During a week when Bloc Quebecois MP Marc Lemay laid waste to one cliché about supporters of Quebec separatism, I was on a family vacation deep inside Separatist territory, witnessing other similar clichés being washed away like flotsam on its way out the St. Lawrence.
“We must all have a valid passport from a recognized country, not a nation. If that was not the case, there would be a Basque passport, a Québécois passport, a Scottish passport, a Corsican passport,” the party’s Indian Affairs critic said, in the wake of the British government’s refusal to allow the entry of a lacrosse team comprising players  carrying only “Haudenosaunee passports” from the American and Canadian side of the Iroquois Confederacy.
Lemay’s comments countered the widely-held English Canadian impression that the ideological basis for Quebec separatism is somewhere far on the fringes. As if to further emphasize his rationality, he added this final perspective: “Last I heard Quebec was still part of Canada and, even if we are very, very sovereigntist, we still need a Canadian passport to travel.”
I have visited the province of Quebec before, but only along the Ottawa River through to Montreal - a region in which English is understood if sometimes begrudgingly accepted. Our recent holiday, by contrast, took us through Quebec City to the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, where - we had heard it told - people generally don’t speak English and generally frown enthusiastically upon those who do.
It didn’t take long for us to discover this to be a cliché, as worn as the notion of a radical leadership in the province’s separatist camp.
Non-English speakers were, certainly, much more numerous than in Montreal. But, in contrast to the scowling and impatient ticket-takers, waiters and information attendants who left a sour taste when we visited France in 2008, there were people who patiently stood by as we struggled to make ourselves understood, people who seemed eager to try out their own still-developing English on us, and people who accepted the fact that their employment in tourism-related industries demanded that they communicate in a friendly manner with French-impaired travellers.
But my biggest surprise was yet to come. For our final stop in the Parti Quebecois power base of Quebec City, we had arranged to stay with a family friend - someone who had been known to trumpet the separatist cause in both her halting English and her enthusiastic French.
We came armed for battle. A guided tour of the Plains of Abraham (delivered, we suspected at the time, by a turncoat Quebecker of French descent) provided us with the necessary confirmation that, in fact, Wolfe’s 1759 attack was successful in ending French rule in North America.
Previous to our arrival in the city, we spent two days of co-family vacationing with my cousin, a resident of far Eastern Ontario, the daughter of a French-speaking Quebecker who considers herself French Canadian. Her blood pressure rises every time the Quebec government refers to its legislature as the “National Assembly” or its protected wilderness areas as “les Parques Nationals”.
For her, a visit to Quebec - with frequent expressions of surprise from residents that a Canadian from outside the province can speak flawless French - is a reminder of the unfounded nature of the Parti Quebecois’ warnings about what would happen to the language under greater Canadian influence. Her possession of fluent bilingualism, in her mind, results from long-held federal Canadian policies - policies the Separatists would fight to reverse.
Alas, despite our preparations, our Quebec City host wanted only to talk about her grandchildren, her son’s exploits in the bizarre sport of ice-floe canoe racing, and treasures she salvaged when her ex sold their former home. The more animated she became, the less English was interspersed, and the more difficult it became to understand her rapid French.
We were left to try and catch whatever snippets we could, and wonder what happened to our anticipated arguments about Quebec sovereignty.
Pondering Lemay’s comments as I read them during the long train ride home, I realized the current version of the separatist cause is being promoted, at least in its leadership, by rational people. And the current version of sovereignty within the Canadian nation, as envisioned by these people, might not be nearly as outrageous as many cliché-affected English Canadians might think.