A few months ago, I was talking to Michael Wernick, the former clerk of the Privy Council, and we wandered onto the subject of Alberta’s secession vote. Mr. Wernick – now the Jarislowsky Chair in public management at the University of Ottawa – said something that’s been stuck in my brain ever since.
Say the referendum delivers a stout margin for the remain side, as polling has predicted, he said: Then what?
