it's not the number that's important, it's the context. if you've read the ruling, it's...it's really not a good ruling, at all. it's an excellent exercise in critical legal study. but, it does bring up two extremely valid points:

1) setting an absolute number is perilous, as it ignores turnout.
2) a clear majority must exist throughout the entire province.

it doesn't word it exactly like that, but that's what it's getting across.

so, you could consider a situation where they get 51% on 70% turnout. is that a clear majority? i think it's a clear minority, actually - it's only 36%. and, one would actually expect mulcair to be sensitive to that argument, given that it's the same as his argument for electoral reform.

you could also consider a situation where the vote is split in half across the province. suppose support for separation is 80% in the east and north, but 30% in the west and south, and it balances out to 50 + 1. are you going to force montreal and ottawa and the aboriginal areas up north to separate with the east, when they clearly don't want to?

you can legislate the first part fairly easily - you need 50% of eligible voters, not 50% of cast votes. easy enough.

the second part is a headache, because it opens up a discussion on the divisibility of quebec. but, you can't make the changes mulcair want to make, otherwise. it's an absurd abrogation of responsibility to tell the west and south that they're at the whim of the east, whether they like it or not.

THAT is what the language of the clarity act was written to avoid - this discussion of partitioning quebec.

and, based on the discussion, i'm left with the conclusion that basically nobody understands this- not trudeau, not mulcair and not the pundits.

that's the article the media needs to write.

i know that the so-called conventional wisdom is that sovereignty took a hit in quebec starting around 2010 and this is a lot of talk about nothing. i think that's misreading the situation.

what i think is that the racist charter being pushed by the pq to try and hold adq support experienced a large backlash. quebeckers may not have seen eye to eye with the elder trudeau, but they prefer his charter.

it's still laying dormant. it's more of a left-right split in the sovereigntist camp that's got things in disarray. should that resolve itself, the issue will come up again.

and, i think the feds should be pre-emptive about it.

one option is to think about spinning the north of the province off to local indigenous sovereignty. my understanding is that some ground work for this has already been set; such a theoretical province or territory would be called nunavik.

another is to get out in front in splitting the rest of quebec in half, along the known fraction point. plebiscites could be held to determine whether the people want to form a new province or not.

i'm not suggesting that this start right away. it does seem like they're in disarray, and hopefully it sticks. but, if it comes up again, i'd like to see the feds get aggressive in redefining the question and changing the narrative. let's get a referendum on the division of quebec BEFORE a referendum on sovereignty can happen.

obgii
Jessica, as always, enjoy your posts. Substance and analysis. I would still contend that to demonstrate clear intention and eliminate the vagaries of chance for such an important issue, not one that is reversible in the next election cycle, that 50%+1 is not adequate. A value of 65% in which twice as many vote for a position versus against does show clear intent, and will dispense with circumstances of chance like a missed spoiled ballot or the person who had a family/medical emergency and could cast the alternate vote that would have made the difference at a single instance in time. True intent should be just a valid next week as it is today, independent of chance. Also, the argument that "the other guy did it", as in the Scotland referendum, is specious and irrelevant. This is Canada's rules, not somebody else's. Do they also accept that argument in other political contexts? I'd say not.

Jessica Murray
oh, i'm sorry if i misconstrued myself - i'm not in favour of putting a number down. i'm just irritated that the subtleties of the supreme court decision and subsequent legislation are being completely misunderstood by virtually everybody. i was more making a hand-tying argument: that if a number needs to be placed in the legislation, it ought to be determined relative to eligible voters rather than actual voters. in raw numbers, that would place the threshold in the 1995 election at 54% and the threshold in the 1980 election at 59%. but, the argument serves to demonstrate the point that an absolute number is a foolish way to approach the issue, rather than to seriously suggest it should be legislated.

as mentioned, what the clarity act is actually about is not what the minimum threshold is or ought to be but what the circumstances for partition are. and, i consequently feel that it is imperative that any replacement legislation that hard codes a number has a partition plan in place to deal with the inevitable necessity of partitioning the province. but, this is also a hand-tying argument: i couldn't for a moment conceive of how anybody would think it politically viable to do such a thing, nor do i think it would be good governance.

if that is still ambiguous, i'll state clearly that i am not in favour of modifying the clarity act. at all.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-trudeau-chrétien-campaign-hamilton-1.3226216