Canada: a country, or a bunch of spoiled, petulant provinces?

CBC At Issue Panelists did their last "show" for the Spring season, last night, rating some of the best and the worst of Canadian political issues, persons and incidents.
Most over-rated politician for some, Gilles Duceppe, because he is guaranteed 50+ seats from any election, out of the province of Quebec, without having to do anything except claim that Ottawa is not doing enough for Quebec. If we look at 50 members, their salaries, their pensions and the balance sheet of their singular claim to existence, "to tear Canada apart" the price seems inordinately high.
Some have argued that by admitting this party to the House of Commons, we have been spared the separation of Quebec from the rest of the country. However, at least one panelist, Chantal Hebert, envisions that, given Premier Charest's extremely low public support, the election of a PQ government at the next Quebec election is not too far-fetched. And then, we could be back into another round of initiatives to separate.
Furthermore, it says here, that there is not another country in the world which would countenance the election of members to the government of those seeking to break up the union of that country! This approach, while presumably within the bounds of the constitution, is demonstrating to the rest of the world that the country will bend over backwards, even bend itself completely "out of shape" to accommodate a group whose single stated purpose is to dismember the country.
In fact, another of the CBC panel's visionings was the balkanization of the Canada Health system, as the provinces act to impose their own individual stamp on the way the system will operate in their respective provinces..with Quebec and Alberta leading the way.
At the grass roots level of the political parties the leadership of all parties is suspect, verging on nit-picking and hypocrisy and yelling about "fake lakes" and discredited Cabinet ministers..and not a word is heard about such a significant proposals as those coming from the GPS Project earlier this week:
to wit:
the proposal of dual citizenship of Canada with China
the turning over of the patrolling of the Artic to NORAD, given that Canada does not have adequate resources to accomplish the mission...
and that's only for starters...
When are the political leaders going to debate substantive, long-range issues and proposals, rather than focussing on the "hot-button" items that provoke knee-jerk and instant responses from the mindless media?
At least Duceppe qualifies as the least hypocritical, given his single stated aim of the break-up of the country...what a dismal picture of our capacity to govern, our capacity to demand better decisions from our leaders and our prospects for making a significant contribution to the debates in the global community.
One has to wonder if we are still a country or have become a cluster of spoiled, petulant provinces at war with the feds over nearly everything.