If you're interested in Canadian politics — or federal politics anywhere, really — then you should read Reed Scowen's Time To Say Goodbye. It's a powerful, persuasive argument for divestiture of Quebec from Canada. I don't agree with his thesis, but I wholeheartedly recommend his book. It is well-written and brief.

Scowen is a former civil servant and member of Quebec's National Assembly. He's also, as he painstakingly points out in a preface, an anglophone; and, as the promotional blurbs for his book assert, this puts him in an interesting position in relation to his subject. Like many postcolonial writers, he is both insider and outsider. Perhaps this delicate position provides him with a perspective that is worth carefully considering.

Scowen's book is a mixture of refutation and argument, designed to propel Canadians with various beliefs about Quebec to the ultimate question of the book: is it time to ask Quebec to leave confederation? These refutations and arguments are based on an apparently broad knowledge of the history and institutions of Quebec, Canada and confederation (I say apparently because my own knowledge of these things is poor).

Scowen moves easily between theoretical argument and practical rhetoric, which eases the reader's growing concerns about the consequences of political separation of Quebec and Canada.

If you care about Canada, you should read this book. It should take only one night.