Bravo, Mr. Lafond

Now that's refreshing. And here we thought all along that pre-Governor-General appointment our estimable quasi-Royal pair were deeply, psychologically and socially-politically ensconced in the company of Quebecois separatism.

There was incriminating evidence, and there did exist an aura of complicit sensitivity to the ongoing and everpresent victimhood sensibilities of radical Quebec separatists. There was film, and there were statements, and they all pointed to seemingly obvious sympathy where none should have existed. We thought.

We thought wrong.

Jean-Daniel Lafond, husband of Michaelle Jean - she of the acquired patrician poise and bearing, soon to be acquitted of her role as Governor-General - has issued a public declaration. That he now considers, and in fact always has pre-2005, that Quebec independence is a dead struggle.

That kind of Quebecois nationalism he claims "is based on ethnicity and nostalgia", for a heritage, history and tradition that has no bearing on the present. Let it go.

Mr. Lafond claims he realized when he emigrated to Canada from France in 1974 that "the fight for a free Quebec", had expired, its purpose and practicality, its reason and need sullied and outgrown when violence and murder erupted during the 1970 October Crisis.

"As soon as I arrived, I believed profoundly that the real fight was not for separation - a geo-political aberration - but for culture, so that this country or piece of the country, this province, this cultural reality would be respected."

Respect is hard to come by when murder and mayhem reigns. And it is undeserving when it is demanded under such violent duress.

In the calm aftermath of Meach Lake, that recognition was given to Quebec decades later through the accommodating recognition of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, taking the separatist Bloc entirely by surprise. Not quite what was wished for, but quite fulfilling the heritage-cultural-recognition proviso.

He is somewhat incorrect in stating his opinion that Canada's fond ties to the British Crown are no more than symbolic; they are far more than that; they rest on the country's vision of its past, and are reflective of its current values.

But he does seem to profoundly recognize the core cause of defiant exceptionalism and mewling resistance to laying down the cudgel of separatism because of childish expectations not met.

"Quebec nationalism is demanding nostalgia for a lost country. This nationalism is no longer useful.... I have never understood that in Quebec one can define oneself primarily by blood, when if there is a mixed blood anywhere, it is there."

Quite, quite so. But reason and rationality are not companion pieces to aggrieved resentment.