Happy Quebec National Day! (And Britain's Independence Day!)

The word nation really gets some people riled up.

Quebec as a distinct nation? No! We are all Canadian and this is Canada and blah blah...

Britain left the European Union? Those stupid idiot morons! I don't need a sound argument for centralized bureaucracy, old people are destroying young peoples futures by voting for isolationist xenophobic racism!!!!

Today, as well as being a great day for Britain and a bad day for the architects of the EU, is also Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, a public holiday in Quebec.

The Orwellian-sounding "Organizing Committee of the National Holiday" puts on festivities June 23 and 24, and the rest of the country, if they remember, acknowledge French Canada.

But what's in a name? Nation, union, country, province, neighbourhood, network, market, brand.

Since commerce remains restricted and central banks aren't openly regarded as criminal institutions, does it really matter that Britain left? Or that Quebec remains part of Canada?





In the same way one might use the term, 'country,' as in, "Hey Spot! Go for a drive out in the country?!" I once called Newfoundland "beautiful country," referring to its rural ruggedness.

The old man I was talking to got offended. "It's a province!" He asserted.

Yes, he was correct. But not until 1949, and apparently under some sketchy details.

Canada was a hodgepodge of colonies that managed to unite starting in 1867, seemingly concluding in the mid-20th century, but theoretically, could continue to this day.

I'm thinking the Turks and Caicos Islands, Barbados, maybe even Vermont and Maine, Portland and Oregon. There's also a French dependency off the coast of the Burin Peninsula we could take.

Granted, I could only support this if the Canadian commonwealth came to mean something entirely different. Like, instead of a strong central government with socialistic disasters like provincial equalization, there would be an assortment of open, fluid, legal jurisdictions and free market commerce.

Gold would also have to be money. People would be responsible for their relationships with other people through contract-binding agreements. The kind of stuff where if a conflict did arise, an agreed-upon third-party arbitrator would decide the outcome.

This stuff already happens because lawyers hate dealing with the courts. Opening the court monopoly to free-market competition hurts no one.

Actually, free trade helps everyone.

So why not rekindle the "glorious" days of the British Commonwealth now that they've ditched the European Union? Of course, a commonwealth without top-down control of the state. More like a libertarian interpretation of a union. Where Britain, Canada, and all the others agree to keep economy and state as separate as church and state.

Assuming governments don't kill us all first in some nuclear war Hillary Clinton starts with Russia because Americans thought she was the better option -- persuading the masses that exchange is compassionate and nationalism is nothing more than tribal pride could take a while, say, 100 to 200 years.

But who knows what the future will bring...

Some think Quebec's sovereign movement has faltered for good. The young people are Canadian nationalists. Separatism is a tiny niche.

But what will economic deterioration and an influx of foreign-speaking brown people, especially the covered-up ones, mean for Quebecois culture?

Will it incite the separatist flame or is geography now irrelevant?

I think Britain just answered that question.