Option Canada fuss amounts to little   It was in March 1997 when
Gazette reporter Claude Arpin startled the country with a front-
page exclusive about an obscure but well-funded organization
known as Option Canada.    "Unity group waged secret referendum
battle," our headline said, and the story explained "a
$4.8-million federal grant earmarked for the promotion of
Canada's official languages financed an anti-separatist
operation prior to the 1995 referendum, The Gazette has learned.
The Heritage Canada subsidy was awarded to Option Canada, a
Montreal lobby group set up eight weeks before the Oct. 30
referendum vote.  "How the lobby group spent Ottawa's money -
along with an undisclosed amount from anonymous sources -
remains a closely guarded secret ..."  In the decade since
Arpin's scoop, muttering sovereignists have spun Option Canada
into a vast federal conspiracy to subvert the democratic will of
Quebecers to separate. This assiduously nurtured myth is
nonsense on many different counts, and now the cold c