They clashed with police, threw rocks and Molotov cocktails, and stabbed police horses while being arrested. There's no truth to the rumor that Premier Harris was inside the building smiling and laughing, his electoral coalition secure. An improved economy has kept the Parti Quebecois quiet, waiting for its chance to hold another referendum. Ottawa says that it will define the question next time and will recognize independence only if a clear majority votes for it. Brave words for a nation whose army is only twice the size of the 8,000 Tamil Tiger guerrillas allegedly hiding in Toronto.
Secession is scratched in both sides of the North American mirror.
In the early 1990's, secessionist groups worked for independence for Staten Island, Upstate New York, Northern California, Montana, the American Northwest, western Kansas and Nebraska, and the Lake Superior region. Massive immigration is fueling Hispanic nationalist groups in the American Southwest, and the more the memory of the Confederacy is attacked, the more Southerners look to the League of the South. Meech Lake supporters insist that, if the accord had passed, Canada would have had constitutional peace for 30 years. But even so, the Parti Quebecois would still exist. Poverty is not the cause of secessionist forces.