Why do the Harper Conservatives act like they want to drive Quebec out of Confederation?

[JohnyCanuck]

Yes, there are certainly a few die-hard separatists left awaiting their day in Quebec, and a few anti-French troglodytes driving pickup trucks festooned with bumper stickers out here in the West, but things really have been blessedly quiet now for more than a decade.

But there's nothing like a Conservative government in Ottawa to get folks stirred up, and not in a good way. Arguably, it was Brian Mulroney's effort to sell his version of a perfected constitution that opened the door to the 1995 referendum that came so perilously close to splitting the country.

But in Mulroney's defence, at least he was motivated by the desire to bring Quebeckers fully into the Canadian family, and furthermore by his belief that the imperfections of the 1982 constitution left them outside. We can question Mulroney's analysis or his tactics if we like -- including his dangerous tendency to roll the dice -- but there's no doubt the man was sincere about what he was trying to achieve on the constitutional file and his actions are understandable in that context.

The so-called Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is harder to figure. On the face of it, at least, the series of symbolic and practical slaps it has delivered to Quebec just in the last 90 days seem designed intentionally to alienate Quebeckers and encourage the remaining separatists there. Some of them make sense given the Harper Conservatives' origins and the deep resentments they harbour. Others make no sense at all.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclimenhaga/2011/11/why-do-harper-conservatives-act-they-want-drive-quebec-out-confe