Those who want to save the union will draw some comfort from the turnaround that took place in the final hours of the Quebec independence referendum in 1995.
On polling day, with a 93% turnout, Quebec narrowly voted 50.5% to 49.5% to remain a Canadian province.
Kamensky, 49, turned out for the Quebec Nordiques, Colorado Avalanche, the Rangers, the Dallas Stars and the New Jersey Devils, and was the scorer of one of the most famous goals in NHL history.
But Ann Sargeant, formerly of the Volunteer Centre of Toronto, now retired and waiting to see acclaimed Quebec drama Le Demantelement, sees it differently.
"In English Canada, culture's nice to have – in French Canada, it's crucial," says Simon Brault, head of the Arts Council of Canada, talking about a similar dynamic between French-speaking Quebec and the rest of the country.
In an echo of the appeal to Quebec to remain in Canada in the final days of the 1995 referendum, the prime minister said: "This is our home, and I could not bear to see it torn apart".
He and his brothers mainly spoke Spanish, but then they were living near Quebec.
A man familiar with the bruising battles for independence in Quebec – the Canadian governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney – set the scene at the end of January for the hardening of the Treasury's position.
Three days before the vote, an estimated 100,000 Canadians, mostly from outside Quebec, travelled to Montreal for a "unity rally" to plead with the voters to stay in Canada.
Ipsos Mori executives had also briefed Whitehall that the last Quebec independence referendum suggested that polling figures could exaggerate support for yes – Ipsos Mori staff in Canada had advised their UK colleagues to assume that on polling day, undecided voters would break two to one for no; that had been the experience in Quebec, where the polls had over-estimated the pro-independence vote.
Douglas Alexander, a former protege who fell out with Brown over the abortive plans to call a UK general election in 2007, experienced something of a reconciliation with his mentor, whose role he likened to that played by the Quebecois former Canadian prime ministers Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Jean Chrétien in the closing stages of the 1980 and 1995 Quebec referendums.
