New Quebec Constitution: Mario's idea ... Harper's motion.

A letter to all Quebecers obtained by the Canadian Press could be designed to garner some political attention for Quebec's third political party, the Action Democratique (ADQ).

In a period leading up to an election announcement in Quebec which is anticipated shortly, the ADQ and its confusing "middle-ground" ideas on Quebec have been nearly invisible recently. That is, unless one considers Stephen Harper's November Nation motion to count also for the ADQ.

The party's leader, Mario Dumont, has struggled to find room politically between the federalist ways of Jean Charest's Liberals and the soveignist Parti Quebecois (PQ). In the past he has tried to differentiate the ADQ from the "Liberals' submission to status quo federalism and the Parti Québécois' obsession with referendums on sovereignty." He has also previously proposed for Quebec to adopt its own constitution, collect all federal taxes and break federal laws if necessary to ensure full development of the province's hydro-electric capacity.

The Gazette publishes the CP article which explains that Dumont argues for the drafting of a Quebec constitution that would set out reasonable compromises to be granted to religious and ethnic groups. He calls reports of recent compromises granted to ethnic or religious groups a greater threat to so-called old stock Quebecers.

Dumont also said "the integration of newcomers to Quebec is something that Premier Jean Charest and Parti Quebecois Leader Andre Boisclair would rather ignore out of political correctness but it must be addressed. A Quebec constitution would be one way to achieve that".

Is this Dumont simply recycling an idea previously used that helped the ADQ gain some attention in 2004? Dumont, who has been known to flip-flop on occasion, shocked some in 2004 by proposing "an aggressive nationalist shift to turn the province into an autonomous state within Canada".

To me, this sounds familiar... oh yeah. is this the beta version of Stephen Harper's Nation Motion?

Either way, both Dumont and Harper are more tactical than true to any specific set of consistent values, unless one considers their extreme decentralist tendencies to be because of a common ideology.