Voters Are A Finicky Group

As the Bloc and Doucette are finding out.....

Duceppe may be looking for an exit strategy
The Bloc leader could go after the Parti Québécois job
April 28, 2007
Chantal Hebert

With the Bloc Québécois flagging in the polls and sovereignty on the back burner, Gilles Duceppe is looking like a captain in need of a lifeboat these days. His future in politics may actually hinge on his capacity to jump ship before the next federal election.

The third-place finish of the Parti Québécois in last month's Quebec election has freed Duceppe to move on to other challenges, but it has also made an exit strategy from federal politics a more pressing personal priority.

Had the PQ won the election, he would have been stuck on Parliament Hill for the foreseeable future, striving to advance the sovereignist referendum agenda. But now, rebuilding the provincial party is job one for any leading sovereignist.

While PQ Leader André Boisclair says he plans to stay on in opposition, few believe that he will or should lead the party in another campaign. And with the next Quebec election possibly no more than a year away, time will increasingly be of the essence if the PQ is to change leaders.

According to a report in La Presse this week, Boisclair can count on no more than a handful of loyalists within his reduced caucus. He would hardly be the first PQ leader to be forced out of his job by the party.

Two years ago, Duceppe turned down overtures to move to the Quebec scene, arguing that he could not leave the Bloc in a lurch in an election year. He is unlikely to have any such qualms this time around.

Back then, Duceppe was at the top of his game; he was the most popular sovereignist in Quebec. But even under those auspicious circumstances, he would have had to fight hard to win the PQ leadership.

The crown does not shine as brightly now that the PQ is in third place, but then neither does Duceppe's star. Securing the leadership would not be a cakewalk this time, either. He may be too much of a progressive and too much of a Montrealer for a party that faces its biggest challenges in the more conservative areas of the province.

But at this point, the odds that he would win the PQ leadership have become better than the prospects that the Bloc will do well in the next federal election.

Over the past few months, the Bloc has been polling at historical lows. A growing number of Quebecers question its long-term purpose. At the same time, the PQ defeat has loosened the glue that made the Bloc the most cohesive force on Parliament Hill for more than a decade.

Since the Quebec election, one Bloc MP has left to sit as an independent, in protest over Duceppe's authoritarian style. The party's popular second-in-command, House leader Michel Gauthier, will be gone by summer.

Gauthier's Roberval riding sits at the top of the list of seats Stephen Harper believes he can take in Quebec. In the 2006 federal election, the Conservatives scored their best second-place finish there. Gauthier's upcoming retirement has set the stage for a heated local battle for the Conservative nomination.

Shortly after the Quebec election, Duceppe startled observers when he revealed that the Prime Minister had privately assured him that he did not want to go to the polls any time soon.

That assurance stood in sharp contrast with the election fever that gripped Parliament Hill in the immediate wake of the Quebec vote. But it did come across as a green light for Duceppe to ponder a move out of his federal niche.

Harper would have reasons to want to see the last of Duceppe on the Hill. The Bloc leader has not groomed a successor. There is always a possibility that a faded PQ star could come out of the woodwork to lead the Bloc. But jumping quickly into shoes that were originally meant for walking the short distance between one federal election and a referendum would not come easily to anyone.

In an ideal world for the veteran Bloc leader, there would not be a federal vote this spring and Boisclair would be history before the end of the summer. Under that scenario, Duceppe would not have to lead the Bloc in another campaign.

If he sticks around for the next election and the party does as poorly as some of the polls suggest, Duceppe will be headed for a life outside federal politics soon after, albeit of a quieter kind than the one he currently contemplates.