A Québec olympic team

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All canadians reading this : WAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIITTTTT. Before you blow a gasket at reading the title, I am starting this thread after reading a blog on Yahoo : http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Strong-case-for-a-Quebec-Olympic-team;_ylt=AsQF8XTwPSDZv1TwupVB4NMOlgY6?urn=oly,219873&cp=7#comments

First off, I'm from Québec but I don't consider myself a seperatist. I'm very patriotic towards Québec but I don't think we can only live free outside of Canada.

Should we have an olympic team? Sure why not. I'd be neat to see a Team Québec men hockey team play Team Canada. Is it essential? No. It would be cool to see it happen since I'm from Québec but if it never happens, oh well, it's not that big of a deal. I'm happy with seeing Team Canada win.

However, reading the people posts, I was disgusted by all the french and / or Québec bashing. It wasn't even a québecois who wrote the article! Yes, there are people in Québec loudly advocating the seperation (Lucien Bouchard, former PM of Québec who was at the helm of the '95 referandum, was severly bashed by every members of the Parti Québecois because he said the seperation was not realistic earlier this week). But hateful comments like those make me almost want to become a seperatist. Why can't most english and french people in Canada have a conversation?

This article is a good example of an idea put forth but is too emotionnal for (most) canadians to talk about rationnally.

What do you guys think (even if your not canadians)? Should Québec have it's team? The author of the article refers to FIFA allowing Scotland and Ireland having teams and I have often heard that there should be a unifed Canadian olympic team but Québec could have a team in, for exemple, world cups in hockey. But more importantly, how can a divided country (that is undisputable) have any rationnal conversation? Is unity an utopia?

P.S. : Regardless, I do think the timing for putting up an article like that is pretty poor. This is a time where we should all applaud our athletes, not be divided. Bickering should be done after the Olympics.

 

I was always curious about how Puerto Rico was allowed to have its own team. This is the best explanation I've seen Using this logic, Quebec will never have its own team as I doubt the rest of Canada will stand for it.

 

Olympic team... I rather doubt it. Maybe for certain games, like how the different parts of the UK have their own football teams, but I don't see it for the olympics unless, as TGS said, the rest of Canada is ok with it.

 

Originally, I thought this was a completely stupid idea, and that the article writer was an idiot. Why? Not because I hate French Canada or Québec or anything, but simply because they're part of Canada, and thus I thought they had to play under the canadian team. I thought the logic used to justify a seperate team was completely pointless, that rules forbid it. Looking at TGS's post, though, has opened my eyes. Now the question seems to be: is Québec distinct enough culturally and politically to warrant a seperate team? To those of us in the US states, Puerto Rico is almost thought of as a foreign nation. To those in Taiwan, China really is thought of as a foreign nation. Can Québec claim similar distinction?

 

A complete non-runner I would imagine. Don't forget, if you're adding an extra country then that's one place less for all the other countries competing to get in. So they're not going to be voting for it anytime soon. Especially as it would open a can of worms with other regions around the world also trying to stake a place, the Basque region in Spain certainly would.

The Home Nations (UK) only gets away with having four football teams because each of their associations are older than FIFA and were already playing internationals. FIFA would love to get rid of them if they could. The Olympics committe is very keen on sticking to proper countries and refuses to allow them compete separately for football. England enters without the others as they're afraid a mixed team would give FIFA grounds to turn them into a single team too.

 

Without having read the OP's linked article, I'd say up front, no, Quebec shouldn't get its own team. I really don't care if it has its own culture and language, etc. Quebec is a province of the nation of Canada. Should the USSR have been allowed to have a dozen or so separate Olympic teams? I'm sure that at least some of those former republics could have claimed separate cultures, etc.

As for a comparison to Puerto Rico, it should be remembered that PR isn't a state in the US. If at some point it were to become a state, then I'd say that it should lose any right to have separate teams in international competitions.

 

Wow, I got pretty long winded with this and I'm not Canadian. Apologies if this takes too long to read.


I don't like the idea of a "Team Quebec". I'm not from Canada but I think it would be strange to have a Team Wisconsin (my home state), a Team Texas, and so on.

There are parts of the US with a notable degree of cultural difference that others but all are viewed as part of the US and athletes from them would likely compete as part of Team USA.

I don't see cultural differences alone (nor different state/regional/local governments) as a good enough reason to have a different sports team.

Yes the US has a team for Puerto Rico but keep in mind that besides the cultural differences with the rest of the US (which may be more imagined than real, especially when compared to some neighborhoods in NYC) Puerto Rico isn't recognized (perhaps not yet) as a state and therefore doesn't have the same level of political/governmental representation in the US Congress.

I think the UK situation is overly complicated but they choose to live with it and I can respect that. I think a lot of Canadians on each side of the separation issue in Quebec would see a "Team Quebec" as a way stick to the rest of Canada which was probably somewhat annoyed by the continued talk of Quebec independence based on a kind of cultural xenophobia. What I mean by that is the inability to embrace living in a nation where other people are culturally different from yourself. It is one thing to be proud of your culture, but it is another to say you cannot share a government or nation-state with other groups of people that don't share that culture-that strikes me a moving from being proud or happy with who you view yourself as to excluding others.

Just to be clear I'm not counting you as part of that Triactus. And I'm sure there are people on each side of the issue who get too emotional/act inappropriately when it comes up so I'm sure the is a group of people on each side that can look to a list of gripes, my intent is not to say those aren't valid just that they shouldn't be the only thing that colors one's views on the topic.


NOG

China and Taiwan are not different nations. In a very realistic and functional sense they are. But in worldwide law and treaty negotiations the "One China" policy is in full effect where China is viewed to be one nation-state that includes Taiwan.

Keep in mind that prior to the mainland's rise in economic and political power the "One" China that some nations officially recognized was the government of Taiwan.

How did this happen? Keep in mind that China had a civil war where no side won completely. The loosing side pulled back to Taiwan and the mainland didn't follow when the civil war between the 2 was still an active shooting war.

Also Hong Kong was a British protectorate for a good period of time. Thus you have 3 different governments running different parts of China. Even now after Hong Kong has been officially "returned" to China (I don't think the British took it from the Chinese Communist Party in the first place) the government there is more politically democratic than China (the mainland).

Not only do you have different cultural groups but you have real differences in terms of governments directly in control of the different areas.

 

Actually, pplr, Chinese rule of Taiwan at all is rather recent. Before the 1930s, the Japanese controlled it, and before that things get complicated. When the Chinese took over, though, (before their civil war) the people considered themselves an occupied nation, and many still do today.

 

NOG, I think that you meant to say "pplr" in relation to the China/Taiwan issue, though you do bring up an interesting point.

Prior to the Chinese taking control of Taiwan from the Japanese, when did the Japanese first gain control over the island? And who controlled it before that point?

 

I would support Quebec having it's own team, but for purely selfish reasons - I wouldn't have to hear all the introductions spoken in French first.

On a more serious note though, Quebec is a province in Canada. They should play for Canada. (On an ancillary note, the Taiwan-China comparison is noteworthy, as the Scotland-UK comparison is definitely appropriate. The Ireland-UK comparison, however, really isn't. Unless you're talking about Northern Ireland - Ireland actually is a separate nation from the UK.)

 

Sorry, Crucis, pplr, post fixed.

 

From glancing through wikipedia I would say the answer is a China sort of.

Taiwan was a separate island that China gained some control over and had been in the process of colonizing (which can take a long time depending on the effort and energy involved as well as the size and type of land being settled).

The local groups either (perhaps like American Indians in some places) became more like Chinese or moved a bit away from the closer Chinese settlements.

 

Not a chance that Quebec should have its own team.

While there is no question that Quebec is quite different from the rest of Canada culturally, politically it isn’t. The Hong Kong and Puerto Rico comparisons aren’t valid, but I’m not familiar enough with the UK situation to be able to comment beyond to say that my impression is that the comparison doesn’t apply there either.

Yes, the separatist movement rears its head every so often, but as long as Quebec is a part of Canada, it shouldn’t have its own Olympic team.

 

I would say that Scotland or Wales comparison to the UK is most apt. They are united politically, but there are cultural and language differences (Gallic) as well.

 

The question of wether Québec is distinct enough or not is a good one. The here a huge difference between Québec and the rest of Canada. Comparing it's situation with Texas, Minnesota or other states isn't accurate. Besides speaking a different language (although there are many french speaking canadians outside of Canada as well as english speaking people inside of Québec), there is a palpable different mentalaty. Whenever there are scientific polls through out the country, Québec is always appart (for example, when the war in Irak started, the rest of Canada was against the war at 60 or 65%, Québec opposed it at 90%). We're just wainting for the go to eject the queen from our society. Religion has been pretty much evacuated from the public domain (Ontario has catholic and public school boards). And there is a history between the french and english going back to the 1600s (granted that's a long time ago but some would say a shadow lingers still).

Does that warrant an olympic team? I don't think so. It's a slippery slope. The aboriginal people could say the same thing. In fact, all the different tribes could argue to have their own teams...

 

I agree-though I suspect that these days American Indian athletes would probably try to do so these days through the teams of the US, Canada, Mexico, and so on.



Though perhaps something Quebec does with its political disagreements with much of the rest of Canada is help balance the nation to a degree by making sure more multiple POVs/modes of thinking are brought forward in political discussions.

 

Oh, man talk about dangling a red cape in front of LKD the bull . . .

Quebec is a province of Canada. Has been for many years -- depending on how you measure such things, it could be around 2 centuries, but I'll choose to measure it from the British North America Act of 1867, and therefore say over 140 years. During all that time, Quebec has been an active part of Canada and has had its rights respected -- they have had the right to vote, hold public office, possess passports, and all other legal and human rights extended to every other frigging citizen in the country. They are not an oppressed minority. Neither are they slaves. They certainly have no problem availing themselves of the benefits of Confederation, particularly the financial ones. And some douchebag (a non Quebecois to boot!) floats this idea? It's absurd. It's not necessary. It's an insult to the rest of the country, just as I consider Western separation to be an insult to the country. United we stand, divided we fall. I'd take a bullet for a Quebecois in a second (toute de suite, as it were) because IMHO he is my fellow citizen. This nonsense is divisive in the extreme and such divisions lead to catastrophe.

/end rant

 

I imagine the Texas Olympic Team would take the shooting events ... but not the air pistols, a true Texan would never fire a damn air gun.

 

The San Fran team would win any pole event. But Arkansas will win the Special Olympics hands down.

 

That depends on the sport. There's quite a number of sports where Ireland competes as one team, rugby and golf being the two biggest examples. These associations predate independence so they still continue on, even though legally they're now comprised of one nation and a bit of another nation. Again, that's just showing that unless you've had your system in place for 100 years or so you're not going to get it now.

Now, if Quebec could find some minority sport that's crying out for more countries to compete in they might be onto something. They'd have so take it up first though.