In a less tolerant country, Parizeau would have been hanged for treason and rightly so. It would have saved the taxpayers a lot of money on the sovereignty motion that was never going to happen no matter how the vote went. In the end, money talks and bullshit walks. Quebec couldn't separate even if it wanted to because there is no reality in which Quebec can be independent AND keep sucking on the Federal government's teat. If Parizeau had declared independence, the ROC would have said "Fine, as soon as you've paid your bills you can leave and if you leave you leave with nothing." It's not that the ROC cares all that much if Quebec separates or not. They'd probably be better off in the long run without Quebec draining the federal coffers. But they aren't going to pay Quebec to leave either, which is, effectively, what so-called "sovereignty association" is all about: Quebec gets to go its own way but the rest of the country still pays all the bills. Sorry, not going to happen.
As to Sal's point, the Duplessis regime perfectly illustrates why the nationalists were always full of crap when they argued that the reason francophones were at such a disadvantage was because the English were keeping them down. In fact it was always one of their own that was doing that. If French schools were inferior to English ones it was because the French allowed their schools to be run by the Catholic church which had different priorities when it came to education. Simply put, the church didn't want their flock to be too educated. They preferred them to be obedient and not ask questions. But inventing an Anglo boogeyman is a better vote-getter than admitting that francophones were being kept down by other francophones.
And now that he's dead, Parizeau will be yet another duplicitous politician who's name will be plastered over an English name on a street sign, one more attempt by the pequistes to expunge any evidence that English people ever played any role in the evolution of the city. One more attempt to make English Montreal history disappear, even though without them Montreal today would be nothing more than a French-speaking version of Saskatoon: a small, insignificant provincial hick town.
