Daily BrewJean-Martin Aussant, champion of Quebec separatism, picks up for sunnier skies in England
He couldn't stand to live in a Quebec that was part of Canada, but he doesn't see anything wrong with living in the United Kingdom.
And that's pretty much all you need to know about the current state of Quebec's separatist movement.
Jean-Martin Aussant, the founder of a Quebec political party bent on separation, has announced that he will quit politics and move to England to work in finance.
Aussant actually left his party, Option National, about two months ago to spend more time with his family. But he says he has struggled to find work in Quebec and will instead move to London, where he has secured a position with Morgan Stanley Capital International. He previously worked for MSCI in London between 2003 and 2005.
He questioned in a blog post whether his difficulty securing work in Quebec was related to his identity as a separatist.
“I’d like to believe it’s not the latter reason. Not in 2013, for heaven’s sake,” he writes.
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Aussant began his political career as a member of the Parti Quebecois from 2008 to 2011, before leaving and forming the Option National, which celebrated an even stronger demand for a sovereign Quebec. (Its strategy, according to the Montreal Gazette, would be to ask for a national referendum after the separatist wheels were well in motion.)
Option National will live on, of course, although it placed fifth in the popular vote in the 2012 provincial election (behind another separatist party, a party calling for a moratorium on the debate, the Liberals and the now-governing Parti Quebecois), and secured no seats.
That is the state of the separatist movement in Quebec. Despite having the Parti Quebecois form government, progress on the issue has been left to occasional scraps over the province's language charter.
An Angus-Reid poll from earlier this year found that 42 per cent of Quebec respondents supported separation. A Leger Marketing poll from around the same time found the number to be 37 per cent, down from 43 per cent the previous year.
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Separatism may not be dead, Premier Pauline Marois once said the movement was militant in its determination, but it is resting comfortably.
Brian Lee Crowley, managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, recently wrote in the Gazette that "the hurdle is set so high for it to be done successfully and legally that separation is, for all intents and purposes, impossible."
Crowley writes:
The rule of law means that secession must be accomplished under the Constitution. Since the Constitution does not contemplate a province leaving, it would have to be amended. Such an amendment would fall under the unanimity rule, meaning that Quebec must negotiate secession with the nine other provinces plus Ottawa; any province, even tiny Prince Edward Island, could legitimately upset the secession applecart all on its own.
That's just one opinion, of course, but Aussant's departure to England isn't exactly an indication that Option National is poised to break through in the next election, or that there will suddenly be a groundswell in discord that would make another referendum inevitable.
When one of the biggest champions of Quebec separatism is leaving Canada to move to its motherland, a person can't help but scratch their head.
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