1995 comes back to haunt us
The Quebec director of elections, Jean-François Blanchet, is worried about the 1995 referendum. There’s a demand afoot that documents connected with the funding of a federalist group at that time should be made public. Can Paul St‑Pierre Plamondon possibly think that if there’s anything shady, maybe the results will be invalidated?
I keep thinking about the issue on the federalist side, the rejected “no” ballots (that’s a link from 2000) – but they were all destroyed so the issue can never be revisited.
Both sides were a little desperate. But do we really want a replay of 1995?
Nicholas 15:57 on 2023-09-13 Permalink
About 55% of Quebec residents turned 18 after the 1995 referendum. If there aren’t already there will very soon be Quebeckers whose grandparents were born after the referendum. We shouldn’t ignore history if we want to make our society better, and people can personally grumble about the federalist funding as they can about the Chomedy rejected ballots, but sometimes it’s best to let things go and move on to focus on things that matter to most people today.
I understand the DGEQ not wanting to release 17 year old documents and transcripts that were promised to remain confidential, and that Charest and others have won defamation judgments over similar releases, but also that the legislature is supreme. It’s worth noting that every single member of the national assembly voted for the motion to release the documents. I’m not sure you can really stop that train, though I’m curious about the motivations of the other political parties.