PQ planning referendum
Oct 18, 2003
By LES PERREAUX
 
Quebec opposition leader Bernard Landry. (CP Archive/Clement Allard)
QUEBEC (CP) - Parti Quebecois Leader Bernard Landry invited party members Saturday to plan for another sovereignty referendum in five years, however he refused to commit to a quick independence vote if the party returns to power.

"I don't want Quebec to lose another referendum," Landry said following a party meeting on the sovereignty theme.

"I have an objective of a sovereignty referendum within five years. But politics is not an exact science."

Landry said a new "season of ideas" is in full swing that brings immense hope for the future of the sovereignty movement.

One prominent PQ supporter and political scientist confronted Landry during a discussion, saying to get re-elected the PQ may have to give up the sovereignty dream.

"We will never give up our dream," Landry shot back.

Jean-Herman Guay, a political scientist at the University of Sherbrooke, suggested Quebecers will no longer rally to the independence cause.

Guay said the PQ is largely responsible for helping protect Quebec's language and culture, and create economic opportunity - through its pressure on both the federal government and Quebec Liberal governments.

"To some degree the Parti Quebecois has proven that Canada is not so bad," Guay said outside the meeting. "It's not Canada that gave this to Quebecers, but it was all possible within Canada."

Landry, who is adjusting to the role of Opposition leader after losing to Jean Charest in last April's election, dismissed the idea that sovereignty could be the victim of the PQ's success. He said Quebec independence is the only idea not open to discussion in his season of ideas.

"I find it to be pure defeatism to say for a nation to succeed, it will be condemned forever to provincial status," Landry said. "This idea is repulsive."

Instead, Landry, 66, suggested an alliance of all generations of Quebecers would make sovereignty a reasonable goal within five years.

"I say to the youth of today, you will not have to wait a generation," Landry said in an earlier speech to about 400 party faithful.

"I want, I hope, we hope that my grandchildren's generation will start their adult life in a free Quebec. That means time is short."

Several former PQ cabinet ministers said the sovereignty project should be better defined.

Former health minister Francois Legault suggested Quebecers should be presented with a budget in the first year of an independent Quebec.

Legault, a likely leadership candidate if Landry does not stay on to fight the next election, said Quebecers need a clear message about the PQ's plans.

"We have to sell the sovereignty of Quebec with new arguments, including concrete arguments," said Legault, who is now finance critic.

"But we should have only one target, which is at the beginning of the next mandate to have a referendum and explain to the population that if they buy our program they also have to buy the sovereignty of Quebec."

Landry also used his speech to attack Charest. He accused the premier of destroying the foundations of Quebec society with plans to "re-engineer" the government.

Several government committees are examining the work of every government department. Charest has plans to increase the cost of $5-per-day day care and to contract government work to the private sector.