May 21, 2008 - No. 81
Patriots Day 2008
Long Live the Quebec Patriots!
Long Live their Nation-Building Project!
A New Direction for Quebec!
 On May 19, National Patriots Day in Quebec,
celebrations are taking place to mark the 1837-1838 uprising and to
honour the memory of the Patriots who gave their lives or were forced
into exile in the struggle to end British colonial rule by establishing
a Republic of Quebec. Marches, historical exhibitions,
conferences and cultural performances of songs and poetry are being
held. In Montreal the March of the Patriots is taking place at
Au-Pied-du-Courant, the corner of Notre-Dame and de Lorimier, where a
statue stands honouring the Patriots who were hung by the British.
 Patriots Day celebrates the striving of
the people to affirm their right to be. Beginning in the spring of
1837, when the British Crown formally rejected the demands of the
Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada included in the 92 Resolutions of
1834, numerous mass meetings broke out across Quebec
where the people spoke and demanded their democratic rights.
In the midst of this affirmation of the people's will,
the Patriots proclaimed "by order of the provisional government" an
important manifesto called "Declaration of Independence of the Republic
of Lower Canada." In it they declared the principles and democratic
rights of a Republic. Section 3 of the
declaration calls for the defence of the rights of all: "Under the free
government of Lower Canada, all individuals will enjoy the same rights:
the natives will no longer be submitted to any civil disqualification
and will enjoy the same rights as all other citizens of Lower Canada."
Section 15 proclaims that the people
will author their own constitution: "At the earliest occasion the
people must choose delegates according the present division of the
country in counties, cities and boroughs who will form a convention or
legislative body to draft a constitution according to the needs of the
country, in accordance with the provisions
of this Declaration, subject to modification according to the will of
the people."
 The
1837-38 uprising was crushed through brutal force, including the
suspension of habeas corpus, mass arrests, burning of homes,
the hanging of 12 patriots and forcing of 64 others into exile. More
than 1,700 were imprisoned following the suspension of habeas
corpus. In
Montreal alone in 1838, 816 people were arrested out of a population of
30,000, which translates into 40,000 people of Montreal's present-day
population. Of that number, 108 were court-martialed. Hundreds were
forced to flee to the U.S. to escape arrest, including 10 accused of
"murder" who faced the death penalty
if they ever returned. It marked the suppression of the nascent nation
of Quebec whose existence has been denied ever since by depriving it of
its right to self-determination as an independent legal entity with the
right to form a free and equal union with the rest of Canada if it so
decides of its own free will.
The 1837-38 Patriots Uprising is an important event in
the history of Quebec and Canada whose significance must be grasped in
order to understand the present-day situation and not be mislead by the
blackmail of those establishment forces which claim that affirming
Quebec's sovereignty will lead
to the "destruction of Canada." On the contrary, the establishment of
the modern state of Quebec remains necessary to settle the
constitutional crisis in a manner which favours the people by ending
the stranglehold of the institutions established out of the suppression
of the nation-building project the Patriots put forward
in 1837-1838. These are the present democratic institutions based on
"reasonable accommodations," the arrangements the British oligarchs
found "reasonable" to strengthen British colonial rule as established
after the English defeated the French at the
Plains of Abraham in 1759 and Quebec passed from being a French colony
to an English colony. The British divided the people on an
ethnocultural basis and enshrined this division in the Act of
Union of 1840. Ever since then, the line of divide and rule has
served first the British and then the Canadian
state to impose the dictate of the ruling elite on both the Quebec and
the Canadian peoples. It is clear that after the rebellion of
1837-1838, all  those
patriots who refused to conciliate with these so-called reasonable
accommodations were either hung or exiled and with this infamous act,
the present democratic institutions
of so-called responsible government came into being to keep the people
out of the power-sharing arrangements. The present situation shows that
the cause for which the Patriots fought in 1837-1838, today takes the
form of the need for the working class to constitute itself as the
nation and vest sovereignty in the
people to make them the decision-makers in all political, economic,
social and cultural affairs that concern them and their nation. This
need is all the more urgent as the governments of Quebec and Canada
intensify the sell-out of the natural and human resources and establish
new arrangements to facilitate the political,
economic and military annexation of Canada and Quebec to the United
States of North American Monopolies and restructure the state in the
service of the most powerful monopolies as part of U.S.
empire-building. The more they refuse to share power with anyone, the
more they talk of "reasonable accommodations."
Montreal, Patriots Day
2007
As a result of this nation-wrecking agenda, the ruling
elites have mired Quebec and Canada in an unprecedented constitutional
and political crisis. Their refusal to open society's path to progress
is seen in increasing attempts to push politics of division based on
language, national origin, culture, belief,
colour of skin, gender or any other consideration. The people are
witnessing the daily spectacle of political factions challenging each
other as to who will best represent Quebec values, or reducing the
identity of the Quebec people to a linguistic issue, or dividing the
people on an ethno-cultural basis so as to get away
with imposing a new "reasonable accommodation" to suppress their right
to be and themselves determine the kind of arrangements they require to
flourish. The people are exasperated to see the Harper government pay
lip-service to the "Québécois nation" just as he issues
his government's empty apologies to the Aboriginal peoples, Japanese,
Chinese and victims of the Komagata Maru.
On this occasion, the Marxist-Leninist Party salutes all
those who espouse the cause of the Quebec Patriots, especially those
who are determined to elaborate a nation-building project consistent
with the crying demands of the times.
Let the Working Class Constitute Itself
as the Nation and Vest Sovereignty in the People!
Sovereignty Yes! Annexation No!
Read The Marxist-Leninist
Daily
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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