Trudeau and the Liberals somehow gets credit for destroying separatists, although the only separation referendum, and the only separatist PQ election majorities, occurred under the Liberals.
Dude, are you HIGH? Were you AROUND in the 90s, the closest this country has come to flying apart at high speed? It wasn't the Grits who caused that, it was Mulroney trying to go down in history as the guy who one-upped Trudeau, issued Quebec pie-in-the-sky cheques English Canada would NEVER let his butt cash, held a divisive referendum that David Cameron over in Britain SHOULD have read up on, and as a result gave birth to a separatist party at the FEDERAL level that was so powerful it was, for a while, the Official Opposition; gave renewed impetus to a second referendum that came within just over 1% of ending Confederation as we know it, and managed to destroy the federal Progressive Conservative Party into the bargain... the "Progressive" part is still nowhere to be seen. Chretien got elected in the MIDDLE of all that garbage... that's like blaming the janitor for the dump somebody ELSE took on the cafeteria floor before leaving the room.
I'll tell you what brought separatism to heel... inasmuch as it's at least not the existential threat to the country it was from 1970-2000.
The Bi & Bi commission in the 60s, which only JUST in the nick of time finally let francophones feel comfortable working in their federal capital, and led to them seeing at least some semblance of their culture across the country. The fact that Rene Levesque wasn't a madman and he managed to secure French culture within Quebec WITHOUT having to leave Canada to do it, inadvertently demonstrating to just enough of his fellow Quebecois that securing their culture was possible WITHIN Confederation; we should all thank heavens Levesque was an honourable democrat and level-headed most of the time. That the country didn't stick to Dief's "One Canada" model and quietly adopted asymmetrical federalism under Trudeau, giving Quebec certain powers that it, a province demonstrably unique among the rest, could justifiably lay claim to while the others really couldn't... which, again, gave francophones in Quebec the sense that it was possible to have elbow room within Canada. And finally, that time passed, Quebecois got used to feeling secure in Quebec, being able to speak English if they
wanted to and have the rest of the country as theirs as well, and the notion that leaving Canada wouldn't really gain them anything anymore, other than a few flags at international organizations... that leaving Canada now would be a net loss. English Canada loosened up enough that Quebecois have just enough room in the country to feel comfortable and at home, and as long as we maintain that, the country's got a future. But it wasn't JUST the Liberals and it wasn't JUST the Tories (THAT's for sure); it was people of good will on all sides, even people who got angry enough to vote to separate but then peacefully reconciled themselves to the result, that did it. I'm proud of the diversity of this country and its ability to have gotten through all of that essentially bloodlessly, though with no small degree of passion on all sides. We came through that trial of fire... several times... and we're still here. There aren't many countries that can say that, and I'm watching the UK right now and wondering if they will. What can I say? I'm getting my documents together to apply for a Scottish passport, just in case.