The race to pick a new parti Québécois leader on Nov. 15 could be called Snow White and the Nine Dwarfs.

In the PQ rewrite of the fairy tale classic, Snow White is the white-haired Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe.

The nine dwarfs are a field of contenders named — not Dopey, Grumpy, Bashful, Doc and so on — Louis (Bernard), André (Boisclair), Pierre (Dubuc), Ghislain (Lebel), Richard (Legendre), Pauline (Marois), Jean (Ouimet), Gilbert (Paquette) and Jean-Claude (St-André).

To run, all it takes is signatures from 1,000 card-carrying PQ members. To win, a candidate must get more than 50% of votes cast by the PQ membership in a Canadian Idol-style phone-in balloting.

All but Boisclair, Marois, Legendre and Bernard are no-names. Even the front four in this Québécois Idol contest lack the charisma of the Jacques Parizeau-Lucien Bouchard tag team that almost won the 1995 Quebec referendum. And no candidate comes close to the passion for the cause of PQ founder René Lévesque.

Duceppe was more popular than Bernard Landry was when Landry gave up the PQ leadership last June, judging a 76.2% confidence vote too low. From Duceppe’s shaky start as Bloc leader, he has become a polished political performer, winning praise from Paul Cellucci, the former U.S. ambassador, who called Duceppe the “most impressive leader in Canada.”

In last year’s federal election, Duceppe equalled Bouchard’s 1993 score, capitalizing on the sponsorship scandal to win 54 of Quebec’s 75 federal seats.

Duceppe has emerged as “the fairest one of all,” the natural leader of Quebec’s sovereigntist movement. He would have been a shoo-in to succeed Landry, but he is committed to leading the Bloc into the next federal election.

Support for sovereignty stood at 54% in May, according to a Léger Marketing poll. At the time, the Gomery commission on the sponsorship scandal was being shown live on Quebec’s two all-news networks. A CROP poll published in September, when Gomery was off the air, showed support for sovereignty had slipped to 50%.

The game plan for sovereignty calls for: 1) the Bloc winning more than 54 seats in the next federal election; 2) a PQ victory over Jean Charest’s Quebec Liberals by the spring of 2008 at the latest; 3) a third referendum to make Quebec an independent country.

Even Charest admits that sovereignty is not a spent force, and with half of Quebecers saying they favour the PQ plan, it doesn’t seem that far-fetched — until you ask more questions.

How much of current anti-Liberal sentiment is related to Gomery? How much is due to
the ineptitude of the Charest government? How solid is support for sovereignty? It is easy to favour sovereignty when the PQ is in Opposition. And the pollsters also found that Quebecers don’t want another referendum.

Duceppe has set his sights high. There is a block of non-francophone voters who are unshakeable federalists in most of the 21 Quebec ridings the Liberals won in 2004. It will be difficult for the Bloc to go beyond 54 seats. And if it wins fewer, that will be seen as a loss of momentum.

The candidates running for the PQ leadership have their hands tied. At its June convention, the party committed itself to a new referendum “as soon as possible.” And each of the leadership candidates claims to be the one who can achieve sovereignty.

Prudence might dictate focusing first on defeating Charest’s Liberals. But at PQ gatherings, winning the next election is a given.

Still, the Liberals could choose a new leader, turning around the polls. They could argue the PQ is out of touch. Judging from the yawns the PQ leadership race is generating and the party’s commitment to a new referendum, it is possible the PQ won’t win the next election. And it is possible that if the PQ does win, voters will balk at
a new referendum. IE