Québec: Déclin Tranquille

Or, what happens when you completely abandon your cultural values for something akin to rigid secularism.

National Post:

MONTREAL -- The end of June, when the fleur-de-lys is flown from balconies and face-painted on children across Quebec to celebrate the Fête Nationale, is usually a high-spirited time for the Parti Québécois. But after starting the week with an embarrassing byelection loss on nationalist turf, the separatist party reeled from an even worse blow on Thursday when one of its most respected members announced he is quitting politics.

François Legault, a successful entrepreneur who entered politics in 1998 to serve in the Cabinet of then-premier Lucien Bouchard, said he detects little appetite among Quebecers for an audacious project such as the creation of an independent nation. And he warned that Quebec has entered a troubling slide that has it losing ground against other North American states and provinces.

"I leave," he said, "worried for the future of Quebec, worried because I sense that Quebec has begun a déclin tranquille [quiet decline], and this, unfortunately, too often in resignation and indifference." His phrase was a play on the Révolution tranquille, or Quiet Revolution, Quebec's modernizing push of the 1960s.

Quebec's decline may be the proverbial canary in the coal mine, and a warning to the rest of the country where modern liberalism/socialism have infested the country with hopelessness and despair.

Quebec came close to 'remembering' its values when the ADQ came close to replacing the government, but alas, they were crushed by the mainstream elites who wanted nothing to do with anything that made the French fact a force in Canada.

Bye, bye Quebec.