Canada

As Québécois, I wholeheartedly disagree with this opinion.

Threats to national unity, principally from Quebec, have also led to further forms of decentralization. The provinces, and especially Quebec, have gained significant authority over matters traditionally belonging to the federal level, including immigration policy, and increasingly over foreign affairs matters like international trade.

Yes, and there are very good historical reasons for this. For one, we don't want to be flooded with anglophone immigration only for the francophone population to become a minority, and suddenly losing our rights as a historical nation of this country. I don't know how manu times I've heard people from the anglophone side of Canada say that we should just dissappear as a nation and just all speak English for practicality's sake. I'm sorry that actual multiculturalism doesn't fit with Canada's view of "multiculturalism".

Additionally, Québec's more progressive values don't always align with those of the rest of Canada. Québec has been called racist for having secularism laws, when it's just a continuation of it's separation of church and state following the quiet revolution, and its liberation from the grip that the catholic church had on the people and governments.

Québec is also the province with the most lakes, and the largest reserve of unsalted water, a precious resource that we want to preserve. Having Canada impose any type of oil exploitation activity over these can threaten that resource. So we'd very much like to keep control over what goes over, under or in those lakes.