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puckstopshere · ‎01-29-2013

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's biggest opposition party introduced a bill on Monday that would make it easier for the French-speaking province of Quebec to secede, although the proposal has no chance of becoming law now.

The bill, from the opposition New Democratic Party, would allow Quebec to leave Canada if there were a simple majority vote on a clear question - 50 percent plus one vote, offering clues to NDP policy on the matter if it wins the 2015 election.

Current legislation says a "clear majority" is needed for a province to secede, an undefined number that is described as more than a simple majority.

NDP leader Thomas Mulcair said the side with the "largest number of validly expressed votes" should win a referendum, provided the question in the vote was unambiguous. His proposal won't become law because the Conservatives hold a majority of seats in the House of Commons.

Quebec secessionists came within a hair of winning a referendum to break away from Canada in 1995, gaining 49.4 percent of the vote to 50.6 percent for the pro-Canada side.

That squeaker prompted the federal government to pass the Clarity Act, which requires a clear majority on a clear question. It does not specify what is meant by a clear majority but says it is more than a simple majority.

The NDP, noting the arrangements for a Scottish referendum in 2014 on independence from Britain, would revoke that act.

"There's no way to look at this otherwise," Mulcair said. "That's the rule that's being followed by the mother of all parliaments in Westminster (the British Parliament)."

The issue has become more pressing with the election last year of a separatist government in Quebec. The separatist Parti Quebecois has only a minority of seats, so it cannot hold a new referendum now. But it could do so if it wins a majority in the next provincial election, expected by mid-2014.

Opinion polls put Quebec support for independence at well short of a majority.

Liberal legislator Stephane Dion, who wrote the Clarity Act, said the NDP was in the absurd position of requiring a two-thirds majority to amend the party's constitution but a bare majority to break up Canada.

"It's a decision forever. It's something that you decide for the next generations," he told Reuters. "You must be sure that it's clearly what the people want."

The NDP's policy is unlikely to increase its popularity in the rest of Canada, but a majority of its seats are from Quebec and it plainly believes that this will help it retain those seats and fend off the separatist Bloc Quebecois in the next federal election.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/canadian-opposition-introduces-bill-makes-secession-easier-231104768.html

puckstopshere · ‎01-29-2013

That squeaker prompted the federal government to pass the Clarity Act, which requires a clear majority on a clear question. It does not specify what is meant by a clear majority but says it is more than a simple majority.

Only a politician could write such a law.

The NDP's policy is unlikely to increase its popularity in the rest of Canada, but a majority of its seats are from Quebec and it plainly believes that this will help it retain those seats and fend off the separatist Bloc Quebecois in the next federal election.

Once again, a political party acting, not in the interests of the country it hopes to govern, but simply for its own benefit. I had hope for Mulcair. Not so much anymore.

puckstopshere · ‎01-29-2013

Scotland facing 'enormous' costs for independent security

Alex Salmond's government has been warned an independent Scotland would need to spend billions of pounds setting up its own intelligence agencies and equippi...

David Lidington, a Foreign Office minister, told MPs on Monday that an independent Scotland would face "enormous" costs to build sophisticated new spying and security facilities, and train its agents, before it could persuade MI6 and the CIA to begin co-operating on joint intelligence.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's deputy first minister, had earlier told the foreign affairs committee that officials were completing a "substantial piece on work" on a new independent intelligence service to be published in November's Scottish government white paper before the next year's independence referendum.

She said she was unable to offer any details until that work was complete, but given that the overall UK budget on MI5, MI6 and the spying centre GCHQ was about £2bn, Scottish spending would be around £200m a year, ...

Sturgeon anticipated that an independent Scotland would want to guard against cyberterrorism, international terrorism, international organised crime and global instability producing rogue states.

Scottish ministers point too at protecting Scotland's oil rigs, collaboration on north Atlantic defence with Scandinavian states, and full membership of Nato but without accepting nuclear weapons on Scottish soil.

In addition to the police and armed forces, "Scotland would have an independent domestic intelligence machinery working very closely, sharing intelligence with the rest of the UK," Sturgeon said.

"We're working through these matters because there are different options that Scotland could take," she added later. "I don't think any of them are beyond the ability of Scotland to implement."

Sturgeon came under repeated pressure from the Tory MP for Penrith and the Border, Rory Stewart, a former army officer and Foreign Office diplomat, to explain how an independent Scotland would build, equip, train and fund its own spying and security services.

Stewart said the UK's current annual spying and security budget did not include the total historic costs of building and equipping its intelligence services, from setting up secure intelligence units in overseas embassies, training its agents, to building and equipping GCHQ.

It would cost billions, he said, to set up the secure communications Scotland needed for its intelligence agencies. For instance, if an independent Scotland wanted to have the same number of embassies overseas as Ireland, which has 97, or Finland, which has 93, it would cost hundreds of millions to equip them.

Lidington told the committee, which staged a rare evidence session in Edinburgh as part of its inquiry into the foreign policy implications of independence, that Scotland would also need to prove its internal security was tight enough to protect its allies intelligence.

"If Scotland were to become an independent state, it would have to consider how she's going to substitute for the UK's arrangements," he said. "The costs of doing so would be enormous, I think, particularly to start up such networks from scratch.

"In general terms, smaller European countries don't have the security, intelligence apparatus of anything like the scale and professionalism that we do in the UK."

Asked about Sturgeon's position that Scotland would want to share intelligence with the rest of the UK, and the US and other allies, Lidington said Scotland would face very tough tests to prove its security systems were tight and capable enough to satisfy its partners.

He added later: "It would require all members of that community to be satisfied both that it was to their over all advantage in terms of intelligence gathering and sharing; would Scotland want to be part of that arrangement and most importantly for them, to have confidence in the ability of an independent Scotland's safeguarding of that information."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/28/scotland-enormous-costs-independent-security

prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil · ‎01-29-2013

Scotland........Och aye, laddie, there is nothing so typical as the Brits trying to inject a little fear into the minds of the people. They've been doing it for centuries, much to the regret of many people during their Colonialism days. Scotland, small country with the population of about twice of Toronto. They are quite able to take care of themselves.

As for Quebec.....if they want to.....let them go. This has been going on for countless years. Don't forget, it was Harper who said they were 'a nation within a nation'.

pigdog47 · ‎01-29-2013

"Liberal legislator Stephane Dion, who wrote the Clarity Act, said the NDP was in the absurd position of requiring a two-thirds majority to amend the party's constitution but a bare majority to break up Canada"

Yeah, it is hard to take the NDP seriously. I regard them as a bit of a joke.

art-in-the-making · ‎01-29-2013

The NDP voted in favour of the Clarity Act and Jack Layton reaffirmed his support of it during the last election campaign according to one source.

The PCs under Joe Clark opposed it. Harper wasn't in Parliament at the time. I can't readily find out what the Reform Manning Stockwell Alliance voted. Very mixed bag of support in the Senate - Chretien had to appoint some new senators and pressure some others to ensure passage.

prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil · ‎01-29-2013

People should be happy with Dion.......

Dion challenged three assertions that Bouchard had made:

That a unilateral declaration of independence is supported by international law, that a majority of "50% plus one" was a sufficient threshold for secession, and that international law would protect the territorial integrity of Quebec following a secession.

- Against the first assertion, Dion argued that the vast majority of international law experts "believe that the right to declare secession unilaterally does not belong to constituent entities of a democratic country such as Canada."

- In regard to the simple majority argument, Dion argued that due to the momentous changes to Quebecers' lives that would result from secession, a simple majority that could disappear in the face of difficulties would be insufficient to ensure the political legitimacy of the sovereignist project.

- In regard to the territorial integrity of Quebec, Dion retorted that "there is neither a paragraph nor a line in international law that protects Quebec's territory but not Canada's. International experience demonstrates that the borders of the entity seeking independence can be called into question, sometimes for reasons based on democracy."