Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe is living every politician's dream. His party is so popular in Quebec right now, he can do no wrong.

The Bloc already controls 54 of the province's 75 seats, and according to the polls, this election could bring him even more seats.

Of course, little of it has to do with Duceppe himself. Instead, he has the sponsorship scandal to thank.

Known as "le scandale des commandites" in Quebec, the scandal was front and centre in the minds of Quebec voters during the June 2004 election, when they punished the Liberals and handed the Bloc 16 new seats.

This year, with much of the scandal fully exposed through the Gomery inquiry, anger and resentment with the Liberals has only intensified. And that's great news for the Bloc.

Duceppe believes that Bloc supporters are looking to continue punishing the Liberals -- not only because their tax dollars were wasted with the sponsorship program, but because the federal government tried so hard to crush Quebec's aspirations for separatism.

"Quebecers are indignant," Duceppe told a convention of Bloc members in October. "They feel betrayed by these anti-democratic practices."

Quebecers who don't actually support separatism appear poised to vote against Paul Martin's party in protest, says Michael Behiels, a history professor at the University of Ottawa

"Even Liberal supporters feel the party humiliated Quebec," he told CTV.ca. "So if they don't vote for the Bloc, they'll just stay home."

It appears that this election is Duceppe's for the taking. All he has to do is keep his party on an even course and allow the Liberals to sink themselves.

Though Duceppe has been low-key about it in recent years, he has never given up on sovereignty, a cause that has defined him since his childhood in Montreal.

The Bloc leader first became angry with anglophones after enduring taunts during his school years. It wasn't long before he began resenting listening to "God Save the Queen" at 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. Looking back, 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. The party was seen at the time as a temporary entity on the federal scene — the "shock troops" of Quebec independence. How wrong that perception now appears 15 years later.

Bouchard 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.

The often fiery Bouchard left the Bloc in 1995 after the failed referendum to become Quebec premier. Two years later, Duceppe became the new leader of the Bloc and was almost immediately forced into a federal election. Despite his inexperience and an unfortunate photo of him in a hairnet, his party won a respectable 44 seats in the '97 campaign.

But support slipped in the 2000 election and his party held onto only 38 seats.

Still, Behiels believes that Duceppe offers the Bloc leadership qualities that Bouchard never had.

"Bouchard had that manic depressive nature that undid him. Duceppe has a much more even temper. He's willing to do the detailed work, he's patient whereas Bouchard was terribly impatient. Bouchard was ideologically driven, very passionate. Duceppe doesn't have that personality at all."

Over his seven years as leader, Duceppe has emerged as wiser and perhaps shrewder than many may have expected. It was Duceppe, after all, who first began demanding answers in the early days of the sponsorship scandal.

"Duceppe has come a long way when you think back to the early 90s," say Behiels. "He's grown into the job, and become a much better strategist and tactician. He knows how to take advantage of others' weaknesses."

His growth as a leader can also be measured by internal party confidence. Just this past October, Duceppe earned the backing of a startling 96.8 per cent of delegates at the Bloc's convention in Montreal -- the highest since he became leader.

With that kind of support, perhaps that is why he chose not to run for the Parti Quebecois leadership after Bernard Landry stepped down earlier this year.

Many had expected that Duceppe, who still aches for Quebec separation, would seek to take over the provincial party where he would be better positioned to campaign for another referendum.

But Duceppe chose to stay in federal politics. He told reporters that he made the decision because he felt that Ottawa and Quebec City were two equally important fronts in the sovereignty fight and that he could do more for the cause by leading his party into the next federal election.

But observers note there was likely more to the decision for that. For one, there was no apparent successor to take Duceppe's place as Bloc leader and he likely wouldn't have wanted to leave the party in the position he found himself in when he was thrust into the leadership just months before the 1997 federal election.

For another, he may not have wanted to sign on to a party that remains bitterly divided between the old school "pur et dur independantistes," who want to boldly move toward independence, and those Pequistes who espouse a gradual transition to sovereignty.

In the end, the PQ chose a fresh-faced, if inexperienced, leader in Andre Boisclair, someone they hope will re-energize a party that many young Quebecers view as outmoded and decrepit.

Now, Duceppe's political future is inextricably linked to that of Boisclair.

Recent polls suggest the PQ would easily defeat Jean Charest's Liberal government if an election were held now. But that could easily change before the next election in 2007 or 2008. If the PQ with Boisclair at the helm doesn't win, Duceppe may choose to retire. He may reason that without the PQ in power, a third referendum on sovereignty would too far off for him to wait again.

For now, Duceppe fights the separatist fight from Ottawa, choosing in recent months to talk openly about his visions for a Quebec independent of Canada. He recently told a Bloc policy convention that he believes that Quebec could have its own army and spy service once it achieves sovereignty. Delegates rejected the idea, deciding to use the more politically palatable term of "national guard" instead of army.

Bloc strategists may be taking a risk with allowing their leader to talk openly about sovereignty ahead of a federal election. But they believe that Quebecers want the party to lay out detailed plans for a new country.

It remains to be seen whether Quebec voters like that vision.