Gutcher, I dont think Quebec's Cherest was refering to the few radicals/troublemakers on either sude. What he refered to was the political movement.

His experience (from what I gathered) was that the Quebec separatists viewed a close loss as a win, choosing to look down on the intelligence of those who wanted to continue to be part of a union, and seeing all those voting for separation as intelligent, (and knowing what they voted for). While this is an odd and unreasonable viewpoint-sometimes followers on the extreme edge of a movement have extreme tunnel vision.