People forget that no country including ours achieved instant democracy but rather advance incrementally on decades long paths of political reform resulting in more accountability to the people by our political masters, more transparency about governing, a rule of law to give us a chance against the state leviathan and a free press able to tell us know what is going on.

It will take decades for the advance of democracy in Hong Kong but it is delusional to expect that the Chinese government and the 1.4 billion people of China will yield political independence to the 7 million people of Hong Kong.

As you suggest, the realistic approach is for the political leaders of HK to abandon demands for independence but push persistently and persuasively - with moral and technical support from leading democracies like Canada - for increasingly democratic norms and processes on a gradual basis.

Or we could send minister Monsef to totally bore and confuse the Beijing government into submission.