Defending Canada . . . the Copps way

Sheila Copps reminisces about the need to work with French officials who didn't bother to try to hide their support for Quebec separatism:

At one point, I hosted a dinner at the Canadian embassy in Paris for then-French minister Catherine Trautmann. Trautmann was planning an international meeting to which she intended to separately invite the PQ minister. When the subject came up, I politely informed her as a sovereign country, Canada would determine the composition of our delegation. At the time, political upheaval in Corsica had just led to a couple of arrests, and I pointed out that if she felt compelled to issue a separate invitation to the Parti Quebecois, I would have to invite a separate Corsican delegation to our next international rendezvous.

Trautmann literally choked on her dinner. She claimed there was absolutely no legitimate comparison between the state of Corsica in France and Quebec in Canada. She further pointed out that France does not permit separation since the country was deemed indivisible during the French Revolution. Voila. End of story.

H/T to Colby Cosh, who admits that he "must have agreed to do something humiliating or biologically impossible on the day Sheila Copps actually wrote an interesting newspaper column". He'd appreciate it if nobody troubles themselves to remind him . . . because it just happened.