On February 9, 2021
© By John Arkelian
“One nation, indivisible.” Those words, well-known to every American child from the Pledge of Allegiance recited at the start of every school-day, have currency on the northern side of the 49th Parallel, too, even though they too often go unspoken here. Recurring talk over the years about separatism in Quebec perversely takes it for granted that sovereign independence is theirs for the taking. It assumes that circumstances can exist under which a provincial government can take a province out of Canada. In short, it recognizes a “right” to secede. But, we are making a crucial and wholly unwarranted concession to those who would break up the country when we tacitly accept that any province has a right to secession. For no such right exists.
See “The Noxious Idea of Separation” at https://artsforum.ca/ideas/regional-perspectives