It's not exactly unexpected, given the Quebecois-France cultural/historical connection, as well as the Quebecois need to define themselves as non-Anglo-Canadian certainly as much as they are non-Yankee.

Alas, it won't have been the first time that France has let the Quebecois down.

Ah Canada, a nation in decline.

I'm absolutely serious in stating that it won't be there in 50 years. It will be split up into two maybe three countries in the next 50 years.

If not France The Netherlands or Germany.

The question is, is it possible to be France while maintaining free trade with the US. I'm skeptical, but we'll find out.

"I'm absolutely serious in stating that it won't be there in 50 years. It will be split up into two maybe three countries in the next 50 years."

Will we?

Now that,that is the question.

I wish that someone would conduct a serious study on the impact of immigration on Canadian politics. I remember reading recently that annually about 25k people permanently migrate from Canada to the US and about 5k take the opposite trek. Personal experience leads me to believe that the Canadian emigres are often motivated by the extremely high Canadian tax burden and, thus, tend toward the conservative side of the spectrum. I'd guess that the opposite is true of the US migrants. While the numbers aren't overwhelming, in a country with a relatively small population, losing 25k conservatives and gaining 5k liberals each year could certainly be the cause of Canada's recent lurch to the left.

Alberta isn't happy and they're starting to take over some responsibilities.

And this crazy idea of treating muslims differently and instituting shari'a for thme!

Does Canada have a death penalty? If not, then how can they oversee shari'a? Good enough for the wogs?

Canada is not quite the hotbed of leftist sentiment many Americans think it is. The split of Canada's right wing into two political parties in the late 80's have guaranteed a liberal majority in parliment for the last decade, but this may be changing as the parties are voting on a merger this week to re-form the Conservative Party of Canada. But even the Liberal party in general can't be held responsible for most of the new changes such as legalizing soft drugs, gay marrige, and such (Many Liberal MP's risked the wrath of the party whip to oppose these changes). These are the results partly of a retiring lefty PM (who thinks by instituting these policies, he'll get brownie points with his UN buddies) but mostly from judicial activism. Judicial Activism is even more of a problem here in Canada than it is in the states (we picked up the worst traits from both our parents, an unelected senate like the British House of Lords, and an American Judiciary). But polls across Canada show that Canadian's viewpoints as a whole are vitually the same as Americans.
The real nonsense piece of the article though is the line that states "A new Canadian identity -one far more in line with European sensibilities is emerging". NO IT'S NOT. Canada is a geographically huge. Quebec and Ottawa have European sensibilties, Ontario has sensibilities more like the Chicago/Detroit, Nova Scotia, PEI and New Brunswick are like New England, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta are like the Bible Belt, British Columbia is culturally a twin of the Pacific northwest, and Newfoundlanders are like no one else on earth. I'm an Albertan, I barely know anyone who was against Iraqi liberation, for gay marriage or voted liberal. We are for the most part conservative/libertarians, for the last 30 years the only party in power in our province has been the conservitives. Too many Americans look at Ottawa and Quebec (20% of the Canadian population) and see the whole country. This is like talking to people in the beltway and thinking you know the opinions of Americans as a whole.

Good analysis, Philip. I would add that Quebec's attachment to Europe is also frequently overstated. Most are quite chippy about the French, know little about European ideals and are really quite North American in outlook (Most also claim to prefer Americans to English-Canadians). They do, however, tend to xenophobia and pacifism--not the modern statist kind, but the real deep, traditional version, as the Americans found out in 1775. Their rallying cry for most of history's wars has been "Pas nos affaires." (Not our business.)

However, east, west, French, English we are a passive, cautious people and slow to rally. We are also far too deferential to the elites who rule the roost just about everywhere except perhaps in Alberta. We overvalue compromise and are also intellectually lazy and surprisingly ignorant of the world, although we tell ourselves otherwise.

But we are very nice.

As an Albertan, I have to agree with Philip. I would never leave Alberta, mostly because I am rather conservative by nature. I plan on living and dying on the original homestead.

Oops, that was me.

The whole place would have been much better off if Quebec had seceded. Trudeau and his followers imposed a regime of political correctness, high government spending, diversity worship, and all the rest in order to placate the French-speakers. Meanwhile, the Liberals use an enormously high level of immigration to surreptitiously dilute the secession vote in Quebec with newcomers who don't give a damn about preserving French identity. Both the Anglos and the French would have been better off with their own countries.

"Liberals use an enormously high level of immigration to surreptitiously dilute the secession vote in Quebec with newcomers who don't give a damn about preserving French identity"

As could be said of Democrats and not a few Republicans here.But then a marxist mentality reigns supreme now.