Ignatieff puts his foot in it

Given his professed liberal individualism, Liberal leadership hopeful Michael Ignatieff has surprised me and troubled many others by proposing that Québec be declared a nation within Canada. Anyone who had spent more than a few years of his adult life in this country would have known better than to reopen the thorny constitutional question gratuitously for partisan political purposes. Historically, Québec has always been treated as une province pas comme les autres, but recent efforts to entrench this status in our constitution acts have come to nothing and have only inflamed tempers. Then again, Ignatieff might not have known this. He was away at the time, wasn't he?