Mugged

CTV reports Scott Brison giving Canadians the mugger's threat in Question Period: hand over your money or get the crap kicked out of you.

Public Works Minister Scott Brison repeated the Liberals' new "dangerous game" mantra after a sponsorship-related attack on the government by the separatist Bloc Quebecois.

"This is an attempt to destroy Canada and the reputation of the government," he said Tuesday in question period.

....

Prior to that, Brison said: "If it's good for the separatists, it's not good for Canada."

In perspective, $100 million in lost sponsorship money is small change compared to the billions of dollars pumped into Quebec by the rest of Canada each year, for forty years, through equalization, grants and programs, with the ultimate aim of appeasing separatist sentiment.

Yet although Quebec separatism periodically waxes and wanes, the threat never goes away, and never will go away, as long as Quebec remains a French-speaking island in a sea of English.

And to think about it, the federal Liberal party doesn't really want it to go away, either. As long as the threat exists, and the Liberals enjoy some measure of support in Quebec, they can always claim at election time that only they can save the country, and they (that is, we) will pay any price, bear any burden, to keep Canada united.

Now it appears that Quebeckers will not be bought off any longer, and the rest of Canada is sick of paying out and getting nothing in return.

In hindsight, the means by which the sponsorship program was supposed to instill love and pride of Canada in the hearts of Quebeckers seem quite pathetic.

To think that 250 years of grievances against les anglais , from the Plains of Abraham and the rebellions of 1837 through to Louis Riel's hanging, conscription and Meech Lake could be reduced to a marketing problem, to be solved by sticking up a few maple leaf logos on billboards!

To think that mere advertising agencies could solve today what statesmen over the years could not!

To think that love of country could be bought with taxpayers money!