Erikka Askeland: In uncertain times, we are stronger together

While they enjoyed a 21-gun salute and a fly-past on Parliament Hill, the majority of Canadians were more likely commemorating the 1867 union of three British colonies with some beers and a barbecue.

But in Quebec the Fte du Canada is probably better known as moving day, a quirk of history peculiar to the French-speaking province when fixed term leases on flats expire.

Usually too busy packing and unpacking to get the burgers on the barbi, the Quebecois instead break out the beers for Saint-Jean Baptiste day on the 24th, with its somewhat ominous catchphrase, "Je me souviens" (I remember), which is also Quebec's provincial motto.

What is it they remember in Quebec? If you ask someone from anglophone Canada on a bad day - perhaps when feeling their hangover from last night's Canada Day party - you might get a flippant response that Quebecers remember to nurse their grudges against the English.

But this would be peevish. Mainly because the movement for Quebec sovereignty is mellowing, like a grandpa on the veranda, who may be sometimes querulous, but is overall satisfied with his lot.

It would have been of interest to quite a few Canadians, but particularly the separatists, that Scotland elected its sovereigntist party in a landslide at the same time the Canadians also voted their Quebec nationalists into near oblivion, opting instead for the left-leaning National Democrats, who are Federalist to their core, but at least led by a francophone.

The shift in French Canadian politics was as astounding to many as the SNP landslide was here. But it may be possible to speculate that appetite for separating among both nations is about the same - relegated to a small, or at least less-than-50-per cent, core - where the majority would rather opt for something just a little better than the current devolved powers allow.

In Quebec this is called souverainet-partenariat (sovereignty association), which is not unlike what we call devo max - which envisages greater economic and cultural devolution, but sharing currency and the military.

Of course, the French Canadian separatists have already had not one but two referendums on the subject.

The last, in 1995, was breathtaking in the narrow margin of its defeat. As a university student in Canada at the time, I recall the government offering to subsidise the air fare of those of us who were able to travel to Montreal to vote "no" to succession. The mind boggles to think how the current Nats would play it if David Cameron spent UK taxpayer's money so obviously to support the union.

But it was Parti Quebecois leader Jacques Parizeau's ungracious post-referendum speech, where he blamed the "vote ethnique" - mainly the province's First Nations and its Jewish community - for losing the election. This laid bare the less than inclusive underbelly of the cause which might have soured the nationalist fervour of those who thought the fight was about the wider language and culture rather than just the French Catholic descendents of the original habitants.

But don't doubt that the Bloc Qubcois, which lost its official party status in May's federal elections, aren't sick with envy at the success of their fellows in Scotland. Who wouldn't be when your power is waning while another fighting a similar fight is waxing so strongly?

But English Canada is not unlike England in its approach to the sovereignty of its constituents - in turns baffled and a bit miffed at the seeming snub. Particularly in the west of Canada, you are more likely to run into the sort of person who thinks Quebec should just "take off, eh?" and resents having to read French on their cereal boxes, as is required by Canada's bilingual laws.

Yet the more liberal minded of them tend to think embarking on a separatist course is, frankly, nuts, in this scary world of economic upheaval, as we are stronger together.

In either Canada or Scotland.