleverly launched on U-Tube weeks before the Quebec conference..
Journalist ,political analyst and policy advisor Eric Duhaime, one of the group’s six founding members says the conference was aimed at voters who are right of centre that have lost patience with the Charest government but who are not willing to embrace Pauline Marois and the separatists.
Duhaime has worked as a political advisor to both Stockwell Day when he was leader of the federal reform party and to Mario Dumont former leader of Quebec’s Action Democratique Party . He says the purpose of the meeting was not to create a political party, but “to change politics from a grassroots perspective, to stimulate new ideas then spread them.” Duhaime agrees Reseau Liberté Quebec is patterned on the populist Tea Party movement. But he says, unlike the Tea Party, there is no religious right in Quebec to influence the movement. “That changes the dynamic,” he says, ‘People have to understand that there is a French nationalist element that has to be respected, and that we are Quebecois, but language is not the only issue. Constitutional and language issues have split the country for the last half century, but the realities have changed. It has always been the Yes camp against the No camp. There has been no real debate on where these camps would take us. Francophones and Anglophones are on the same side. We have the same concerns. No matter what language we speak, those of us who are under the age of 40, will, during our lifetime pay more than $200,000 in taxes that we will never get back. We will be the first generation of Quebecers to grow up poorer than our parents. We have to think about personal responsibility, and forget about political parties who continue to promise much more than they can afford to deliver.”
The network’s mission statement says the movement is open to anyone who favours deficit reduction, and intergenerational fairness.
With only 500 days – give or take a few – until the next Quebec election, Duhaime believes the time is ripe to tap into a constituency that has grown disillusioned with politics. “We can’t afford to elect the Parti Quebecois and go through another referendum The Bloc and the PQ are not indépendentistes, they are dépendentistes, dependent on Alberta’s resources Ottawa’s largesse and federal transfer payments.”
He points out that only 56 per cent of Quebecers bothered to vote in the last provincial election, the poorest turnout since 1927. “Anglophones in particular stayed away from the polls, because they have been taken for granted by the Liberals, and never really had their concerns heard by the Quebec government. We need English voices in the Quebec Freedom Network.”
The freedom network was started by six public-spirited citizens, including Duhaime, Dr. Roy Eappen, Ian Senecal, Guilliame Simard-Leduc, Gerard Laliberté, and documentary television producer Joanne (L’illusion tranquille) Marcotte. Anyone wishing more information can go on line at www.liberte-quebec.ca
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