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posted by janrinok on Friday September 08 2017, @06:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the then-the-Basques,-and-then-...? dept.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41191327

Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy says he will ask the courts to revoke a law passed by the Catalan regional government to hold a referendum on independence. He described the vote, planned for 1 October, as illegal.

Earlier, state prosecutors said they would bring criminal charges against Catalan leaders for their endorsement of the referendum.

The pro-independence majority in Catalonia's parliament passed the referendum law on Wednesday. Spain's wealthy north-eastern region already has autonomous powers but the regional government says it has popular support for full secession.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dry on Saturday September 09 2017, @03:18AM (9 children)

    by dry (223) on Saturday September 09 2017, @03:18AM (#565480) Journal

    Came close in Canada. Quebec has had two referendums on separating, with the second one being very close, 50.5%-49.5% in favour of staying IIRC. Afterwards the federal government passed the Clarity Act, which basically said that a clear majority has to vote to leave without saying what exactly a clear majority is. It went to the Supreme Court whether the Federal government could pass and enforce that law and ignore a 50%+1 majority voting to separate and the court agreed that the feds could, which made the Quebec separatists very unhappy.
    Personally I think that such a major decision is like a Constitutional Amendment , which in Canada generally follows the 7/50 rule (7 out of 10 Provinces containing 50% of the population, but a 100% for some amendments, probably including breaking up Canada) and usually takes a super-majority in other countries.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarity_Act [wikipedia.org]

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:37PM (8 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:37PM (#565664)

    The biggest practical problem I see with Quebec secession is its location: it's not that far from the middle of Canada, and there's several provinces to its east, esp. the "Maritime provinces". If Quebec leaves, now you have to go through a separate country to get from one province to another. It wouldn't be nearly as big an issue, I think, if it were Newfoundland trying to secede. Considering how much Quebec likely contributes to the Canadian economy and resources (a lot of hydro power is generated there), I can see why Canada is reluctant to let them leave. As for a "clear majority", they really should define that term if they're going to use it, but in other contexts it usually seems to mean 60%.

    Personally, I'm a believer in self-determination, but I do think the clear majority rule is a good one; deciding really gigantic things based on only a plurality (50%; I hope I'm using the right term here), isn't sufficient, because you could do another vote the very next day, or even later that same day, and get a different result: the margin for error is greater than the amount needed to win by. By requiring a clear majority of 60%, or perhaps even more (75%?), the separatists can truthfully argue that the people of that region really do want to separate, and it's only a minority that doesn't, and that this isn't just some short-term fad or emotional feeling. If you're deciding something as momentous as what country a large region is part of, it can't be something that people change their mind on quickly, just like you can't have married people with kids together getting divorced and remarried to each other multiple times a week: the consequences of the action are too great, and too much administrative effort ensues from that decision, that it needs to be made carefully, and only once. If only half want to leave, personally I think that's not enough; they really need more agreement than that for it to result in stability.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:53PM (2 children)

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:53PM (#565674) Journal

      Maybe Newfoundland could become an independent country again, as they were before the Act of Dominion in 1949. Perhaps the rest of the Maritimes (New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia) would join them. They're kind of an afterthought in Canada anyway. Its national center of gravity is in the middle, in Ontario, with its west rapidly growing in importance thanks to Pacific trade.

      Quebec seems like it would continue to do about as well as an independent country as they do as a Canadian province. They'd surely keep open borders with Canada and the US, and they have ocean access so shipping would not be a problem. On the plus side, Quebecois'd stop having to speak English and the Anglophones in the rest of Canada would stop having to learn French.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday September 09 2017, @03:02PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday September 09 2017, @03:02PM (#565678)

        Maybe Newfoundland could become an independent country again, as they were before the Act of Dominion in 1949. Perhaps the rest of the Maritimes (New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia) would join them.

        Maybe, but what if they don't want to? Small regions with few resources are usually better off as part of a larger collective, rather than trying to be independent. Maintaining your own national government and military is hard and expensive, and having to pay customs and duties for everything you import gets expensive; that's why small regions tend to band together into federations and unions.

        the Anglophones in the rest of Canada would stop having to learn French.

        They could just change the law in the other provinces to fix this if they really wanted.

        Quebec seems like it would continue to do about as well as an independent country as they do as a Canadian province.

        Perhaps, but I don't think the same can be said of the Maritime provinces.

      • (Score: 2) by dry on Saturday September 09 2017, @05:11PM

        by dry (223) on Saturday September 09 2017, @05:11PM (#565708) Journal

        Newfoundland gave up its Dominion status during the depression due to basically going bankrupt. It's hard to imagine it doing much better as an independent country now. The rest of the Maritimes don't have much going for them economically either.
        As for French populations, Manitoba and New Brunswick both have large enough French speaking populations that it wouldn't be that easy for Canada to become purely English speaking. And considering that it would take an amendment to the Constitution to break up Canada, there would have to be a lot of compromise.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dry on Saturday September 09 2017, @05:05PM (4 children)

      by dry (223) on Saturday September 09 2017, @05:05PM (#565705) Journal

      Yea, Quebec leaving and keeping its current boundaries would probably kill Canada, with the east cut off. Which brings up the other point, should Quebec be allowed to keep its boundaries? I don't think the natives wanted to go, they made their deal with the Queen, not Canada or Quebec. Quebec was also a lot smaller when they came into Confederation, all that northern land could be given back to the natives, sort of like Nunavut.
      Yes I agree that 60% should be the minimum, look at Brexit, basically a tie and like you said, the next day the vote may have gone the opposite way.

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday September 09 2017, @06:13PM (3 children)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday September 09 2017, @06:13PM (#565718)

        Which brings up the other point, should Quebec be allowed to keep its boundaries? I don't think the natives wanted to go, they made their deal with the Queen, not Canada or Quebec. Quebec was also a lot smaller when they came into Confederation, all that northern land could be given back to the natives, sort of like Nunavut.

        That's an excellent point I never even thought of. Do they have counties in Canadian provinces the way US states do? I wonder how the Quebec independence vote looks if you look at it county-by-county instead. If most of the counties don't want to go, but only a few populated urban ones do, then that isn't fair either; would the separatists still want to secede if they could only make the Montreal area a new country, and they were dependent on those northern areas (now a separate country, part of Canada) for their water and power?

        As I said before, I'm all for self-determination, but you have to be practical. There isn't much point to being an independent nation if you can't even be remotely self-sufficient, and are utterly dependent on other countries for your basic services.

        • (Score: 2) by dry on Saturday September 09 2017, @07:25PM (2 children)

          by dry (223) on Saturday September 09 2017, @07:25PM (#565744) Journal

          Some Provinces have counties, others not. I'm in BC where we have regional districts that are kind of a weak county. Better would be to go by ridings (election districts), as that is how the numbers are available. I believe it would actually be the opposite, Montreal staying and the rural areas leaving if you went by ridings. The rural Quebecois are pretty conservative in some ways.
          There's also issues like the old border dispute between Labrador and Quebec, made worse by the hydro on that border.
          Quebec leaving would be pretty complicated, much more then the separatists campaigned on, which basically was staying in a common market with Canada, using our money and similar things that Canada may not have agreed to.

          • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday September 09 2017, @07:47PM (1 child)

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday September 09 2017, @07:47PM (#565748)

            The rural Quebecois are pretty conservative in some ways.

            But not the more remote areas where the First Nations people live, right? I imagine they'd want to stick with Canada.

            using our money

            That's another big problem with separatism: having to have your own currency, and all the friction that happens when you try to trade cross-border with different currencies. Over in the EU it's not so bad because they already have a common market and common currency so those advantages are absent, making the case for separatism much stronger.

            • (Score: 2) by dry on Saturday September 09 2017, @11:53PM

              by dry (223) on Saturday September 09 2017, @11:53PM (#565807) Journal

              The natives aren't Quebecois, rather Cree, Dene, Inuit and I forget what else and might be misrembering the native nations who occupy the north of Quebec, been a long time since grade 6. The Quebecois traditionally occupy the lands close to the St Lawrence. I think the natives wanted to stick with Canada. Generally they don't really recognize either the Federal or Provincial governments, having made treaties with the Crown. Constitutionally, the feds are responsible for the natives and if they didn't want to go with Quebec, it would have complicated things quite a bit.
              As for money, if a country wants to use another countries currency, I don't see how you could stop them. On the other hand, they don't have any control and can't inflate away debt. Other treaties such as NAFTA also wouldn't automatically cover Quebec though old ones like the Jay treaty probably would as they predate Confederation.
              It's much more complicated then the Quebec separatists campaigned on and I'm sure it's the same with Catalonia.