LONDON -- "Michael Ignatieff strode back into Canada bearing gilt-edged promises that he had kept a close watch on our political evolution during his decades on foreign soil and that he would be appropriately sensitive to our sociopolitical nuances. He then, by stating a position on Quebec as a nation, proceeded to break our single most important political taboo. It is as if a papal candidate had suddenly barged into a Catholic church and set the altar ablaze."

So ran the lead editorial of one of Canada's two national newspapers, the National Post, on the day after the blaze spread to the roof. When Ignatieff, a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party and therefore potentially a future prime minister, declared last June that he saw the mainly French-speaking province of Quebec as "a nation" within Canada, and was open to new negotiations to enshrine that concept in the constitution, he re-opened the wound that never really heals, and condemned the country to another constitutional crisis.

Last month, taking their lead from Ignatieff, the Quebec branch of the Liberal Party adopted a resolution calling for the party to recognize "the Quebec nation within Canada," and to "officialize this historical and social reality." Then the separatist Quebec party in the federal parliament, the Bloc Quebecois, seized on that to introduce a bill demanding "that this House recognize that Quebecers form a nation."