Sovereignty movement still strong: Duceppe, Marois

Voter support for the Parti Qubcois and the Bloc Qubcois in the recent federal and provincial elections indicates the sovereignty option is in good shape, the leaders of the PQ and Bloc said Wednesday.

Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe and PQ Leader Pauline Marois addressed a joint news conference at the end of a two-day Bloc caucus meeting to prepare for the return of Parliament next week.

"The sovereigntist movement is much stronger," Duceppe said, noting that only a year ago pundits had been predicting the demise of the Bloc and were clucking about the enfeebled state of the PQ.

He pointed out that 49 out of 75 Bloc candidates were victorious in last year's federal election and 51 PQ members were elected to the 125-seat legislature in the Dec. 8 provincial vote.

He noted that a member of Quebec solidaire, the provincial leftist sovereigntist party, was also elected to the national assembly.

"Is it a vote in favour of sovereignty? Certainly not," Duceppe said. "Elections are not referendums. But is it a vote in favour of sovereigntist members? The answer is yes. That is clear."

Marois agreed.

"The sovereigntist movement, in the last two elections, with the support for the Bloc and the support for the PQ, has regained hope, and the taste is there to put the [sovereignty] question back on the menu," she said.

While the PQ regained its status as official Opposition in the legislature and recovered from its disastrous showing in the 2007 election when it was knocked into third place, the Bloc actually dropped two seats from its 51-seat performance in the January 2006 election.

The party's percentage of the popular vote also fell.

Both Duceppe and Marois said Quebecers are getting little help from their provincial and federal leaders to cope with the worsening economic crisis.

They pointed out the province is on the verge of coming up short by hundreds of millions of dollars with changes to the formula for calculating federal transfer payments. Industries such as forestry and manufacturing are hurting, they added.

Marois said Quebecers need to have the tools to decide their own future and that can only be done through sovereignty.

Duceppe pointed out two examples, citing federal funding cuts to culture and the Conservative rejection of the Kyoto protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gases.

Kyoto enjoys significant support in Quebec, and the culture funding cuts have been mentioned as one of the reasons Quebecers mostly turned their backs on the Tories in the last election, depriving Prime Minister Stephen Harper of his coveted majority government.

Duceppe said he'll look at next Tuesday's federal budget before he makes any recommendation to his party on accepting or rejecting it.