Duceppe denies setting target for Bloc Québécois

As Tories' popularity rises in Quebec, he backtracks on 50-per-cent-plus remark

By TU THANH HA
Tuesday, January 17, 2006

MONTREAL -- More than a month after he mused about getting more than 50 per cent of the popular vote in Quebec, Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe denied yesterday that it was the target he set for his party.

His backpedalling comes as opinion polls show the Conservatives rising in Quebec and undercutting the Bloc's ability to woo disenchanted federalists.

The latest Strategic Counsel nightly tracking polls for The Globe and Mail have the Bloc at 45-per-cent support among respondents, the Conservatives at 27 and the Liberals at 17. Only a month ago, the Bloc stood at a 60-per-cent level.

And a Leger Marketing poll released yesterday showed that, in the Quebec City riding of Louis-Saint-Laurent, the Conservative candidate, Josée Verner, leads Bloc incumbent Bernard Cleary by 19 points.

Mr. Duceppe has lowered expectations, saying that he only aims to do better than the 48.8-per-cent popular support and 54 MPs his party got in the last election.

Twice yesterday, in a series of broadcast interviews, he said it was journalists who had lured him into talking about the symbolic 50-per-cent mark.

"The journalists told me, 'Don't you think that 48.8, that's close to 50 per cent?' I couldn't deny that, I can count for myself, too," he said on Radio-Canada.

"They asked me, 'Would you be happy to get 50?' Well, yeah. Do you know a politician who'd be unhappy to get 50?"

On Dec. 4, Mr. Duceppe urged his troops to wipe the Liberals off the electoral map. Then, on Dec. 9, he made his comments about breaking the 50-per-cent barrier.

"Getting 50 plus one, in any contest, it's getting the absolute majority. At that moment, you could say that there is an absolute majority of people who support us," Mr. Duceppe told reporters on Dec. 9.

"That is truly important. And for the sovereignty movement, it would be the first time. I'm not going to hide that, of course. I would be very proud to break the 50-per-cent-plus-one mark."
Mr. Duceppe didn't say his comments were misreported until yesterday.

Winning more seats is actually easier now for the Bloc if the Conservative rise divides the federalist vote in several ridings.

In other developments, a CROP poll in the riding of Outremont, a Liberal Montreal stronghold, showed Liberal cabinet minister Jean Lapierre in a tight race with Bloc candidate Jacques Léonard.

The survey has Mr. Lapierre at 30 per cent, Mr. Léonard at 27 per cent and the NDP's only star candidate in Quebec, Léo-Paul Lauzon, at 20. The 300-person sample has an error margin of six percentage points.