Editorial

If Prime Minister Stephen Harper, or anyone else, was entertaining hopes that his motion to declare that Quebecers constitute a nation within a united Canada was going to somehow end the national unity debates in this country, we fear there's going to be some disappointment.

Indeed, things have heated up, rather than simmered down.

Already, the move has cost Harper a cabinet minister, although York - Simcoe MP Peter Van Loan could be excused for thinking that was good news, since in drew a promotion for himself.

The national unity squabbling, which has sort of been quiet for the last several years, was sparked up again. And the same old questions have been tossed back and forth, again.

Does Quebec have the right to separate?

How much territory would it be entitled to take with it?

What percentage of the national debt would an independent Quebec be responsible for?

Why do Quebecers merit such consideration, when other potential nations, like Aboriginals, do not?

How much longer must we continue to hassle over Quebec's place in Confederation?

And there are many more questions that have been raised yet again.

And then there are some new ones. There's been a lot of confusion over what Harper's motion was really trying to say, with various people trying to determine the definition of the word

"nation." And there have been some who have wondered if there's much difference or any difference between the terms "Quebecer" and "Quebecois"

Add to that the surprise that this all came up again as it did. It happened so suddenly, and many people were upset that they didn't even have the chance to react, comment, or tell their MPs how they felt. There's been little in the way of explaination coming down to earth from high atop Mount Parliament Hill.

Recently ousted Tory MP Garth Turner tried to address that issue by conducting a poll on his famous blog. He reported that 70 per cent of the more than 1,800 people who logged on were opposed to the motion, so Turner voted accordingly

when it came his turn in the House of Commons. The problem with that, of course, is people had even less information to go on than the MPs who actually got to vote. They had no time to digest the issue, and could only base their opinions on emotions, without the time for thought or useful explanations.

Reluctantly, we have to conclude that apart from the fact it gave people a chance to vent, Turner's poll was probably pointless in the long-run. But to give the man his due, he at least tried to involve the people who deserve to be involved, namely the taxpayers who pay the freight. That's better than what Harper and company tried to do to involve their masters, which was nothing. But we would also speculate

that nothing is what is going to come from this resolution. Indeed, we expect most Canadians will have forgotten about it in a couple of months, if not sooner.

The separatist passions in Quebec are not likely to ever go away, and we also believe that the political powers in that province, whatever party they may represent, will never have the guts to put a clear separation referendum question before their voters. We're likely to see questions that more closely resemble literary mushballs than anything else, as has already been the case.

The bickering continues.

Perhaps we should just accept this never-ending bickering as part of the price we pay for being Canadians. People have it worse in a lot of other countries.