The late Conor Cruise O'Brien, an Irishman distinguished in both politics and letters, loosed a memorable shot one day at his old opponent Charlie Haughey, former prime minister of Ireland. "If I saw Mr. Haughey buried at midnight at a crossroads, with a stake driven through his heart - politically speaking - I should continue to wear a clove of garlic around my neck, just in case," O'Brien rumbled.
There must be a few in the sane wing of the Parti Québécois who feel that way about Jacques Parizeau. Every time a new leader tries to calm voters' fears about the PQ's sovereignist intentions, up from the Black Lagoon pops this ancient figure in his double-breasted suit to remind everyone that separation from Canada is the real goal and almost any tactic will be used to achieve it. Ye gods, won't he just shut up? Monsieur, as his acolytes call him, was at it again recently in a speech to the Intellectuels pour la souveraineté, discussing the nifty new proposal from party leader Pauline Marois. Once in office, she says, instead of calling a referendum on Quebec independence - which almost nobody wants - she would press Ottawa to transfer powers in specific domains, such as culture, backing the demands with a threat of mini-referendums.
It's actually a rather clever, potentially dangerous idea - étapisme by another name. Its essence is subterfuge. The key is to march relentlessly forward, picking up powers, separating Quebec in fact if not in name, while not upsetting the majority of citizens who keep on saying, every time they are asked the question, that they really do want to be Canadians as well as Québécois.
"Sectoral referendums can be very useful in certain circumstances," Parizeau told the Intellectuels (how pretentious). He paused for a chuckle, as he almost always does when about to deliver another "astuce" (clever trick). Remember lobsters in the pot? Then he ploughed on. "One of my former assistants said that to achieve sovereignty, a crisis is needed. ... What we need is to generate a crisis. Clearly a referendum on a defined subject can create a crisis." Ta-da. Just what Quebecers want - another constitutional crisis. Thank you, Jacques, for airing the possibilities of the Marois plan. And at the most opportune time, too, shortly before last Monday's two provincial by-elections, both won handily by the ruling Liberals.
As Le Devoir's headline summed things up so tellingly: "Merci, Monsieur!" Now, will you please leave us alone? It hasn't been a grand week for the PQ. For this was more than an ordinary by-election struggle. Up for grabs were a safe Liberal riding in Montreal and the Rivière du Loup seat of Mario Dumont, recently departed leader of the Action démocratique du Québec. The area is close to 100-per-cent francophone and voted Oui solidly in the 1995 referendum. It is natural Parti Québécois terrain, and we are in the throes of an economic crisis.
And what happened? The Liberals won in a landslide and the PQ came second. Merci, Monsieur! You didn't do it all, but you certainly helped.
And that wasn't all. Just two days earlier, a CROP poll in La Presse reported the Liberals moving into a comfortable five-point lead (42-37) over the PQ, with Jean Charest forging into an even bigger lead of seven points (43-36) in the leadership contest with Marois.
It is worth recalling that in 2006, the clever gossip of Quebec's nattering classes was about whether Charest's was the worst government in Quebec history. In 2007, Charest was running a poor third in the pollsters' leadership stakes.
Back to the PQ's bad-news week. On Thursday François Legault, the party's finance critic and its best parliamentary performer, resigned with a bang. He left the scene with much lamentation about the quiet decline of Quebec, both economically and politically.
As noted by Le Devoir's astute columnist Michel David, Legault's leave-taking recalled the exit in 2001 of his mentor, Lucien Bouchard. For both men, it was as if Quebecers had let their leaders down, rather than vice-versa.
Legault leaves the question of whether he has gone for good or is just waiting to come back as leader. Political history is full of such examples, including Marois herself, who left the scene for a time when André Boisclair became leader.
Which leads to a perhaps far-out question: What will Mario Dumont eventually end up doing? Surely this highly public figure - a politician in suit and tie most of his born days - has not left the scene forever. He might not have an Action démocratique to return to a few years from now, but what about his original home, the Liberals? Screwier things have happened. Charest was a federal Tory, actively hostile to provincial Liberals, until he made the jump to Quebec City. Bob Rae was a deep-dyed socialist, at war with wimpy federal and provincial Grits, before breaking with the NDP and eventually almost taking the federal Liberal leadership.
Where will Mario land? Just asking.
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Norman Webster is a former editor of The Gazette.