The centre stops being soft

ON THE face of things, the Clarity Bill unveiled this month by the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien has a modest and innocent aim summed up by its title: to minimise the chance that any future referendum on secession by Quebec should be fogged by ambiguity over the options at stake. Yet, if the bill has immediately given rise to a cloud of invective, that was predictable: when it was tabled on December 13th, it was the first time in the 30 years since Quebec's separatist movement emerged as a mainstream force that the federal government had taken the initiative over the secession question.