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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: 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.

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  • (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.