MONTREAL (CP) - Sovereigntists are marking the 10th anniversary of their razor-thin loss in the 1995 referendum by looking forward to the next vote on Quebec independence - one they think they can win.
A star-studded concert is scheduled to stoke sovereigntist pride just two weeks before the Parti Quebecois gets a new leader on Nov. 15. An advertising campaign is planned for the spring and regional Yes committees are being set up.
All that's needed is for Premier Jean Charest to call and lose an election so the PQ can take power.
That's not likely any time soon as Charest can wait until 2008 to go to the polls.
Gerald Larose, president of the Conseil de la souverainete du Quebec, isn't deterred.
"After the 29th of October, we will be in the pre-referendum campaign," he said firmly.
Andre Boisclair, front-runner in the PQ leadership race, says Quebecers are passionate about sovereignty and eager to debate it, even though most polls have suggested Quebecers don't want another referendum.
"I think that our case right now is even stronger than it was in 1995," Boisclair told The Canadian Press in an interview.
"Our challenge is to win the trust of the population for the next electoral campaign and that's the only winning condition that for me holds before having a referendum on the sovereignty of Quebec."
Both Boisclair and his main rival for the PQ's top job want to see a referendum as soon as possible in the first mandate of a PQ government.
"I hope it will be early in the mandate but we will have a referendum when we will be ready to hold this one and I'm sure we will win," said Pauline Marois, a former deputy premier.
"Federalism is finished and we have to choose our sovereignty."
It's nothing personal against the rest of Canada, both candidates say. It's just the divide between the two solitudes is too broad - no respect, broken promises and fiscal imbalance in the way tax dollars are shared.
"I feel that Quebecers are looking for a real reform and this real reform is sovereignty," said Boisclair.
That's an argument rejected by Sheila Copps, who was deputy prime minister in Jean Chretien's federal government in 1995.
"Promises were made, promises were kept," said Copps, although she won't be surprised if Quebec is asked to vote on its future again.
"All we do is get mired down in federal-provincial fights and people are tired of it but it's not honest to portray a federal-provincial disagreement as a reason to break up a country.
"You will never get two levels of government that are completely in accord on things but we've sort of fallen into the trap that everything that comes out of Quebec City is automatically right and everything that comes out of Ottawa is automatically wrong."
Sovereigntists argue that although they lost the 1995 referendum by only 1.2 percentage points - 50.6 per cent to 49. 4 per cent - the result was still an improvement on the first referendum in 1980 when they were beaten by 20 percentage points.
At that time, then-premier Rene Levesque told distraught supporters to "wait until next time" - advice sovereigntists have again been faithfully following since 1995.
But John Parisella, a political analyst and former strategist for the No camp in 1995, doesn't put much stock in current suggestions of sovereigntist support.
"I don't think these polls are very significant," he said. "They've been fluctuating and many pollsters will tell you it's still fairly soft in terms of a vote so it's a little bit early to start making predictions," he said.
Parisella said there is also still no guarantee the new PQ leader will call a referendum if the party retakes power, noting neither Lucien Bouchard nor Bernard Landry held referendums when they were premier.
"The Pequistes have set themselves the bar which says they have to be pretty certain they're going to win it before they call it and 50-50 is not the most certain of bets."
The federal Clarity Act, which sets the ground rules for future referendums, is another consideration and despite inroads sovereigntists claim into ethnic communities, they are still working off their traditional francophone base.
"I think the Quebec population has in some ways moved on beyond sovereignty as we speak right now," Parisella said.
"I think they'll want recognition of their identity, they'll want perhaps more control of their future," he said. "But I don't think there is a very strong will right now to break up Canada. Quebecers still have a Canadian identity very much within themselves and if the question is very clear and strong and to the point, I still think Quebecers will reject it."
PQ leadership candidates have been working to establish their sovereigntist credentials quickly with the party rank-file, particularly hardliners who had grumbled about the cautious approach taken by recent PQ leaders such as Bouchard and Landry.
Bouchard in particular raised hackles because he is credited with bringing sovereigntists the closest to their dream, in 1995, but seemed to back off afterward.
Bouchard, who normally steadfastly avoids talking politics in public, surfaced recently as part of a sovereigntist-federalist coalition that called on Quebec to address such issues as the low birthrate, increasing global competition and an aging population.
"If you're saying to me that we must achieve sovereignty first to settle this, that's not what I think," he said.
"We know perfectly well that Quebecers will have to make a choice and whatever they decide, those challenges that we define today will have to be taken on, right now."
Larose doesn't see the next referendum being based on personal charisma regardless of who wins the PQ leadership.
"We need the leadership of all the components of society, not only one big leader," he said. "It's necessary that all the leaders in this society - the labour movement, students, women, the environmental movement - all people have to do their jobs to win the referendum."
That's a call Copps puts out to Canadian federalists as well.
"Don't sit on your duff and wait for Ottawa to come up with the magic constitutional bullet because it's not going to happen - ever," she said.
"The people that want to break up the country will stop at nothing to prove the country doesn't work and we have to use the ordinary gestures of ordinary lives to make sure it does work."
She said that could be as simple as striking up a friendship with a co-worker in the Quebec branch of one's company or encouraging students outside Quebec to study in the province.
Paul Piche, a popular Quebec singer, said the federal sponsorship scandal, where millions were misspent in the pursuit of national unity, will also help Quebecers to vote themselves out of Canada,
But even he has some doubts about the outcome of a third referendum.
"I don't know when we're going to see sovereignty," he said.
"Very soon I hope. I have to say that this time around, this might be the last time. It will happen now or it won't. You can never speak for other generations but for my generation, I think it's now or never and I think we have a better chance than ever today."
But Boisclair doesn't see it as a now-or-never situation.
"Some people said the same thing for the last referendum. There is no law or decree that can be adopted against an idea. I think the idea is much bigger than any leader of the Parti Quebecois and it's for (Quebecers) to see what they will want to do with this idea."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20051030/ca_pr_on_na/referendum_sovereignty