Sovereignty
Harper expected to take hard line on referendum
His private member's bill a decade ago makes the Clarity Act look mild
Harper's approach could make Chrétien's post-referendum Plan B smell like a bouquet of roses. Yesterday, Le Devoir columnist Michel David quoted Pierre Dubuc's book - Le vrai visage de Stephen Harper - with a reminder that the current prime minister had tabled his own hardline member's bill in 1906. It would have allowed Ottawa to hold its own referendum on secession on the same day as Quebec's, with a two-part question including one on the possible partitioning of "communities" from Quebec.
