OTTAWA—Canada has clearly taken a side in the looming Scottish referendum — against independence for Scotland — even as the Yes forces are gaining ground in the campaign over potential separation from Britain.

In the past week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird have both made statements in favour of Britain and Scotland remaining united after the Sept. 18 vote.

“We think the United Kingdom is better united as they built one of the greatest societies in the history of the world,” Baird said in an interview with CTV’s Don Martin this week. “They are a great friend and partner. So we think they are better together.”

“Better together” is the slogan of the No side, which has been scrambling to fight back against the momentum of the Yes forces in recent days.

Baird’s comments were similar to those made by Harper when visiting London earlier this month — leaving no doubt that this is now Canada’s official line as Scotland moves ever closer to its separation showdown.

The No side also got some Canadian-related help this week when Mark Carney, the former Bank of Canada governor who now heads the Bank of England, slammed the door shut on Scottish nationalists’ vows to keep the U.K. pound in an independent Scotland.

“A currency union is incompatible with sovereignty,” Carney said in a question-and-answer session after a speech to a trade-union congress in Liverpool.

Canada’s own struggles with Quebec sovereignty ambitions would seem to be an argument in favour of the federal government taking a strong, pro-unity line at home and abroad.

And the same federalist-separatist fault lines are making themselves felt across the Atlantic as Scotland goes through a referendum campaign with eerie parallels to Canada’s own 1995 campaign that came nail-bitingly close to Quebec separation in the final weeks.

Representatives of the U.K. government have been quietly consulting academic and political veterans of the national-unity debates here in the lead-up to the Scottish referendum.

Meanwhile, three Parti Quebecois MNAs plan to be in Scotland for the referendum and PQ leadership contender Bernard Drainville visited this summer to see what lessons Quebec could learn from the Scottish separatist movement.

Drainville praised the simplicity of Scotland’s referendum question in interviews he gave after his two-week trip. “We paid a price for our lack of clarity,” Drainville said in one interview. “In Scotland, I am seeing the benefits of being clear.”

Western University professor Robert Young, who will also be headed to Scotland to observe the referendum, says the federal government is taking a small risk in choosing a side in the referendum, especially if the Scottish nationalists prevail.

“Well, the Scots won’t be happy,” Young said. However, former U.S. president Bill Clinton spoke out in favour of Canadian federalism before the 1995 referendum and current U.S. President Barack Obama has also stated that he’s in favour of Scotland and Britain remaining united.

Young says he’s surprised by how much the No side in the Scottish referendum has been leaning on dry, economic arguments and dire warnings, ceding the powerful territory of emotion and narrative to the Yes side.

“They’ve made no appeal to fellow feeling, and history and future together,” Young said. In some ways, he says, it’s similar to the early dynamics of the 1995 referendum campaign in Canada, when federalists thought a low-key approach would work best.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Despite some of the obvious parallels to Canada’s national-unity drama, however, it’s far from certain that Canadians’ sentiments about Scottish independence precisely match collective opinion here about Quebec separation.

In a nation where nearly 5 million Canadians claim Scottish origins, opinion here could be as divided as it currently is in Scotland. A 2012 Forum Research poll showed that 49 per cent of Canadians supported Scottish independence, compared to only 19 per cent who said they were in favour of Quebec independence.

Read more about: