René Lévesque and Pierre Elliott Trudeau were characterized quite appropriately in the 1970s lead up to Quebec's May 1980 Referendum on secession as two scorpions in a bottle! They articulated their respective positions succinctly and clearly. They also understood and respected their opponent's position and carried out their political battles in a democratic manner. On referendum day a majority of Québécois and Quebecers rejected Lévesque's option of Quebec's political secession of Quebec from the Canadian Federation with continued economic ties as unrealistic and far too risky. Now that the Parti Québécois is in power and on the verge of gaining a majority in the next election, how will the new scorpions in a bottle, Marois and Harper, respond to the upcoming challenge of a third referendum on secession?Until now PM Harper has had a relatively easy ride with the perennial and primordial issue of national unity, the role of the Québécois majority and the French-Canadian and Acadian minority communities within Canada. The stressful cleavages on national unity front that Harper has quite deliberately fuelled and exploited in order to achieve and retain power since 2006 are those of religion, ethnicity, class, gender and region.  At different times one or more of these historical cleavages have been a serious challenge to national unity. Canadians have been far too tolerant of their politicians for exploiting these cleavages.  But Canadians are resilient and determined people. Canadians were able to overcome the self-serving shenanigans of their political leaders, federal and provincial, thereby preventing the sundering of Canada into smithereens.But these are lesser cleavages. The only cleavage that is capable of sundering Canada is a dynamic and well-lead Québécois secessionist movement that is capable of exploiting internal and external crises. Until now, Harper has not had to deal with this thorny issue. Why? Following the second Quebec referendum in 1995 in which the secessionist forces lost by a mere 50,000 votes, the Québécois secessionist movement and its political spear bearers, the Parti Québécois and the Bloc Québécois in House of Commons, went into a prolonged secular decline. The Supreme Court of Canada's 1998 landmark Reference re Secession of Quebec decision and PM Chrétien government's Clarity Act, 2000, both of which were accepted by a majority of Québécois, contributed to this decline.It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Québécois secessionist movement is once again on the rise. Why? There are converging internal and external reasons for this development. Thanks to the Great Recession, which is still underway, the Quebec economy is continuing its prolonged secular decline. This factor has put enormous stresses and strains on all three Quebec political parties and successive Liberal and PQ governments. Unemployment rates remain unusually high in Quebec, especially among the younger generation and good paying jobs are few and far between. Small town rural Quebecers have been especially hard hit. As with the rest of Canada, there are no easy solutions on the horizon. Compounding this pervasive and corrosive economic crisis is a widening and deepening social and political crisis brewing within Quebec's majority Francophone community.At the heart of this potentially dangerous social and political crisis are the highly explosive issues of ethnicity, multiculturalism and religion. Indeed, the nationalist and secessionist Québécois political and intellectual elites have been at war with the concept and reality of multiculturalism since Prime Minister Trudeau set up a Multiculturalism Directorate 1971 and then entrenched the recognition of multiculturalism in Section 27 of the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  Jean-Francois Lisée, PQ Minister of International Relations, La Francophonie and External Trade, leads the ideological onslaught on multiculturalism because, as he contends, it threatens the very survival of the Québécois nation.The Parti Québéc government, lead by hard-liner Pauline Marois, is desperate to win a majority government in the next election. Doing so will enhance the PQ's power and resources to create winning conditions for a third referendum on secession. Premier Marois' minority PQ government has revived the Québécois secessionist movement by exploiting this convergence of economic and social crises. Rather than addressing urge economic problems, Marois' government has deliberately focussed its resources and energy on the integration and accelerated assimilation of large numbers of long established and more recent immigrants, who belong to diverse ethnocultural religious minorities, into the majority Québécois society.Marois' PQ government, pursuing what some have characterized as Southern style Dog-whistle politics, is determined to put into law a populist Charter of Québécois Values (now retitled in Bill 60, La Chartre de la laïcité et de neutralité religieuse de l”État…) This Charter is deliberately designed to severely limit the religious rights of members of Quebec's established and new ethnocultural religious communities. Both the highly respected Quebec Bar Association, which has 22,000 members, and the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse du Québec (CDPDJ), which oversees the implementation of the 1975 Quebec Charter of Rights, have denounced Bill 60 as an unconstitutional. Why?  Both organizations demonstrate clearly that Bill 60 mandates the Quebec legislature to enable the collective rights of the Québécois majority to trump the constitutionally entrenched religious rights of Quebec's ethnocultural minorities. As recent polls reveal, the Marois PQ government's populist Bill 60 is working to the political benefit of the Parti Québécois. The PQ is now tied with the Liberal Party of Quebec in the polls and has a good chance of winning a majority in the next election.This probability poses a very serious problem for Prime Minister Harper and all Canadians. If Marois calls a snap referendum on Quebec secession, which she is apt to do, how will Harper react? He and his Reformers are well known for their hard-line position on the Quebec secession issue. If Québécois voters opt for secession in a third referendum by a vote of 50% plus one, Reformers always argued that the state of Quebec should be allowed to leave but on the terms and conditions set out by the Canadian government and passed by Parliament. Unlike Pierre Trudeau, who had a very solid base of political support among Francophone federalists in Quebec, Harper has virtually no political traction in this community. Indeed, a strong majority of Francophone Quebecers have nothing but contempt and disdain for Harper and his government. To ensure that the federalist forces have any hope of winning the third referendum on Quebec secession, the Conservative Party caucus would have to scramble to replace Harper with a putative leader capable of appealing effectively to the hearts and minds of the Québécois and Québécoises.  If the CP caucus fails to do so, it is highly probable that the sundering of Canada would be the only likely outcome of a fight between two hard-line scorpions, Marois and Harper.Michael Behiels, Emeritus Professor, University of Ottawa. He has written and lectured extensively on Canadian political affairs, with a particular focus on political, ideological and constitutional development pertaining to the Canadian federal system and Quebec's role within the federation. His latest co-edited book is The State in Transition: Challenges for Canadian Federalism (Invenire Books, 2011).