Time to Say Goodbye: The Case for Getting Quebec Out of Canada

Scowen, Reed

ISBN 10: 0771079605 / ISBN 13: 9780771079603

Published by McClelland & Stewart, 1999

About this Item

170 pp, Cover is white with grey lettering on front and spine - very minimal wear (see photos provided). Signature and inscription by previous owner. No notations, highlighting or underlining. Prompt shipping includes tracking.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1769722958979

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Time to Say Goodbye: The Case for Getting Quebec Out of Canada
• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0771079605
• ISBN 13: 9780771079603
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dimensions: 1.27W x 13.97H x 21.59D centimeters 1.27 centimeters width by 13.97 centimeters height by 21.59 centimeters depth

About this title

Synopsis

The time has come to call it quits, to ask Quebec to leave Canada, and to forge a new nation without it. Time to Say Goodbye is a powerfully argued challenge to Canadians to accept that Quebec’s national aspirations can never be satisfied within the confines of Canadian Confederation, and furthermore, continued efforts to accommodate Quebec damage Canada in ways it can no longer afford.

Canada without Quebec will be a more prosperous, generous, and hospitable nation than the linguistically and politically distorted one that has emerged from the past twenty years – since the first coming-to-power in Quebec of the Parti Quebecois. Reed Scowen, an anglophone Québécker and former member of the Quebec legislature, argues that Quebec’s political identity is based on language and ethnicity. Quebec has become an authentic nation-state. The rest of Canada has no comparable political ideology and will never comfortably accommodate Quebec.

While many do not share the caustic view of Quebec Premier Bouchard – that Canada is not a country – many do worry that Canada, without Quebec, will break apart. But Scowen suggests that the breakup of Canada will be more likely the result of the continued, futile manoeuvres to satisfy Quebec’s national aspirations. Far better, he argues, to take a positive view: build a country based on the values, traditions, and procedures that the other nine provinces share.

About the Author

Reed Scowen writes about his province with rare authority. He has been a businessman, a member of the Quebec legislature, economic advisor to former Quebec premier Robert Bourassa, and a senior public servant.

Over a period of more than twenty years, Scowen worked at the highest level inside Quebec’s corridors of power to make a bilingual, bicultural Quebec work. Only with regret has he come to the conclusion that such efforts are futile. Scowen is the author of A Different Vision: The English in Quebec in the 1990s (1991). He lives in Quebec.