One of the fun things about moving to Quebec as an anglophone Ontarian were the looks I'd get.  The guy at the bank, the woman behind the counter at the health department, new neighbours.

Like my dog wondering if she's just heard the word "treat", their heads would all get the same familiar tilt.  "Wh—why are you doing this?  No one does this."  You could see it in their eyes, "Alright, pal.  If this is really what you want."

I bring all of this up, after more than two years of living in Montreal, because our premier, Philippe Couillard, has said he's ready to bring Quebec formally into the constitution.  Which would be a nice way to acknowledge the province already operates under the constitution and is a province in Canada.

Which might be making you, dear reader, wonder, "Wh—why are you doing this?  Why now?  God, just let us live our lives."

Bringing Quebec into the constitutional fold would, of course, do the most dreaded of things in this country, re-open the constitution.  Because, this province wouldn't just sign onto the document as it stands, we'd like some changes.  There's more nuance to it than this, but Quebec has five central demands: recognition of Quebec as a distinct society, federal spending power limits, guaranteed Supreme Court representation, a constitutional veto right, and increased immigration control.

But to get that far, the other provinces are going to want to have their say.  Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall wants to revisit an equalization formula that he seems to think is too generous to Quebec.  Alberta PC leader Jason Kenney was quick to chime in agreement.  Who even knows would happen with B.C. once they sort out their whole mess.  And on and on.

Everyone will want something, and don't you people remember Meech Lake, Charlottetown?  My god.  (For the record, I do not.  I was five when the Charlottetown referendum went down, and I have zero recollection of it.)

Besides, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he wants no part of opening up the constitution.  But, even if he did, I don't think any of this national nightmare stuff matters.  Because at the end of Couillard's proposed consultations, nothing will come of this.  This is, like all things, a political play.  The heart of all this is what is so broken at the heart of Quebec politics, whether the province should be a country of its own.  Everything in this place turns, eventually, to the question of whether Quebec should separate from Canada.

You've probably heard how corrupt this province is, and you might even remember the Charbonneau Commission from a while back.  The details of what was found in the endless days of testimony aren't what was important, but generally speaking many high-level provincial Liberals ended up with a certain stink about them.

So you might wonder, with all this smell, how come the Liberals managed to regain power after only one term out of office.  It's pretty simple: The Parti Québécois' star candidate, the billionaire Pierre Karl Péladeau, raised his fist at his introductory press conference and pledged his support for the cause of sovereignty.

The PQ had made a point of not making a point of sovereignty, and practically overnight what looked like a cakewalk of an election turned into an abysmal failure.  Why?  Because outside of an aging core of PQ diehards, few people actually want to separate.  Even though Couillard was a new leader, he was going to have a hell of a time convincing Quebecers that the Liberal Party deserved to be back in the big chair after only a few years in the wilderness.  Instead, the only steadfast federalist party in the province ran away with the thing.

It's hard to look at Quebec politics through a lens any less existential.  Fights over road paving contracts seem so small when compared to whether Canada should continue to exist.

And this is why you in the rest of the country shouldn't feel too alarmed when you see Couillard taking his constitution show on the road over the coming months.  The current PQ leadership has said flat out they aren't looking for a referendum any time soon.  But once the idea of putting Quebec in the constitution in some formal way might just be enough to relight the PQ's sovereigntist instincts.

That's why Canada shouldn't worry too much about the constitutional rattlings coming from Quebec.  It's not a show for you, it's a show for us.