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QUEBEC — The new country the Parti Québécois is proposing to create would be a republic, complete with a president, membership in the United Nations, a Supreme Court, a peacekeeping army and no more Queen.

In a draft policy document tabled Saturday at the PQ’s national council, the party returns to its roots — sketching out again, in considerable detail — its vision for the new country.

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Although the idea has been kicked around PQ circles for many years, the document specifically states a sovereign Quebec will be a republic, modelled in many ways off France.

The shift comes despite the fact former PQ leader Jacques Parizeau — who studied at the London School of Economics — had a soft spot for many things British including expressions such as “By Jove.”

Before the 1995 sovereignty referendum, which failed, Parizeau had said Quebec would keep its parliamentary style of government.

The PQ’s new vision — up for debate over the next eight months — drops all that. In fact, for a party promising no referendum in the first four years of its election as a provincial government, the 75-page document dwells at length on the how to prepare for nationhood and what the country could look like.