The Fight for CanadaFinancial Post is that separatism is a full-blown conspiracy to illegally destroy Canada and that the federal government and Quebec Liberals’ lassitude and outright appeasement virtually guarantee the success of the scheming and immoral ideologues who currently run Quebec.

The book distils my anxiety, not because she convinces me entirely of blatant separatist racism, or their willingness to systematically deny human and democratic rights, or that language laws are a form of ethnic cleansing. She might consider me too “polite” to buy into these dark assertions, which emanate principally from anglophone and Native rights activists who have more than one agenda. Nor does her suggestion of federal Liberal complicity cause me great concern. How and when the federal government chose to support Guy Bertrand’s court challenge on the constitutional legality of a unilateral Quebec declaration of sovereignty relate to strategy and timing, not to any lack of understanding of the importance of Bertrand’s courageous action.

No, my gut tells me that if Francis’s meandering, often personal voyage of discovery into the seamier side of the sovereigntist movement has only discovered a few unassailable truths, then Canada has indeed reached a fundamental turning point in dealing with the convinced and intelligent separatist elite. The PQ may indeed have pre-empted and discredited any of the generous tactics and demonstrations of affection we all assumed could win the hearts and minds of Quebeckers – from official federal bilingualism to the giant referendum unity rally in Montreal, to perhaps even the recognition of Quebec as a “distinct society.”

This is why I am nervous. Two generations have trusted francophone federal leaders to “handle” the Quebec situation. Now there is evidence, and Francis has been tireless in presenting it in her columns and now in this book, that the PQ leadership is manipulating fatigued but proud Quebec francophones towards sovereigntists’ political “solutions,” employing questionable means to achieve its ends, and that their worst deceptions often go unchallenged.

“Canadians must now insist that their leaders fight by staring down the separatists,” Francis states at the end of her book. The business writer turned militant is right. Fighting for Canada is an important book because, even if you can’t buy all her paranoia, you put it down a lot more fearful about Canada’s future.