By-election and the Nation

First off, I'd encourage people to watch the CTV interview with Kennedy to see his responce to the question about the by-election and the Quebec resolution.

On the by-election, I don't think Kennedy should run. The big problem is that it's a high-risk, medium-reward proposal. If he runs and loses, then there's no chance that he could win the leadership. Simple as that. If he runs and wins, then yes, it's a good bonus, but it in no way gives him a big boost. All he will do if he runs is waste time in staying around London and not getting the chance to talk to people from around the country.

Then there is the nation question. Kennedy gave a good answer on that, saying that the meaning in french really isn't the same as in english. Personally, I find this a tough question to handle. I do believe that there is something distinctive about the french and Quebequois (I myself happen to be born there, and there definitely is something different about that), but the whole question of the word "nation" is very disturbing. I definitely don't think it's the right time to open up the constitution again (I would if I knew it would work smoothly and go well, but they thought that in 87 and look where that ended up), so that whole idea is completely off the table.

But then even if we don't open it up, the words still ring around. I personally don't feel comfortable referring to Quebec as a nation, since I think that rings too much of statehood. Even if you try to limit it to a civic duty, it's still not where we need to be going. Actually, Justin Trudeau has a good comment about it, basically saying that we shouldn't really be concerning ourselves with this question now.

One thing's for sure, this isn't an easy question. I just don't think we should be throwing this around now. Give it a little bit of time, give us a leader, then we can consider whether the time is right to be talking about the issue.