LOSING CONDITIONS

During last year’s election campaign in Quebec, it was often observed that the sovereignty movement was facing its last chance at success for at least a generation. It wasn’t a good chance, mind you. First the Parti Québécois would have to win the election; then it would have to foment as many grievances as possible with Ottawa, in hopes of convincing Quebecers they could never be truly at home in Canada. But as discouraging as the overall polling situation was for a sovereign Quebec, in the age breakdowns it was a horror show.

The younger Quebecers are, the more likely they are to vote Non. The staunchly federalist La Presse twisted the knife in the aftermath of the PQ’s rout with a CROP poll of 18-to-24-year-old Quebecers: Not only would just 31% vote Oui, but only 44% agreed sovereignty was even realistic, while 65% agreed the debate was “outdated” and 68% agreed that being Canadian was part of their identity.

At some level, today’s PQ must be aware of these losing conditions. It is widely accepted that Pierre Karl Péladeau’s fist-pump for separatism, on stage with Pauline Marois in Saint-Jérôme, was a very negative turning point. In the dying days before the vote, as she surveyed the smoldering ruins and charred corpses of her campaign, Ms. Marois herself wished aloud that she hadn’t foregrounded sovereignty so much. While bafflingly late in coming, this was a good instinct. People vote on their priorities. At no point in recent memory has any poll identified sovereignty as a priority among significant numbers of Quebecers. The mystery remains why the PQ ever thought it would work.

Yet to observe the party’s ongoing leadership campaign is to marvel at its seemingly limitless capacity for self-delusion. Ms. Marois’ heirapparent, Mr. Péladeau, is all about sovereignty. Still. That would be the theme of the leadership campaign, he declared upon officially throwing his hat into the ring. “I think it’s clear that I’ve committed to achieving Quebec sovereignty. It is my objective, my only objective,” he said.

It’s as if Stéphane Dion were trying to reclaim the Liberal leadership with a carbon tax as his “only objective.” It’s not just a bad idea; it’s an idea that security should escort from the building. Yet a Léger poll released last week found Mr. Péladeau was the preferred choice for PQ leader among 63% of party supporters. No other candidate scored higher than 10%.

Thankfully for the party, there are voices of reason in and around t he race. Candidate Bernard Drainville has warned that uncer- tainty over the PQ’s referendum intentions was a big part of what cost them government last April. “Pierre Karl has asserted his will to gain independence, I don’t doubt it,” he said last week. “I’m looking forward to seeing how he’s proposing to bring us there.” Candidate Jean-François Lisée made similar comments in a book released last fall, arguing Mr. Péladeau’s mere presence made voters nervous on the national unity file and that the party could no longer afford to waffle on holding a referendum or not. (Mr. Péladeau has said he won’t decide whether to commit to a referendum in the PQ’s first term until the next campaign.)

But these voices of reason have some fairly major blind spots. Mr. Drainville seems to have a handle on one obvious reason the PQ botched the campaign. But when it comes to another highly divisive issue that very few Quebecers prioritize — the PQ’s secularism or “values” charter — he doesn’t seem to have learned anything. His recently unveiled Charter 2.0 is predicated on the (correct, baffling) notion that while Quebecers say they don’t want civil servants wearing religious garb, they also don’t want such civil servants to lose their jobs if they won’t desist. Some politicians would see that for what it is, a no-win situation, and back away slowly. Mr. Drainville instead proposes a grandfather clause: Hijabwearing teachers would be left alone, but hijab-wearing daughters they might have would be barred from the civil service. Is he quite sure that’s controversy-proof ?

The values charter is more popular than sovereignty, at least. A SOM poll conducted last month found 59% of Quebecers think they need one. But that’s what they said a year ago, too, and it didn’t help the PQ one little bit, for the simple reason that almost all of those people care about the economy, jobs, health care, education and government corruption vastly more. Mr. Lisée, meanwhile, who dropped out of the race last month citing the inevitability of Mr. Péladeau’s win, claimed in his book that he wouldn’t even have voted for the Charter he so passionately defended. It was too harsh, he declared, not at all in a timely fashion.

To be fair, 2018 is a long way away. Just because Mr. Péladeau says he’s all about sovereignty now doesn’t mean the PQ couldn’t mount a reasonably compelling campaign under his leadership that doesn’t rest on issues that Quebecers consider irrelevant. For example, if the Liberals keep their nerve on their current economic policies, the PQ could theoretically compete with an anti-austerity message. A notoriously anti-union strike-breaking billionaire plutocrat like Mr. Péladeau would be a very odd choice to lead said campaign. But it makes a lot more sense than sovereignty-and-values approach the party thus far seems determined — doomed — to repeat.

Pierre Karl Péladeau and the Parti Québécois seem determined to repeate their 2014 electoral disaster