More Semantic Confusion

What's going on north of the border? I've got to admit, I'm having a hard time following it. Like my last post, it seems to be about different people providing different definitions for the same words.

The Conservative government has pushed a resolution through Parliament recognizing Quebec as "nation within Canada." What does that mean, exactly? Well, to start with, it may mean different things depending on whether you're French or English. A different Globe and Mail article explains:

The point of controversy is the English translation of the text. The Bloc motion in French recognizes les Québécois et Québécoises, which can mean all men and women who live in Quebec. Rather than using the English word, Quebeckers, which means all residents of Quebec and is the word used in English by the Bloc, the government's motion in English uses the French term, les Québécois.

When pressed by reporters as to who qualifies as Québécois, [Senate Leader Marjorie] LeBreton suggested it had a broad meaning.

"I know anglophone Quebeckers who call themselves Québécois," she said.

But when asked whether the motion applied to all residents of Quebec, [Transport Minister Lawrence] Cannon said: "No, it doesn't."

Mr. Cannon then said the wording, first used by the Bloc and repeated in the government motion, refers to "pure laine" Quebeckers, a controversial term avoided by sovereigntists for its racial connotations, given that it literally translates to "pure wool."

Mr. Cannon then insisted that the Bloc's attempt to recognize the pure laine was done to divide the country and that [recently resigned Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs Michael] Chong's concerns about ethnic nationalism are not justified.

"We're not playing semantics with the words," he said. "We are saying that that is a formal decision that was taken by Quebeckers years ago and here's the . . . first group of sovereigntists that are admitting this fact of life."

(Michael Chong held a position in Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet but resigned over this resolution.)

But what does it mean to be a nation within another nation? Once again, it depends on whom you ask. Apparently Parliament voted for the resolution before they'd actually defined what it meant. Even after the vote, Harper wouldn't say. When asked to define Quebecois, he responded, "The Quebecois know who they are." But there does seem to be some sentiment that nation is being used in the "sociological" sense of the word. I've always thought of nation as more of a political word, myself, but I suppose that it does have a sociological use in such terms as Fast Food Nation or DC Nation. Does that mean that the resolution makes Quebec's new status nothing more than a marketing gimmick? Any of our Canadian readers who'd like to set us straight in comments is certainly invited to do so.