By Maria Cheng <\/p>\n
MONTREAL, Aug 22 (Reuters) – When U.S. President Donald Trump levied 50% tariffs on Canadian steel in June last year, a steel factory in Canada’s mostly French-speaking province of Quebec lost about a third of its orders for bolts and fasteners in less than a week. <\/p>\n
The factory owner – The Heico Companies – froze hiring, closed a plant in the region and laid off several dozen people, said David Jeannotte, an operations \u200cdirector, whose own brother lost his job. The cuts were part of 140 layoffs by the company, mainly in Quebec. <\/p>\n
The factory’s troubles reflect broader anxiety over the fallout from Trump’s trade war in Quebec, which is due to \u200chold a provincial election by October 5. But while some previous economic slowdowns in the province prompted an increase in separatist sentiment, polls show that this time around, support for an independent Quebec is at its lowest level in decades, at about 30%. <\/p>\n
“As long as Trump will be in his chair, I don’t \u200bfeel that we even need to talk about that,” Jeannotte said. <\/p>\n
Others in the region are echoing Jeannotte’s concerns, saying the threat Trump poses to Canada means the best way to preserve Quebec’s unique French culture is to stay within Canada — at least for now. <\/p>\n
Trump’s threats to make Canada the 51st state and the whiplash from his tariff policy have spurred an outpouring of Canadian patriotism in Quebec, a province that regularly threatens to break away and has had two previous referendums on the issue. <\/p>\n
As the country’s only majority French-speaking province, Quebec has a long-established separatist movement that argues independence from Canada is the best way to protect its distinct culture and language. Quebec has never formally signed the Canadian Constitution and separatists argue French Canadians are often overlooked by the English-dominated majority. <\/p>\n
CAMPAIGN OF FEAR <\/p>\n
The separatist Parti Quebecois currently \u200cholds a slim lead in provincial election polls and a win would mark the party’s \u2060return to power after a dozen years. But analysts say a vote for the party would be more about disappointment with the ruling party than an endorsement of the PQ’s independence platform. <\/p>\n
While the PQ is committed to a third independence referendum if it wins, leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon vowed that won’t happen while Trump is president, a tacit recognition of falling support for independence. Quebec narrowly voted \u2060to stay in Canada in a 1995 referendum, spurring a national reckoning that resulted in the federal government asking the Supreme Court to clarify the legal procedure for separation. <\/p>\n
Story Continues <\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Plamondon said in a post on X that deciding Quebec’s political fate “must not be hijacked by the upheaval of American politics, the outbursts of an unpredictable president or by a campaign of fear.” <\/p>\n
The explicit acknowledgment of the risk Trump poses to Quebec’s independence movement aligns with a broader pattern in which the U.S. president’s policies and rhetoric, including his stance on Greenland, have undermined separatist causes \u200belsewhere. <\/p>\n
In \u200bboth Scotland and Catalonia, efforts to break away from the United Kingdom and Spain have been complicated by uncertainty stemming from Trump’s tariff threats and \u200bcriticism of NATO. <\/p>\n
A delayed Quebec sovereignty vote would be one less headache for Liberal Prime Minister \u200cMark Carney, who himself upended polls favoring the Conservatives to win a national election last year after promising to be a tough negotiator with Trump. <\/p>\n
Carney faces another separatist movement in oil-rich Alberta, which has its own referendum scheduled for mid-October. While conservative Alberta’s burgeoning independence movement aligns with Trump’s brand of conservatism, Quebecers have largely supported the rest of Canada in pressing back against the U.S. president’s tariffs and threats of annexation. <\/p>\n
“Postponing a referendum is unfortunately a choice we have to accept,” said St\u00e9phane B\u00e9dard, a former interim leader of the PQ. “Quebec is stronger than it’s ever been, but the external factor of Trump has created a lot of insecurity, so we have to be realistic.” <\/p>\n
Trump is more disliked in Quebec, arguably the country’s most progressive province, than anywhere else in Canada. <\/p>\n
According to August data from the pollster Angus Reid, only 10% of Quebecers have a favourable view of the president, and even a deal to lower tariffs is unlikely to reverse public opinion. <\/p>\n
“Trump represents everything that Quebec has fought against for the last 60 \u200cyears in terms of creating a modern, progressive society,” said Jonathan Kalles, former Quebec adviser to ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trump’s conservative policies as \u200bwell as his administration’s comments that the province’s French language requirements are a “trade irritant” are both unpopular. <\/p>\n
The financial impact from his policies is also strongly \u200bfelt in Quebec and economists note the province is among the worst hit by Trump’s tariffs, given its concentration of \u200bindustries like steel and aluminum. <\/p>\n
A March report from the Bank of Montreal estimated Quebec’s economy would grow about 1% this year, compared to more than 2% for Alberta and Saskatchewan. <\/p>\n
Jeannotte, of factory near Montreal, \u200csaid that before Trump levied tariffs on Canadian steel, about 90% of its products were destined \u200bfor the U.S., with its bolts used in New York’s Empire \u200bState Building. Jeannotte said some staffers work without pay on some days and others have voluntarily reduced their hours. <\/p>\n
AT THE NEGOTIATING TABLE <\/p>\n
Still, some Quebec separatists say independence remains critical, even now. <\/p>\n
Marie-Anne Alepin, president of the separatist Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montr\u00e9al, said Carney’s decision to eliminate a tax that helps finance Canadian programming would cut funding for Quebec’s French-language productions, highlighting that as an example of why the province should become independent. Ottawa has pledged to replace the tax with \u200bgovernment funding. <\/p>\n
“Canada is not capable of defending Quebec’s interests,” Alepin said. “(Quebec) has to be at \u200cthe negotiating table and to do that, we have to be a country.” <\/p>\n
Vincent Rainville, a fourth-generation Quebec dairy farmer who owns more than 250 cows, disagreed, saying Trump’s policies have complicated efforts to strengthen Quebec’s economy and \u200bthat a national response is required. Nearly half of Canada’s dairy farms are in Quebec. <\/p>\n
“It’s not just Quebec, it’s all of Canada and all our industries that have been affected,” he said. “If I supported an \u200bindependent Quebec, I would not want to talk about that policy now.” <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Maria Cheng; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Deepa Babington) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Maria Cheng MONTREAL, Aug 22 (Reuters) – When U.S. President Donald Trump levied 50% tariffs on Canadian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,56542,162,56541,241,17920],"class_list":["post-178293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-david-jeannotte","tag-donald-trump","tag-independent-quebec","tag-quebec","tag-separatist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}