ty, or, as Albert and Shaw argued, primarilyrna rhetorical threat serving to maintainrna statist elite. The skeptics have a strongrncase: Two decades of polls, for example,rnconsistently show that over one third ofrnFrancophones believe that a “sovereign”rnQuebec would still be “part of Canada”rnwith almost as many beheving it wouldrnstill send MPs to Ottawa. Sovereigntv’ isrnnot like Irish republicanism, nor is partitionismrnlike the “unionism” of ProtestantrnUlster. Analogies with the AmericanrnSouth of 1860, while also tempting, arernequally deceptive.rnThe border issue is further complicatedrnby the Indians and Eskimos. Whenrnthe French arrived in the 1600’s, they encounteredrna substantial settled populationrnof Mohawks and other tribes. ThernMohaw’ks have been a terrific headachernfor “organic” nationalists ever since.rnThey speak both French and English,rnand drift casually between Quebec, Ontario,rnand New York. Their ancestorsrnadopted Protestantism because they dislikedrnthe strip farms that the Sulpiciansrnvainly tried to impose on them. They alsornlike owning guns.rnIn 1990, the natives blew up over a golfrncourse they claimed interfered with theirrntraditional land rights, blocking two ofrnMontreal’s main bridges and carr^’ing outrna reserve territory occupation by anrnarmed and masked “warrior society.” Arnraid by the SQ, the notoriously ineptrnprovincial police, led to a policeman’srndeath. Quebec asked the federal governmentrnto send in the Canadian Army to restorernorder, an embarrassing commentrnon sovereignist pretensions.rnUnsympathetic natives also inhabitrnthe Quebec North, ruled bv the Britishrnfrom 1713 and never part of New France.rnIt did not even become part of thernprovince with the British conquest ofrn1760 or confederation in 1867. It wasrnceded by Canada to the province in 1898rnand 1912, when no secessionist movementrnexisted. Its rich hydroelectric resourcesrnkeep thousands of French-CanadianrnHydro-Quebec employees thererntemporarily, but the only permanent residentsrnare a few thousand anti-sovereignistrnCree and Eskimos.rnThe south shore of the St. LawrencernRiver was never part of New France; itrnwas added to the pro’ince by the British.rnWest Quebec, between Ottawa andrnMontreal, includes land first cultivatedrnby English farmers over two centuriesrnago. Most of the area now has a francophonernmajority, but thev largely voternwith the English against the sovereignists.rnMontreal, which has hundreds ofrnthousands of English speakers, might alsornbe divided; a former cabinet minister hasrnproposed that Montreal shoidd separaternon its own, becoming a sort of Singapore.rnCounty-by-count’ self-determination —rn”Swiss cheese” partitionism — has alsornbeen proposed.rnWhatever the details of a negotiatedrnsettlement, there is a more fundamentalrnreason that the rest of Canada couldrnscarcely accept the existing provincialrnboundaries: Unlike the Norway/Swedenrnor Slovakia/Czech Republic splits, an intactrnQuebec departure would split thernother successor state in two, cutting offrnfour Atlantic provinces from the rest ofrnthe country. The St. Lawrence southrnshore would be the simplest connectingrncorridor; any other corridor would dividernthe new independent Quebec.rnEven that might prove unacceptablernto the rest of Canada. Former QuebecrnPremier Jacques Parizeau was willing tornrisk a potentially explosive “unilateral declarationrnof independence,” but thisrncould result in chaotic consequences,rnwithout solving the territorial dispute. Arnstable agreement would require the newrnstate to sacrifice something of great valuernto a hosfile successor Canada, and territor}’rnis just about all it would have to offer.rnQuebec is now balancing its budget andrnbooming economically but is about $100rnbillion in debt and would have to shoulderrnanother $140 billion of federal debtrnas well.rnWhile both partitionists and secessionistsrndraw on the Wilsonian doctrine ofrnplebiscitar)- self-determination, secessionistsrnmean the self-determination ofrnthe province as a whole, with guaranteesrnof minority rights. Non-Canadians havernsometimes cheered on both positions.rnCanada has always irritated many Americansrnand Europeans —”an impossiblerncountr’,” as one Englishman put it a centuryrnago, “because senfiment is divorcedrnfrom interest.” Peter Brimelow, an Englishmanrnwho left a career in Canadianrnbusiness journalism to emigrate to thernUnited States, made a stir a few years agornwith the funniest and most penetrating ofrnthese outsider commentaries, in a bookrncalled The Patriot Game. His reformingrnimpatience recalled Lord Macauley, butrnCanada continued to be resolutely Tor)’:rnunworkable in theory, but successful inrnpractice.rnSeparatist arguments have alwa)’s beenrnUtopian; partitionist ones are a mirror-imagerndystopian critique. Their real me;rnsage is that a seceding Quebec could ncrnpossibly be created without huge costrnPartition might produce the same unrnhappy results as those created elsewherernin the world. But separatists maintainrnthat intact departure would cause almostrnno pain at all. They also insist that thernwhole debate be conducted with the utmostrn”serenit)’.”rnHistorical amnesia is no worse in Quebecrnthan it has lately been generally, butrnit led local radicals to underestimate inertiarnand caution. The great “world-historical”rnevents for Canadians were not thernconquest or confederation, but the twornWorld Wars —especially World War I.rnCanada lost over 60,000 men in WorldrnWar I; its population was then about onern15th that of the U.S. population. Quebecrnnationalists opposed conscription inrnboth wars, but 200,000 French Canadiansrnnonetheless volunteered to fight inrnWorld War II.rnThe dominant role of the RomanrnCatholic Church in French education,rnwhich lasted until the 1960’s, left an oddrndouble inheritance. Secularization initiallyrnturned the state into a new church.rnLike the old one, it is more a home of bureaucratsrnthan of firebrands. Quebeckersrnare obsessively devoted to public-opinionrnpolls. Wiile Canadians have participatedrnin many wars, neither the French norrnthe FjUglish have much tradition of insurrectionrnor civil conflict, save a skirmishrnwith British colonial rule in 1837 and anrninept venture in Marxist terrorism inrnQuebec 30 years ago. Even the conquestrncame out of a battle between armies fromrnoverseas. Neither secessionists nor theirrnopponents threaten force of arms.rnOn the other hand, Canada has a verysubstantialrncollective memory of patrioticrnachievement and sacrifice. Even astuternoutside observers tend to forget the assumptionsrnthey import from their ownrncountries, overemphasizing the centralrnpolitical conflict and underestimatingrnsuch unifying forces as climate, geography,rnand shared historical experience.rnThe politics may look Austro-Hungarian,rnbut real life here is Scandinavian. Canadarnwould not want to wage war against arndeparting Quebec, but it would certainlyrndemand some heavy price be paid. Partitionismrnbells the cat.rnNe;/ Cameron is a director of the SaintrnLawrence Institute in Montreal and arncolumnist for the Montreal Gazette.rn40/CHRONICLESrnrnrn