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MONTREAL – Just when it seemed impossible for Quebec’s corruption scandal to get worse, Montrealers awoke Monday to news that their mayor — the man who promised to clean up the mess — was under arrest on bribery charges. But the arrest of Michael Applebaum, who resigned as mayor Tuesday while protesting his innocence, could prove one crisis too many.

[np_storybar title=”Kelly McParland: Quebec’s ‘distinct society’ riddled with corruption disease” link=”http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/06/18/kelly-mcparland-quebecs-distinct-society-proves-to-be-riddled-with-corruption-disease/”]

Imagine a few thousand votes had gone the other way in 1995, and Quebec’s separatists had won their referendum. Today Quebec could be closing in on its 20th year of independence.

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And what would we have? A small, deeply indebted country cut off from its supply of federal subsidies, its economy weak and state-dominated, its society riddled with corruption from top to bottom, struggling to survive in a much bigger, more successful marketplace uninterested in its cultural worries. Odds are it would be using someone else’s currency, the pragmatic reasoning for that being too strong to ignore. And a key problem would be in keeping its best and brightest at home, the prospects being so much brighter in better-run neighbouring countries.