Can't help it. It's my Anglo culture
I bet you use the imperial system instead of the metric one.
Renegotiating rates isn't paying the debt off. It's just rationalizing the amount that we're paying to service the debt, to reflect the current interest rates. I think that we should do both, but just renegotiating the rates doesn't hurt anything. If it was your personal mortgage that you took out at 15% and the rates had dropped this much you would do it, wouldn't you?
I have no issue with renegociating interest rates, I have issues with prioritizing paying back the debt over prioritizing economic recovery and growth.
And you are making me defend economic growth. Growth is not that viable if we consider that trying to fulfill the unlimited needs of a ever growing population with limited resources is one of capitalism's flaws. You happy now?
Couldn't be. Honoré Mercier would roll over in his grave!
If you speak English and say Parizeau's name three time while looking in a mirror, he appears and makes you eat poutine.
It was more than scare tactics, though there was a bit of that in the amplification of events. A large number of big companies did, in fact, pull their head offices out of Quebec.
That is true, but that comes from being in Canada. A country with a small population can only have so many economic centers. Toronto is Canada's economic center and head offices tend to congregate at the same place. Head offices moving to Toronto has been a trend since before the 1960s when the independence movement coalesced into its modern form. If Québec was an independent nation, corporations would need to have head offices here.
Why would transfer payments continue?
Section 36 of the Constitution garanties equalization payments. So it is in your interest to get rid of Québec so we aren't a burden to you anymore. Once we leave you do not have to pay us any equalization payments. Seems like sweet deal for the both of us.
As long as Québec is in it, Why would the Canadian dollar be the currency of a 'free' Quebec?
Negociations. Québec and Canada could still share some institutions, like currency, if both parties agree to it. Of course, if negociations fail, Québec could end up with its own currency. Some people could think it is in Québec's interests to have its own too, so who knows. Tar Sand Dutch Disease wasn't a thing in 1995. It isn't like the Canadian dollar wouldn't be recognized the morning after a victorious referendum. So, for a while at least, we'd still have the same currency.
Why would the hydro deal with Newfoundland continue?
Why wouldn't it? Hydro-Québec, a public corporation, signed a deal with a province. Happens all the time. It isn't like the institutions that signed the deal ceased to exist. Québec signs deals with other nations and states all the time. They would still be in affect. They might need renegociations since some restrictions from Ottawa might disappear and new elements pop up, but they would still be in affect like any contract. Depending on the deal, it won't be in anyone's interests to say the deals are now void. If they were signed in the first place it is because both parties benefited from it.
The issue had a lot more levels than the Separatists ever wanted Quebecois to consider.
On that you are mistaken. Independentist leaders really thought out the consequences of what they were doing. Maybe it is Canada that has more to lose than us.
Iceland was a rather peculiar situation. In Greece one of the big issues is that no one seems to pay their taxes, so the government has nothing to work with. In a case like theirs the rich would survive, while the regular folk struggled and starved.
The problem with Greece right now is that people are starving thanks to austerity and there is no end in sight. If they had printed money their economy might already be doing better, like in Iceland, and people would be starving. Or just killing themselves.
