Chantal Hebert

It's hard to compare, but the success rate of corporate interest intervening in the Quebec debate is nil.

It's actually always helped the yes side and not the no side to have business people, and usually at great cost to their personal credibility.

But you can also ask yourself whether...

Some in the oil industry are possibly interested in the U.S.

interest in Canada and having more control over some of its resources, so are not necessarily interested.

appalled by the notion that there are these ongoing divisions.

But by and large, I think that they are focused, the oil industry, more focused on what Mark Carney and Daniel Smith are discussing on the business side of the equation, the notion of a new pipeline of deregulation, than they are focused at this point on the conversation as to whether Alberta stays or goes.

So Mr. Carney, Ms.

Smith have to come to some resolution on that.

Could the federal government come to something that does make Daniel Smith happy on the pipeline front, but in exchange say, do you want to have a referendum on nine questions, that is, which he said he wanted to do, that are not separation on October 19th,

But the trade-off is you do not ask that other question.

Given the mess that the process is in, you do not ask it then or you ask it later.

But the dynamics between the federal government and the province of Alberta changed dramatically the second you add the separation question.

Why?

Because the prime minister has said at that point that the Clarity Act would kick in.

What is the Clarity Act, and why do I say it?

It might be something that the Parti Québécois would dream of having unfold during a Québec election campaign.

Basically, the Clarity Act says that on a question of separation, the federal government must approve the question that is going to be asked to make sure that it is clear enough.

and must decide whether it would accept the result on the basis of what percentage of the votes.

Now, after the Clarity Act was passed,