Duceppe exchanges views with then Prime Minister Jean Chretien during the 2000 Election debate. (CP PHOTO/Tom Hanson) Duceppe applauds Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard at a party fund raiser in Montreal on Aug 28, 2000. (CP PHOTO/Andre Forget)

Duceppe ready to ride Bloc's wave of popularity

CTV.ca News Staff
April 21, 2004 1:53 PM ET

Just a few short months ago, Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe seemed doomed.

His party was drifting into obscurity, his MPs were defecting in droves to provincial politics and a high profile former Bloc MP, Jean Lapierre, emerged from retirement to join the Liberals calling the Bloc irrelevant and obsolete.

But then, like a gift from heaven, came the sponsorship scandal.

Known as "les commandites" in Quebec, the scandal has deeply eroded support for the Liberals in Quebec and given the Bloc a much-needed boost. Quebec voters, furious with how the scandal has tainted their province's image, are promising revenge in the next election.

A recent Ipsos-Reid poll found support for the Bloc in Quebec has risen to 45 per cent - 15 points higher than support for the Liberals.

While Duceppe, 56, must be pleased with the Bloc's resurgence, he may suspect it likely has little to do with him. Sure, his party has been relentless in its attacks against the Liberals and has helped to expose much of the sponsorship scandal. But the Bloc's popularity rarely has anything to do with Duceppe, says Michael Behiels, a history professor at the University of Ottawa.

"When Quebecers vote for the Bloc, they are not voting for Duceppe. They are voting for the ideas the party represents," Behiels told CTV.ca. "If they vote for the Bloc, it's almost always a protest vote against the current federal government."

When it comes to whom voters would choose as their leader, polls in Quebec show that Prime Minister Paul Martin runs way ahead of Duceppe -- even with voters seething at the Liberals.

"Duceppe is not seen as someone who could ever be prime minister," Behiels says.

In recent years, Duceppe and the Bloc have been floundering. The party's goals have seemed less relevant for many Quebecers. The economy is doing well, and even the hard-core sovereigntists recognize that the support needed to win secession is gone. With two referendums behind them, most Quebecers are not interested in talking about separation - at least for now.

"This is typical of the kind of ebb and tide of Quebec secessionism," says Behiels.

"And the tide has gone out for the moment."

Duceppe is savvy enough to know not to push the secession issue. Instead, he will campaign on old-fashioned Quebec nationalism, pushing for Quebec's rights in Ottawa with the slogan "Because We're Different."

That's not to say that Duceppe himself has abandoned the secession cause. No matter what the federal government promises to Quebec in terms of transfer payments and acknowledgement of the Quebec culture, Duceppe is almost certainly never going to be dissuaded from secession.

Duceppe's ties to sovereignty can be traced back to his childhood in Montreal. The Bloc leader has said he often endured taunts from anglophones during his school years, and resented listening to "God Save the Queen" before hockey games at the Montreal Forum.

He studied political science at the University of Montreal before his dissatisfaction with the status quo led him to work with the Communist Workers' Party in the late 70s. Duceppe now says that working with the communist movement was "a mistake," but a mistake made in the quest for change.

In 1977, Duceppe became a union negotiator for Confederation des Syndicats Nationaux, the Confederation of National Trade Unions, and earned a reputation for his passion for hard work.

According to those who know him, Duceppe is intelligent, disciplined and utterly focused on his goals. He is renowned for his willingness to work hard -- perhaps too hard, say those who have accused him of sometimes being too intense and humourless.

In 1990, a Tory MP named Lucien Bouchard took notice of Duceppe. When the Meech Lake constitutional deal fell apart and Bouchard formed the Bloc Quebecois, he sought out Duceppe and urged him to run for his new party in a byelection.

Buoyed by his reputation as a labour leader and perhaps a little by the name of his father -- the well-known Montreal actor, Jean Duceppe -- Gilles Duceppe became the federal party's first elected MP.

Over the next three years, Duceppe helped Bouchard and the quickly-expanding Bloc to drum up enough support to run candidates in most Quebec ridings in the 1993 election. With anger at the then-governing Tories raging, the Bloc Quebecois won 54 seats and became a formidable force in federal politics.

Bouchard left the Bloc in 1995 after the failed Quebec referendum to become premier. Two years later, Duceppe became the new leader of the Bloc and was almost immediately forced into a federal election. Despite his inexperience, his party won a respectable 44 seats. But support slipped further in the 2000 election. His party won only 38 seats and Duceppe was criticized for ineffective campaigning

When Duceppe came to Ottawa almost 15 years ago, he didn't expect the Bloc be around long before it would achieve its goal of Quebec sovereignty.

He was wrong.

"Duceppe has certainly failed in his mission to withdraw Quebec from the federation," Behiels says. "That's likely been very depressing for him."

What may be even more depressing is that the Bloc under Duceppe's leadership has withered, particularly in the last year or two.

Many of the die-hard separatists within the party have defected to join the action democratique du Quebec. The ADQ is a provincial party of conditional federalists, or "soft separatists" who want to work with Ottawa to reopen the constitutional question. The Bloc no longer serves their purpose and they believe they can better work at the provincial election to achieve their goals.

Beheils says the defections are less a statement on Duceppe's leadership and more of an indication of the party's relevance.

"It's simply a reflection of the reality of the Quebec political climate at the moment. It's a reflection that the Bloc is beginning to come apart."

For the moment, the tide has now once again turned in Duceppe's favour. The sponsorship crisis has dropped into Duceppe's lap and sent voters over to the Bloc by default. The timing couldn't be better.

Duceppe is showing that sometimes the best way to get ahead is to do nothing.

What remains to be seen is whether Duceppe can hold onto his seats and even earn a few more. If he can, he'll have saved his leadership -- at least momentarily -- and put off the question of the relevance of a separatist party for another day.