Infighting over strategy, leadership woes plague Quebec’s sovereignty movement

It's probably a mistake for Canadians outside Quebec to write off the threat of separation but it's certainly safe to put it on the back burner because the sovereignty movement has had a bad year.

The latest evidence: former Parti Quebecois premier Bernard Landry says the party's current approach to achieving independence is "toxic."

In an open letter published in La Presse and other Quebec francophone media Tuesday, Landry challenged the PQ's plan that, if it wins the next provincial election, the party would govern as if Quebec was already a country.

Landry suggests the strategy might backfire. Instead of demonstrating the advantages of a separate Quebec, it could undermine any impetus towards sovereignty.

"Such a doctrine sends a message that we can act as a sovereign state without being one, making sovereignty thus not indispensable," Landry writes.

The Montreal Gazette noted the letter does not single out current PQ leader Pauline Marois for what Landry considers a wrongheaded strategy.

"The distress our party is currently suffering cannot be blamed just on a question of leadership," Landry writes.

"I'm not addressing to Madame Marois, I'm addressing the Parti Quebecois," Landry said in an interview with CTV Montreal. "Sovereignty is more popular today than it was 10 months before the referendum in 1995."

The PQ developed the strategy, known as "governance souverainiste," after its previous plan to hold a referendum on independence as soon as possible after taking power fell flat with Quebec voters.

The constant infighting over strategy has eroded Marois' leadership and she faced a potential challenge from former federal Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe.

But the former Bloc head's ambitions have been quashed by a developing scandal over misuse of funds.

Duceppe issued a statement Sunday ending his leadership bid so he could fight accusations he used his parliamentary budget to pay the salary of the BQ's director-general.

"I hope all the debates about my leadership are over," Marois said. "Let's move on to other things."

A La Presse-CROP poll released Tuesday suggested only 11 per cent of Quebecers would vote for the PQ, compared with 19 per cent for embattled Premier Jean Charest's Liberals. Some 31 per cent favoured the newly minted Coalition Avenir Quebec.

A referendum on sovereignty came within a hair's breadth of succeeding in October 1995 but a poll last October by Leger Marketing suggested younger Quebecers were less likely to support the idea than their parents, according to the National Post.