Stephen Harper Must Tell Madame Marois "Non"

A little history lesson:

The year was 1995. The place was Quebec. There was a referendum going on that would decide whether or not Quebec would seek to separate from the rest of Canada.

Jean Chretien was the Prime Minister of Canada. Lucien Bouchard was the Premier of Quebec. Chretien was reluctant to get involved in the referendum. And Bouchard took full advantage of that.

Mr Bouchard promised Quebeckers the moon: after separating from Canada Quebec would not accept its share of the national debt. Quebec would continue to use Canadian currency. Quebec would continue to benefit from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) without negotiating their way into it.

None of these things were possible. But Chretien made no forceful attempt to dispel Bouchard's delusions (some would say lies). And Quebec very nearly voted in favour of separating from Canada.

That was 1995, nearly 20 years ago. Now the year is 2014, and Quebec's is having an election. Quebec's current Premier, Pauline Marois, is making very similar promises to what Bouchard promised. Marois has insisted that a sovereign Quebec would continue to use Canadian currency, and would have a seat on the board of the Bank of Canada. She also suggests that Quebec would effectively have no borders with the rest of Canada.

It seems reasonable to suspect that Marois will also insist that not only would a sovereign Quebec not accept its share of the national debt, but won't give up the transfer payments that effectively fund its lavish lifestyle.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper must not repeat the mistakes of Jean Chretien. To all of this he must say "non."

Marois' suggestions are in now way acceptable or even possible. Given how her government chooses to manage the Quebec economy -- discouraging, if not outright refusing, economic development -- the rest of the world has a right to  its input on the desirability of doing business in Quebec. That pretty much requires a Quebec currency to fall like a stone against the Canadian dollar on international markets. With the Parti Quebecois in power, fall like a stone such a currency would. Guaranteed.

The idea of a sovereign Quebec without borders also flies in the face of the very concept of sovereignty. Having borders is a precursor of any semblance of sovereignty. Any 100-level political science student in Quebec presumably understands this, even if Madame Marois does not.

I understand that Prime Minister Harper is reluctant to get involved in the Quebec election. There is some good reason for this. But this is not an acceptable reason to remain silent and allow Marois to deceive the citizens of Quebec about what independence would mean for La Belle Province.

Ju me souviens, Mr Harper. Remember what happened in 1995. Do not repeat the mistakes of that year in 2014.

Justin Trudeau: Ideology First, Canada Second

Son of Trudeau turns out be a barely-hidden separatist

Those familiar with Canadian history have become familiar with one basic, overwhelming fact about it -- that there are, in fact, two different versions of Canadian history.

There's the fairy tale Canadian history, in which Pierre Trudeau is allegedly the father of the nation, a luminescent figure and separatist fighter who is at all times above reproach. Then, there is the real Canadian history -- wherein Trudeau precipitated a near-permanent national unity crisis for the sole purpose of being able to sign his name to the repatriated Constitution.

Pierre Trudeau was the kind of Prime Minister who always put himself and his agenda first, and put Canada second.

Now, it turns out that his son is not a whit different.

In an interview with the french language CBC, Trudeau suggested that he would embrace separatism if Canada were to become too conservative under Prime Minister Stephen Harper -- the very Prime Minister who, for the first time in 30 years, is setting about repairing the damage Pierre Trudeau did to the Canadian state and polity.

"I always say, if at a certain point I thought that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper - that we were going against abortion, and we were going against gay marriage and we were going backwards in 10,000 different ways - maybe I would think about wanting to make Quebec a country," he declared.

"If I no longer recognized Canada, I know my values very well," he added.

"But I believe deeply in Canada," he added, almost as an afterthought.

Yes, it turns out that Justin Trudeau is just another of the kind of far-leftist Canada has become all too familiar with in the most recent years -- those hell-bent on transforming Canada into a far-left construct, for the sole purpose of the implementation of their demagogic agenda. Or at least, if they've already convinced themselves that Canada was such a place, the preservation of that.

It's nothing new. It's nothing shocking. We've already seen it in the Parti Quebecois and Quebec Solidaire partisan who currently sits as the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. Her name, as you know, is Nycole Turmel.

During the 2006 election, Turmel endorsed not candidates of the NDP -- the party she currently leads on an interim basis -- but Bloc Quebecois candidates. Turmel was the President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada at the time, and she declared that BQ candidates were more likely to support PSAC's agenda.

That the BQ's agenda is to destroy Canada is a detail that seems to have entirely evaded her attention.

Now, Justin Trudeau -- the heir apparent to the man who gave life to the separatist crisis that nearly dismembered Canada in 1995 -- has revealed himself to be a member of this particular club: the Canada Second Club. Where their ideological agenda is the only thing that matters, and Canada can be damned as far as they care.