Paul's post is very heart-warming, and awfully credulous, don't you think? I get the sense from your posts that you've probably been around the block one or more times than I have, but I have to say, Paul sounds like he is laps behind both of us. I wasn't particularly aware during Bourassa's first term, but by no means was his later stint as Premier all sweetness and federalist light. The Quebec Liberals were, frankly, more unsettling to national unity because they had the threat to hold over the rest of us: "we were elected because, as federalists, we can show that we can get a better deal." Far more a knife to the throat, frankly, than dealing with separatists.
Do I buy the idea that federal policy has been driven to date in '03 by Quebec politics? Maybe, although I'm not sure it isn't what Chretien really wanted to do anyway. Do I think that 'tit Jean is going to be some kind of warm, fuzzy federalist pushover? Not if he wants to survive his first term, let alone go for a second. Sovereignty in Quebec may be on the backburner; Lord knows the people I know there are far, far more interested in getting on with economic life. A PQ victory would have given Landry propoganda rights, but it wouldn't have made difference one to what the provincial government would have pursued as policy. Charest could well prove to be more "dangerous", because he has much, much more to prove to the "pur laines." |
