Parti Québécois

Tries to cool the rampant election speculation in the province.

QUEBEC — It can still go either way, but Premier Pauline Marois and some of her ministers appear to be trying to put the brakes on talk of an autumn provincial election.

“Maybe the leader of the second opposition party wants to go into an election,” Marois fired across the National Assembly floor Wednesday at Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault.

“It’s not our case.

“We believe there are many challenges to tackle in Quebec and that is what we have been working on for a while now.”

Marois was reacting to Legault’s accusations that the government is deliberately keeping the debate on the Charter of Quebec Values alive because it is useful to its electoral ambitions.

He called on Marois to “get on with it,” table the charter bill, negotiate a compromise with the other parties and allow Quebec to focus on other more pressing issues.

“Mme. Marois is deliberately dragging out the debate to stimulate the bickering, a division which is to nobody’s advantage,” Legault told reporters later after tabling his own, more moderate, charter proposal.

“I think Mme. Marois would rather debate charters then public finances and the economy. She has floated several balloons and would like to go to the polls before they deflate.”

He said Democratic Institutions Minister Bernard Drainville should stay home from this weekend’s election strategy meeting of the Quebec cabinet at the Auberge Lac Taureau and write his bill.

But there is a logic to Marois’s strategy, eventhough she has given mixed signals over the past few weeks about an actual election.

Polls show opinion in Quebec is increasingly polarized, with anti-charter people siding with the Liberals and pro-charter folks — particularly the vote-rich francophone population — siding with the Parti Québécois.

While that explains why the CAQ — which has a middleof-the-road approach to the charter issue — has slipped to a mere 15 per cent in the polls, the PQ is nearing the sweet spot where it can safely call an election.

But the party is not quite there yet, even though it is preparing in case Marois gives the green light. Campaign poster pictures have been taken, buses booked, target swing ridings identified.

With 54 seats, the PQ only needs nine more to form a majority.

The latest CROP poll done for La Presse shows there is movement but a fall vote remains a risky business.

That may explain why some ministers are telling everyone to cool their jets.

“I think the voters don’t want an election,” deputy premier François Gendron, the dean of the National Assembly, said on his way into a meeting of the caucus Wednesday.

“I’m allowed to say this. We have piles and piles of work to do, on all kinds of fronts.

“You need a reason to go into an election. I don’t see one. I think we (the government) should live a little. We should harvest the fruits of the policies we presented. There’s no hurry.”

Moments later, Jean-François Lisée, the minister of international affairs and Montreal, waded in.

“We have tons of things to do, we’re not in a hurry to go to the voters,” Lisée said.

“It’s true, I am eager to be a majority, but at this moment we are governing. It’s (an election) not a national emergency.”

But Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard called on Marois to end the suspense.

“The day Mme. Marois herself gives a signal, positive or negative, we’ll believe her and we’ll know where we are going,” Couillard told reporters.

“Until this is the case, it would be irresponsible for me, as a party leader, to not get ready. We don’t control this part of the agenda.”