Hard for me to tell. The 1837-38 rebellion (co-lead by Francophones and Anglophones) had adopted a constitution in essence extremely close to the US one.

Charles' French is decent, if not as good as his mother's (which is more than decent). William's is laborious, with a lot of gender and pronunciation mistakes.

It just got a lot more "interesting". A charismatic billionaire press magnate (more a Bloomberg than a Berlusconi) was announced as PQ candidate on Sunday. That's the first time such a prominent businessman openly joins the sovereigntists (though it's known many others are closet cases), and Péladeau left no doubt his primary motive to join was to make independence. It's fairly common in the US, but here it's unprecedented that such a wealthy man pushes aside his business to enter politics.

His company owns roughly 30% of Québec's private newspapers and TV, beside owning an holding of many ultra-conservative and pro-Harper newspapers and a news network in English Canada (it's casually referred to as Canada's Fox News).

That's caused quite a commotion in Canada (not two years ago, Harper was boasting that Québec sovereigntism was dead). They already fear his impact in a referendum campaign. The Globe and Mail called his candidacy the most game changing event in Canadian politics since the constitutional deal fell through in 1990 and Brian Mulroney's vice-PM joined the sovereigntists (and became the central player in the referendum). Bouchard, however, spoke to the heart of Québécois while Péladeau has enormous economic credibility.

In the event of a PQ victory, Canadians will certainly start to question if Harper, with his 5 MPs in Québec, his voting intentions below 15% and the general hatred he sparks in Québec stands a chance to win a campaign against the likes of Péladeau. B

For sure this suddenly made it switch "possible but doubtful" to "fairly likely" that Marois does plan to get a popular consensus to hold a new referendum in the next four years.

However it remains to be seen if Marois hasn't overplayed her hand and won't have frightened too many Québécois who intended to vote PQ but don't wish it to hold a referendum. But her opponents have certainly switched in maximum anti-referendum mode. They'll try to make her lose control of her campaign, turning it into a referendum on the referendum. It's worked and it's failed before.

We'll see the impact in next week's polls.

It is an extremely hard sell, and Québec's economy is problematic but how much totally divides economists. What's changed since 1995 is that most economists, even the most fervent federalists, think that an independent Québec would be economically viable. They completely disagree whether it would benefit from independence, or go through a long or short economic crisis first.

It hinged on that in 1980 and again in 1995. That's in part why the candidacy of PKP could be a game changer.

Btw, he's lived in Europe (even studied in France) for many years, and he has been following the developments in Flanders, Scotland and Catalonia with great attention. That was even his angle yesterday - he was comparing the use of the same arguments resting on economic fears in the three countries to those used by federalists here in 80 and 95. He also took position in favor of the right of Catalonia to hold a referendum.

I don't think he's PM material, personally. He's got his father's charisma, and he embraces wholly his political thinking (which doesn't bode so well for his chances in Québec - he's peaking at around 30% right now, head to head with the social democrat NPD and the sovereigntists Bloc Québécois) but he has nowhere his father's intellect. I think his popularity in Canada has a lot to do with an "anybody but Harper" phenomenon. Canada is very divided between the center left and the right at the moment, and a great deal of Canadians are especially completely at odds with Harper's outrageous foreign policies. Canada re positioning itself as a stauncher ally of Israel than the US, without any of the American reservations, has shocked many Canadians, notably.

In fact, the only policy for which Harper has support in Québec (and more so than in other provinces, unsurprisingly since we've been the #1 supporters of the previous ones in the country) is with his free trade agreements. He just concluded one with Korea, and the one with the EU is in the final stages of negotiation.

Otherwise Trudeau's recent blunders in regard to Ukraine or China were rather worrying. I'd be extremely worried to have someone like him at the head of the country, as much as I despise what Harper's done to traditional Canadian diplomacy.

It's not clear at all it has an impact at all on support to sovereignty, the numbers really don't move much since 95 and one of the only times they did, a bit, was when Harper made massive cuts to the federal subsidies to culture.

It's real impact is on nationalism, the provincial parties have often made common front against Harper on tons of issues, and in fact it's hard to think of an issue concerning the federal over which they're in complete disagreement (except sovereignty, that is). The rest is mostly politics. Under the liberals, PQ found their opposition to Harper too weak, while the liberals reproach to PQ to use the provincial-federal fights to promote its political goal, while supporting their positions. Bottomline: most of the time since 1995 when an issue with the federal arises, there's an unanimous motion of the Assemblée Nationale on Québec's stance in the matter and to denounce the federal. It's the same when Québec manages to negotiate administrative deals with the federal: all parties approve them.