Maybe we don’t care as much as we used to, but it’s still good not to worry about Quebec

TUESDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — It would be so cliché to say Canada is breathing a sigh of relief after Pauline Marois and the Parti Quebecois got the heave-ho in Monday’s provincial election.

But an interesting question will go unanswered: would Western Canada, or all of English Canada, for that matter, have really cared very much? Would there have been hand-wringing over the prospect of another referendum on separatism?

There’s a feeling in the air, and in the polls, that the answer would be no. More than a third of Canadians outside Quebec said in a recent Ipsos-Reid poll that they “couldn’t care less” if Quebec separates.

Furthermore, if Quebec were to separate, it would be on its own, most Canadians believe. No Canadian passports. Sorry, no loonie — get your own currency. If you separate, you’re separate.

And, only 19 per cent felt national unity is a threat to the future of the country.

This is a dramatic change from the 1990s when non-Quebecers were focused so heavily on finding ways to talk Quebec into staying in the country. It was unthinkable that the country might be broken up.

Today, people in other provinces are confident enough of Canada’s ability to survive that they’ve moved on to other things. If Quebec should choose to go out on its own, it would be unfortunate but hardly catastrophic, they believe.

Of course, there are many social, economic and political arguments for the need to keep Quebec in Canada but from a heart and gut perspective, non-Quebecers have other priorities.

So, obviously, do Quebecers. Once the issue in the election became clearly about separation, the PQ fortunes were dramatically reversed.

For now, it’s all academic, and that’s really for the best. Under Philippe Couillard and the Liberals, separation is off the agenda. Maybe we’re not breathing a sigh of relief, exactly, but we should be pleased not to have to go through an unhappy breakup.