Martin will do well not to underrate Duceppe
If there is another Quebec referendum anytime soon, Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe will be the man to beat. He may turn out to be as tough a proposition for bewildered federalists as the charismatic Lucien Bouchard. Many Canadians were surprised by Duceppe’s strong performance in the 2004 televised leaders’ debates. The fact that the English- language media and the Bloc tend to mutually ignore each other went some way to turn the sovereignist leader into the revelation of the debates.
It is easier to dismiss Duceppe as a circumstantial byproduct of Liberal mismanagement than to address the reality of his rise as the enduring star of the sovereignty movement. But that is also a strategic mistake that might cost the Liberals Quebec in the coming election and federalists the country in a referendum.
In this election, Duceppe is the senior and most accomplished leader on the ballot.
While Paul Martin has shrunk since his glorious beginnings 24 months ago, while Stephen Harper has been unable to break out of his rigid frame so far, while the jury is still out on Jack Layton, Duceppe has gone from being an object of relative ridicule in his first campaign in 1997 to what a commentator described last week as the closest thing Quebec has to a secular saint.
Like Jean Chrétien, Duceppe has thrived on being underestimated. Lacking some of the usual qualities that designate someone as a natural leader, he has made up for his shortcomings with persistence and hard work. On any given question, Duceppe is likely to be as strong or stronger on substance than on rhetoric.
Like Ed Broadbent, he has grown on the public in the process.
Like Jean Charest, he brings to Quebec circles a rare hands- on feel for the rest of Canada.
Unlike Jacques Parizeau, Bernard Landry and Bouchard, Duceppe does not hail from the generation that launched the Quebec sovereignty movement.
His commitment to sovereignty is grounded in notions of social justice rather than language grievances.
Like André Boisclair, his natural environment is the multi- ethnic milieu of downtown Montreal, not the more homogeneous communities of small- town Quebec.
That has allowed Duceppe to push the front line of the sovereignty debate right into the ethnic trenches of Montreal.
It is a sign of the times, not only the December climate, that the Bloc election tour did not venture outside Montreal until yesterday.
Like no past campaign, this one is being fought almost exclusively on Liberal territory.
If Martin’s entourage understood what makes Quebec tick half as well as Duceppe’s palace guard has come to understand the rest of Canada, the Liberals would realize what they are up against. They would realize that Duceppe’s bonnetwearing days are long behind him. They would understand that a Liberal campaign based on name- calling and fear- mongering is as likely to backfire on them as save their collective skins. But rarely has a prime minister of Canada had so little presence in Quebec as Martin — and never one whose political base is in the province. Two years ago, Martin was widely seen as a sovereignist nemesis. Instead, he has helped turn Duceppe into a phoenix arisen out of the sponsorship ashes and now he may be setting federalism up for another Liberal- inspired hit. Duceppe will not be caught saying so in public, but in this election he is seeking to break through the 50 per cent barrier in the popular vote, a feat no sovereignist leader has ever accomplished.
Martin, for his part, has upped the ante by turning the entire affair into a referendum on another referendum rather than a debate on the postsponsorship environment. As a result, if the Liberals lose their Quebec gamble, Canada could wake up the day after the election with a dwarfed prime minister facing a largerthanlife sovereignist foe. Chantal Hébert’s national affairs column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. chebert@thestar.ca.