Should we let constitutional sleeping dogs lie or is it time to raise this troublesome issue again? 

The University of Toronto's School of Public Policy and Governance decided to bring more than a decade of silence on this issue to an end. Earlier this week, it held a day-long conference on "The Quebec Question." 

Former Ontario Premier David Peterson shared some deeply personal stories about his efforts to gain Quebec's signature on the Constitution through the Meech Lake process. You can read about that here. 

One of the conference's best debates showcased two former premiers and the prime minister's former chief of staff. 

Bernard Landry, who turns 75 next month, was premier of Quebec from 2001-03. He has lost none of his separatist zeal. 

"Quebec is a nation. Quebec must be free," he told the conference. "Quebecers feel less and less Canadian and more and more Quebecois these days. The attachment to Canada is more and more marginal.

"It's time to say goodbye," Landry says. "It's time to have two friendly countries." 

After hearing that shot across the Canadian bow, former Newfoundland Premier Brian Tobin got into the act. 

"Bernard," he said, "I'm delighted to learn that after being a non-partisan businessman for 10 years, I'm not even on a treadmill right now, but my heart rate has shot up to 160 after listening to you." 

In 1995, Tobin (then a federal cabinet minister) was one of those who urged Canadians to get on planes and trains, go to Montreal, and demonstrate The Rest of Canada's love for Quebec. The federalist side carried that '95 referendum by just 1%. 

In those days, Tobin was in full rhetorical flight, fighting separatists and as he calls it, being one of "the gladiators, the generals of yesterday's battles." 

Today, he has no animus for separatists. "They're in love with a beautiful dream. They don't want to shatter Canada. They want to create their own country. But the debate has passed them by."

Tobin calls the results of the last federal election a "seismic shift" in Quebec politics. Neither of the traditional federalist parties (Liberals, Conservatives) benefited from the meltdown of the Bloc Quebecois. Quebecers seemed to be asking different questions, not the old familiar should we stay or should we go. Tobin says the big issues today are: 

1. eliminating school boards.  2. health care.  3. economic development. 

Now he's looking for political leaders who will "speak to the priorities of citizens today, not the battles of yesterday." 

Just as Landry was provocative from the separatist side of the equation, Ian Brodie was similarly so from the federalist side. Brodie, a former chief of staff for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, says the sponsorship scandal was responsible for a resurgence of separatist sentiment in Quebec. 

"How do we kill off the threat of separatism?" he asks.  "More good, clean govenrment, economic growth, the (House of Commons) resolution recognizing Quebecers as a nation, and the marginalization of those who want to stir up trouble." 

That brought Landry back into the mix with a question about history. 

"How did my former law professor, Pierre Trudeau, patriate the Constitution against the unanimous vote of the Quebec National Assembly? The Liberal Party lost Quebec forever because of that."

Then it was Tobin's turn. "Bernard will never convince me. And Meech Lake would never convince him to give up his beautiful dream. But we must listen to those trying to build a civil society and have prosperous families.

"Would you accept any federal representation speaking for Quebec?" Tobin asked Landry. "I say no, and that's the fundamental divide." 

That brought Brodie back in. "The Quebec Question has created a cottage industry of constitutional experts who wanted to keep this issue alive. We have to break the monopoly of the Laurentian Concensus. I have a lot of friends in Alberta who agree that Pierre Trudeau was a bastard. So let's get on with things."

Apparently, Landry agreed with Brodie's view of Trudeau: "One of the first things we'll do when we become an independent country is change the name of that airport!" he said to laughs. 

Enter Brian Tobin: "Ian, don't try to be too pure on this. Some politicians in this country have been known to talk about firewalls." 

However, Brodie tried to make the point that "a reversion to a debate about Quebec's status in Canada will damage the Quebec economy. The overhang of uncertainty hurt the country, but it especially hurt Quebec. Now, Montreal is having a renaissance," Brodie says, because the separation issue for now has gone away. 

At the end of the debate, Daniel Paille, the new leader of the Bloc Quebecois, rushed to confront Brodie. 

"When you talk like that, you help us," he said of his fellow separatists. 

"You have a dream," Brodie told him. "But I just want to raise my family."  Brodie later told me it was ironic that Paille confronted him, given that it was the Harper government in 2007 that hired Paille to clean up the public procurement process, which had gone astray during the sponsorship scandal. 

Has The Quebec Question gone away? For now, it has. Our deficits are too big. Our fears about the future are too strong. The next generation just wants a job, not more talk about Quebec's signature on the Constitution. 

But as any intelligent watcher of Canadian history will know, this issue really never goes away.  And some day, some brave (or foolish) politician will no doubt try, once again, to finish the job that Pierre Trudeau and the premiers of 1982 started, that Brian Mulroney and eight premiers tried to improve upon in 1990 with Meech Lake, and again in 1992 with the Charlottetown Accord, and that no one has dared touch ever since.