"I suspect that the First Nations peoples and the Anglophones of Canada will soon demand the same recognition."

Um - don't the First Nations already have that recognition? What are they called again? Oh yeah - the First NATIONS.

"Harper has opened a huge can of worms" - Harper did NOT open this can of worms. In my understanding, it was opened this time by Michael Ignatieff, under pressure from the Quebec youth wing of the Liberals. Then the Bloc Quebecois tried to get the jump on Ignatieff by making a plan to introduce a bill recognizing Quebec as a nation. Now Harper's got the jump on both of them, and has neatly stepped out of the corner they were both trying to paint him into, by introducing a bill to recognize "the Quebecois" as "a nation within a united Canada". I've never been a big Harper fan, but I'm willing to give credit where it's due. He's handled this touchy matter in a neat way, and hopefully this will return the issue to the back burner where it belongs.

"Mulroney tried to appease the separatists and that ended with Lucien Bouchard and the nearly successful referendum. Harper doesn't appear to be a very good student of history."

Harper is not trying to "appease the separatists"; he's trying to hang onto his Quebec federalists, and to give them some ammunition to use against the separatists - the Que. federalists can say to those sitting on the fence, "Look, we are recognized as a nation, now vote federalist". This does nothing for the real separatists except piss them off, because Harper's got one up on them.