Sir: I know there are lots of people in Chatham who have Scottish roots and they could have been praying for Scotland to win the YES vote and leave Britain. It reminded me so much of the times Quebec unsuccessfully voted to leave Canada and I thought of something former prime minister John Diefenbaker said in 1965, two years before I left England to make my home in Canada.
Dief the Chief said, “I cannot visualize Canada without French Canada; I cannot visualize French Canada without Canada. National unity based on equality must be the goal.”
I could say the same about England and Scotland. The Act of Union with Scotland was passed by the English parliament in 1776 and the Union with England Act was passed by the Scottish parliament in 1707. Before that both countries were separate with their own legislatures, but with the same monarch.
As in the case of Quebec, “national unity based on equality must be the goal”.
Stephen Beecroft
Chatham
