http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/09/05/the-anglos-are-waking-up-pauline-marois-possible-target-of-quebec-election-gunman/

Quote:

MONTREAL — Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois was abruptly dragged off stage by bodyguards midway through her victory speech Tuesday after a 62-year-old man wearing a blue robe and a balaclava allegedly opened fire into the theatre where she was speaking. Moments later, TV cameras showed a man in glasses being arrested and police seizing what appeared to be two firearms, a handgun and a rifle. The man, from Quebec, is believed to have had previous dealings with police. “The anglos are waking up” the ranting suspect said in French with an English accent as he was led away by police. Then alternating between English and French he added: “There’s going to be f—-ing payback. It’s enough. Wanna make trouble.” The shooting left one person dead and a second in critical condition. Because of the possibility that Marois herself may have been the target of the shooting, the Quebec Provincial Police have taken control of the investigation.

It's not going very well here right now

The suspect is an English speaking Québécois. He was pissed because he's fucking crazy, but also because PQ got elected.
PQ wants to give Bill 101 more power, which would in turn restrict the English communities' rights, at least the way they plan to do it.

But as it is, PQ has 54 seats to PLQ's 50, so they likely won't even be able to do shit without making lots of compromises.

Hopefully, people will see this guy as just a crazed gunman.

English and French Canadians don't particularly like each other. And there's a fairly strong minority on both sides that'll make sure you know it.

Anyway :

Bill 101 is there to help protect the French language inside Québec. It was created in the 70's, at a time where it was very hard to get service in French anywhere in Montréal. Now all shops that have at least 12 (I think) must give be able to serve people in French, along with whatever other languages they could want to. It's seen as an extremely important bill here.

Problem here, PQ tends to take it too far and add retarded stuff to it. For example, all shop signs must have French on them. Ok, makes sense. But the French part must also be bigger/more visible than any other language... which seems less about protecting French than trying to repress English.
Same with trying to forbid francophones from enrolling into English schools.

Meanwhile, the news here say the victims got shot after they asked the suspect how the fuck he got in there (the backstage), and that his AK-47 jammed. There could easily have been more deaths if he'd reached the theater itself.

As for how he got in, that one door didn't have police surveillance. Whether he had an accomplice or Montréal police is just plain incompetent isn't known yet.

Yeah, this (in politics) happens once in every 10 years or so, it doesn't change much

Most Quebecers won't ever feel sorry at all for the transfer payments. We see it as a replacement for the Kyoto protocol, where Quebec (and probably quite a few other provinces) would have been able to "sell" part of its pollution quota to Alberta so they could pollute however the fuck they wish.

And of course Quebec would leave with it's debt. Sovereignists want to cut most economic ties with Canada, good or bad.

But seriously, sovereignty support is at an all-time low (28%). And PQ got elected with 32% of the vote share, the second lowest in it's history. And it's a minority, so federalists form 60% of the government anyway. There won't be a referendum anytime soon.

Also, I'd like to clarify something. As someone who voted for the Parti Québécois, I can say a vote for them isn't necessarily a vote for independence. Many vote for them because politically they're quite a bit on the left, and would like them to shut the fuck up about independence for just a while. They lost credibility recently, though they're the...least bad I guess.

Next election NDP will bring back their NPD-Quebec party though. They could do well and hopefully will. It'll give an alternative for the English Quebecers, whose only decent choice was Liberals, and those are currently investigated for very strong allegations of corruption, so yeah.

What I hope is Québec's push for the NPD will incite other provinces to vote for them. They DO have a chance of forming the government now.

Also, last time we elected people that barely even knew what politics were. NPD had never gotten more than 1 seat in Québec in an election before the last one, so they weren't really organised at all. Now they will be. Thomas Mulcair has also always been popular here when he was that lone NPD guy here every time. I don't think support for NPD will falter here, as Conservatives are loathed, Liberals are seen as thoroughly corrupt, and Bloc Québécois, while better than the other two, can't ever take power and mostly just annoys the fuck out of English Canada.