Page F30 reader poll results on Quebec's role and future in Canada

The most recent poll has ended, and the results are...not quite as interesting as I had hoped, but perhaps it was an impossible question to get a good answer too as one can't get a representative sample from Quebec with an English poll.

But first the results:


I'm from Canada outside Quebec and I want Quebec to separate. 1 (1%)
I'm from Canada outside Quebec and I want Quebec to be semi-autonomous within Canada. 5 (7%)
I'm from Canada outside Quebec and I want Quebec to remain in Canada as a province. 10 (14%)

I'm from Quebec and I want Quebec to separate. 2 (2%)
I'm from Quebec and I want Quebec to be semi-autonomous within Canada. 0 (0%)
I'm from Quebec and I want Quebec to remain in Canada as a province. 3 (4%)

I'm not Canadian and I want Quebec to separate. 16 (23%)
I'm not Canadian and I want Quebec to be semi-autonomous within Canada. 18 (26%)
I'm not Canadian and I want Quebec to remain in Canada as a province. 12 (17%)

Votes so far: 67
Poll closed

The first and third categories are interesting though. The first is not exactly a surprise: Canadians outside Quebec by and large want it to remain in the country, though maybe more autonomously. The third category is my favourite though: people outside Canada naturally don't view the issue as emotionally or have as deep a knowledge of the subject as Canadians do, and the idea of a new country within North America (as Matt commented) is kind of an exciting and neat idea. I also often feel the same way about countries I know little about: Montenegro is independent, neat! East Timor is a country, super neat! No emotional baggage whatsoever.

There is an exception to that, however: countries with regions declaring independence in the midst of a great deal of geopolitical tension, and/or through military conflict. Independence movements and de facto independent republics such as in Georgia (Abkhazia, South Ossetia), Moldova (Transdniestria) or Chechnya aren't exactly neat, and any declarations of independence are always accompanied by sadness over the conflict that preceded it, or the next one that one can feel coming.