Talk:1995 Quebec referendum/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

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)

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)

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)

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)

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
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-Temiscamingu	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)

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)

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 LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL rder 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)

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)

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)

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)

"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)

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. \

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.

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.

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)

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)