Almost ten years after the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, our regime remains paralysed. In Ottawa and Quebec City, the major players are as bitter as ever. Like two aging prize fighters, Jean Chrètien and Lucien Bouchard circle one another, unable to land crunching blows. Their dance symbolizes our political impotence. Yet the people of Canada and Quebec deserve better than the cocktail of acrimony and resentment being served up by their current leaders. They are worthy of higher challenges.

Last week, I argued that finding new ways to institutionalize the federal principles to which Canadians have long paid lip-service is one obvious challenge to which we could turn our attention if the question of national unity ever ceased to occupy centre stage. But there are other tasks we could set ourselves that would increase the well-being of linguistic and ethnic minorities not only in this country, but throughout the world.

Isaiah Berlin, one of the great minds of our century, believed a world reduced to a single culture would be a world without culture. Working in partnership, Canada and Quebec could make wonderful contributions to the emerging world-wide debate concerning linguistic and cultural diversity. All languages are gems that add richness to human life. And a key defining characteristic of Canada is that it is home to two idioms -- English and French -- that are spoken and studied in every corner of the world.

The two languages have fostered competing cultural identities in Canada, and in Quebec, where they reverse roles of majority and minority. A distinct -- and praiseworthy -- attitude towards diversity has come out of this tension. Canada's ability to accommodate the struggle between English and French in its public institutions is what renders the Canadian political experiment edifying in such places as Spain, South Africa and Eastern Europe.

In 2001, Canada will host the next Summit of the Americas in Quebec City. Beyond the inevitable rhetoric about the enlargement of NAFTA, I think the political integration of the Americas will soon be a pressing issue. Considering the hemisphere's population will reach one billion circa 2025, this will not be a small task.

Canada could play an important role in facilitating the political dialogue between the United States and Latin American countries. In the recent past, Canada has had reasonable success in cultivating stronger ties with Latin America. We have become active members of the Organization of American States, and established strong bilateral relationships -- allowing us to act as a countervailing force to the US -- with countries such as Mexico and Chile.

At a more modest level, Quebec has also developed a dynamic presence in the region through its network of delegations and offices. Quebec has a Catholic past; the nerve it takes to develop, in North America, a technologically advanced society that functions in a language other than English; and an understanding of the relationship between individual and community steeped in Thomistic social and political theory. Moreover, Quebec is currently producing an impressive number of Spanish-speaking students in its élite network of international schools. These are all invaluable assets when dealing with Latin America.

Thus Canada and Quebec could jointly strive to place issues of cultural diversity and social justice on the integration agenda in the Americas.

So if Canadians ever get beyond the unity issue, the future looks promising in several respects.

But, alas, the reality principle cannot be denied for long. In truth, one only need look at our political scars and wrinkles to appreciate how difficult it will be to reach an equilibrium between the competing claims of unity for Canada and autonomy for Quebec. The reality is we have not yet found one.

There is no point denying the obvious: Quebec is big, modern, and rich enough to be an independent and successful country.

On the other hand, only a fool would say there is no room whatsoever for Quebec's self-determination within Canada. Just last year, the Supreme Court stated in the Reference Case Concerning the Secession of Quebec that Quebec's right of self-determination is respected within Canada.

However, in evaluating the nature and degree of Quebec's autonomy, the Court failed to address some key questions: Can the constitution be modified without Quebec's consent? Can Quebec's laws be repealed without its consent? Have these scenarios occurred in the past and are they possible in the future?

If the answer to these questions is "yes", then I believe no amount of optimistic talk of "the day after" will lead us beyond the crisis of our federal regime.

In many ways, Quebec means to Canada what Kosovo has meant for Serbia; it is the historical and geographical heart of Canada. For many Canadians, the country is unthinkable without the Gaspé Peninsula, where Cartier set foot, without Quebec City, where Montcalm and Wolfe fought valiantly and died, without Montreal, the true meeting place of English and French.

Maybe Quebec sovereigntists have spent too much time drinking champagne in Paris, while neglecting to read Thucydides, the Greek master of political realism. Reading Thucydides carefully helps us appreciate how likely it is that Canada would furiously resist the separation of its land mass and the reduction of its standing in the world -- two major consequences flowing from the withdrawal of Quebec.

Canada is, of course, not Serbia. Nobody in official Ottawa has threatened Quebec with ethnic cleansing, although some partitionist scenarios have clearly evoked it. But is it exaggerating to suggest that force could be used to quash independentist aspirations in Quebec? I think not.

Here are the thoughts of the late Canadian historian, Kenneth McNaught, on this issue: ´"In Canada the use of lethal force is legitimated not by appeal to a constitutional right to bear arms in pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, but by the need to support peace, order and good government; and this is no snappy academic abstration ... [O]ur own history evidences an almost knee-jerk readiness to endorse quick military action to suppress 'illegal' challenges to 'constituted authority' ... There are infinitely more Canadian installations -- governmental, commercial and military -- in Quebec than there was federal property in the American South ... The federal government has an obligation to ensure the security of all these, but beyond that it has a clear responsibility to protect the liberty and security of individual Canadians, including those who oppose a UDI [unilateral declaration of independence]".

These sentences were written close to a decade ago. I see in them the best reflection of the gut reaction of English-speaking Canada's political and intellectual élites to the last Quebec referendum -- and to future ones as well!

Each of us can dream of life after the unity issue. Yet I think most Canadians know in their heart of hearts they will start the next millennium with it unresolved. Tough issues, in all their thorny dimensions, do not simply fade away.