I only learned of this Montreal Gazette article thanks to a response by Scott Brison in Question Period. So, thank you Minister.
Very important revelations here. I wonder why he chose now to come clean, when no one is paying attention?
Parti Quebecois MNAs were involved in a conspiracy to obstruct and reject valid No votes in the 1995 sovereignty referendum, a former PQ cabinet minister has told The Gazette.
Richard Le Hir, the minister responsible for restructuring in premier Jacques Parizeau's 1994 government, said the PQ caucus hatched a plan to send "scrutineer shock troops" drawn from the union movement into polling stations to cause trouble on voting day, Oct. 30, 1995.
Anglophone and allophone ridings were targeted because their residents - including immigrants who'd been given fast-tracked citizenship - would likely overwhelmingly vote against sovereignty.
PQ MNAs wanted to "stem the sea of anticipated No votes on the West Island to re-establish a balance between the two camps," Le Hir says in a written statement made public this week. "The indignation was generalized," he writes, referring to the mood at a secret caucus meeting in the National Assembly in spring 1995, where the plan was conceived to "neutralize the adversary."
No, please don't tell me the separatist movement -- those social democratic, liberal, free spirited progressives -- would send out union good squads to intimidate immigrants! That can't be!
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 3:54 PM
