But Canada is about to become a major news story, for it is closer to dissolution than many realize. O Canada might well become No Canada. America could end up with a bunch of weak, quarrelsome, and suspicious neighbors on its northern border. Canada is in crisis because the French-speaking residents of Quebec want to go it alone to protect their culture and their language. This change reflects the alienation of French speakers from English speakers.
Separatists say it makes Quebec's sovereignty inevitable.
Winter would still be there in a French Quebec but not, they think, the sense of second-class citizenship. The animosity goes back to the formation of Canada from three British colonies partly out of fear the large standing army in the United States remaining after the Civil War could be turned against them. But the French in Quebec felt this confederation was imposed less by fear of America than by a desire to suppress them. Reduced to one third of the population in the new Canada, they were unable to prevent the English from dominating them. The English went to war against the Nazis who had occupied France, but that did not dampen Quebec's hostility to the English.