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If you’re one of those people who think that Mondays are too early in the week for irony, yesterday really wasn’t your day.

Even as the embers from the precipitate resignation from politics on Friday by Liberal cabinet minister Jacques Daoustcontinued to glow over what he did or didn’t know about the sale of the Rona hardware chain to U.S. based Lowes last February, takeovers nevertheless remained in the news. But it was clear the tone had changed.

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Couche-Tard, the convenience store chain that is every bit as much a Quebec success story as Rona, gobbled up the U.S.-based CST convenience store chain for more than $4 billion. Given the swooning outrage the Rona deal provoked in certain circles of Quebec’s political and chattering classes, you’d think that doing unto the Americans the way they had so recently done unto nous autres would have sparked spontaneous celebrations in Quebec’s cities and towns (or at least its editorial pages and opposition party headquarters). But apart from the usual commentaries from the usual financial analysts over whether the deal would pass muster with the Competition Bureau, the only discernible noise from Quebec’s political circles was the relentless stropping of metaphorical skinning knives in anticipation of Daoust’s possible appearance before National Assembly committee later this week.