The fact that M. Dion has to include in his Reference a mention to Canada as the greatest country in the world, a sentence which summarizes Jean Chretien's entire political thinking, is degrading for the scholar and the intellectual that M. Dion once was. Dion's letters, especially the first one, make ample references to the situation of precivil anarchy into which the Quebec Government is apparently willing to push Quebec. This is frightening. There are certain words and certain situations which should not be evoked under the pretext of clarifying the situation. Politics and democracy actually require that certain possibilities not be evoked.
Tolerance often calls for silence.
At the basis of Dion's argument is the belief that Quebec society is not mature enough to come to terms with its own political decision, especially if it is a close one. If M. Dion's choice of words is meant to intimidate Quebeckers and sovereigntists, he has clearly succeeded. On a number of occasions, I have written that sovereignty for Quebec was not worth a single human life. By leading the charge of the partitionists and especially by giving it, in advance, an aura of legitimacy and legality, M. Dion is not only blowing on the fire, he is also making sure that people like me will simply withdraw from the entire operation. The fact that his recent letters, and his entire behaviour since assuming his present job, have not been denounced by a single Anglo-Canadian intellectual and university professor is also quite revealing.