How Quebec sees it,

MONTREAL— There was a time, not long ago, when the Quebec sovereignty movement swore by the model of the European Union. In the lead-up to the 1995 referendum, it provided the template for the project of a post-secession partnership with the rest of Canada.

Back then, most leading sovereigntists sincerely believed in an EU-style Canada-Quebec union based on joint political institutions, a common currency and open borders. They probably still do. Others endorsed the idea strictly for marketing purposes.

Without the adjunct of a partnership offer to the rest of the federation, the sovereignty option would not have had a fighting chance of prevailing in the referendum. In 1995, the Yes camp sold the “partenariat” to sell sovereignty.

Since then, the Parti Québécois has taken its distance from the concept, mostly because it has zero traction elsewhere in Canada.

But the fact remains that a critical number of Quebecers would never pursue sovereignty as an end in itself.

Some sovereigntist thinkers believe the outcome of the Brexit debate and the majority decision of U.K. voters to leave the EU could change that. They think it could have a domino effect on the Quebec-Canada dynamics in three positive ways for their cause.

They hope that the sight of a U.K. majority willing to jump out of the EU without a safety net will embolden more Quebecers to support a leap in the relative unknown in the shape of a clean break from Canada.

They note that, for the second time in as many years, the U.K. has determined that a simple majority is good enough to trigger dramatic political change. (The current federal mantra is that the threshold should be higher.)

The first instance was the vote on Scotland independence in 2014 — an exercise that stands to be repeated now that its voters’ pro-EU vote has been negated by a made-in-England majority.

From the Quebec sovereigntist perspective, a secessionist victory anywhere in western Europe — be it in Scotland or Catalonia — would be an asset as the movement tries to convince Quebecers that the quest for national independence is not outdated.

If all this sounds tenuous, it is because it is.

The U.K. episode is just as likely to remind the majority of Quebecers who resist the prospect of another referendum just how divisive such exercises can be.

Its economic fallout could well harden their collective resolve to avoid a repeat vote on the province’s future.

And then the PQ is struggling with a demographic deficit. A chronic weakness among the younger cohorts of voters is in the process of turning a structural impediment into winning majority victories.

(As an aside, that is a predicament it has in common with the federal Conservatives — the other Canadian political family that boasts prominent supporters of the Brexit outcome).

There is little in the result of the Brexit vote that will help the PQ on the demographics front. It has exposed a deep divide that finds younger U.K. voters on the losing side of the debate.

That outcome is unlikely to inspire a generation that is comfortable with open borders and shared national sovereignty.

By coincidence, the U.K. vote coincided with the start of the Quebec’s Fête nationale celebrations. To say that this year’s edition exhibits a dearth of nationalist ardour is an understatement.

This June 24 holiday finds the sovereignty movement decapitated, with its two main parties — the PQ and the Bloc Québécois — leaderless.

By all accounts, the campaign to find a replacement for Pierre Karl Péladeau features one of the weakest lineups the party has ever been presented with.

The Bloc has postponed the quest for a leader for another year, perhaps because the last time it held a leadership vote an exodus of MPs promptly followed.

The main irritant between Ottawa and Quebec these days involves a tiny frog whose habitat the federal environment department has just intervened to protect from a real estate development.

In so doing, Justin Trudeau’s government overruled its Quebec counterpart.

But while that has elicited outrage among the parties in the national assembly, Quebecers by and large do not seem inclined to rush to the barricades to defend their provincial government’s right to alone decide whether to accelerate the demise of an endangered species. Chantal Hébert is a national affairs columnist. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.