Randy McDonald

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• Commented on The Inevitable Brexit Thread (2)
  In that Spain since Franco has been a multi-party European democracy, one not without its flaws but still basically a free country ... ? We can certainly note the many survivals, institutional and otherwise, of the Franco era. That still...
• Commented on The Inevitable Brexit Thread (2)
  The point I have been making is that the ancien regime, in Montréal and in Québec, was unsustainable and not easily reformable at all, based as it was on an English Canadian disdain for Francophones that was fundmentally racist and...
• Commented on The Inevitable Brexit Thread (2)
  "Yugoslavia was a simulacrum of civilisation maintained by force over a disparate collection of turbulent and hostile factions with a centuries-long history of kicking off, initially imposed mainly under the aegis of the largest and most aggressive faction who won...
• Commented on The Inevitable Brexit Thread (2)
  The problem with Montréal's pre-1960 model of economic development is that it was fundamentally unstable, relying on the Francophone majority of the city remaining relatively low-skill and low-wage while the wealth of the city was generated in pan-Canadian business networks...
• Commented on The Inevitable Brexit Thread (2)
  The example of Yugoslavia, I have long thought, is really important. How did a country that was relatively successful--nearly a high-income country, globalized, politically and culturally pluralistic--tear itself apart so badly? Yugoslavia was a modern country that fell apart in...
• Commented on The Inevitable Brexit Thread (2)
  Turning back to the example of Québec, the Quiet Revolution and aftermath saw Québec get very serious about economic growth, to the point of transforming the traditional culture of Québec. If modern Québec is now an increasingly global society, with...
• Commented on The Inevitable Brexit Thread (2)
  That is horrifically grim. Certainly a meltdown of the British state into police violence will make breaking from the British state look rather appealing. One question: Would such a British state allow secessions?...
• Commented on The Inevitable Brexit Thread (2)
  Jane Jacobs has observed, in her The Question of Separatism, how growth in Toronto had been outpacing that of Montréal for most of the 20th century. Economic and demographic growth in Toronto spread far outside of the city to include...
• Commented on The Inevitable Brexit Thread (1)
  Brexit does seem of have done a remarkably good job of undermining the case for unity. Catalonian separatism in Spain only really took off after the PP undermined the autonomy statute negotiated by the Spanish and Catalonian governments, severely calling...
• Commented on Facts of Life and Death
  Britain only began to experience substantial levels of net migration from the 1980s on, somewhat after more of the rest of northwestern Europe. Substantial immigration was counterbalanced, or more than counterbalanced, throughout that period by substantial emigration. Even now, rates...
• Commented on "Tomorrow belongs to me"
  Isn't there a political crisis looming over the presumable unwillingness of a majority of sitting MPs in Westminister to vote for this legislation?...