No tolerance for nationalists.

I've been arguing with fellow leftists about the way the Quebec elections have played out.  Short story is that the disruption caused by the student strikes and civil protests (over a large number of grievances) has enabled a nationalist party to take power from the liberals in the regional government.

As Socialist Worker sums it up:

The Liberals' defeat can be traced to that defiance. But the Parti Québécois, which has just won, is not an ally of the movement. The new government will probably seek to negotiate a smaller fees increase with the agreement of the less militant student bodies. At any rate, the movement has long been about more than fees.

Unmentioned in that article is that Parti Québécois is a separatist and francophone nationalist party.

"Oh, but they are so Left Wing!" - My friends and peers exclaim.

Yeah, sure.  Whatever.

These people usually take a very principled stand for international solidarity, and it scares me to see them uncritically calling this election "a total victory" for our politics.  Undoubtedly the defeat, even if only temporary, of the tuition hikes in Quebec is amazing; but the fact that that victory has propelled an ethnic segregationist political party into power is bitterly distasteful, and may well prove to catastrophic to the Canadian left.