that's not the question, the question is about doing a referendum cause Putin say that he take care about what people want... There will be referendum in Quebec and Scotland you know ?
John Chretien, who surprisingly never went to jail (over many things), was busted years after in embezzlement and gerrymandering to make sure Quebec would lose that referendum (it lost by a measly 0.0058%). The same tricks will probably be utilized in Catalonia and Scotland and nobody will contest the results.
Canada would be a very different country if Quebec had left like it was supposed to. Country would had probably been broken up into four parts. There would probably be no Chinese colonization of the country, for instance (not saying that is a good or a bad thing but stating the facts, immigration policy in Canada was always dictated by Ottawa who wanted a bigger stronger country). Ontario would be a landlocked banana republic with no industry (well it's already that minus the landlocked). The Maritimes and Westcania would be a Saudi Arabia due to Oil.
Quebec would had been the second biggest loser. Instead Quebec stayed in Canada and they get free daycare, free university and free everything at the expense of the oil producing regions. Ontario, even though it's a $hithole, people there can relocate to other provinces whereas if Canada had broken up Ontario would had been a giant prison full of poor people (like Moldova or Ukraine).
See RSFSR for example of federative state as a subject of federative treaty. 
