By PHILIP AUTHIER RIVIERE-DU-LOUP - With Parti Québécois hardliners rallying to her new piece-by-piece sovereignty plan, party leader Pauline Marois said this morning the burden of proof that Canada works rests in Ottawa’s hands, not hers.

Parti Québécois hard-liners rallied around Pauline Marois's new piece-by-piece sovereignty plan yesterday as the party leader launched a stinging attack against federalists.
The plan calls for the PQ to take a harder line if it forms the next government, even holding a series of referendums as a last resort to grab more powers from Ottawa.
This approach makes more and more sense, given Premier Jean Charest's "absolutely minuscule" record in trying to improve Quebec's standing in the federation, Marois said.
She said Charest is not a great builder, as the Liberal Party tagged him two weeks ago, but a "demolisher in chief." He single-handedly added $30 billion to Quebec's debt and remains the first premier in 60 years to not have a list of formal constitutional demands, Marois charged.
"You call these gains?" she asked in a speech to 250 PQ riding presidents and executives gathered here for a party council meeting.
"When your constitutional strategy consists of sending letters, you'll understand it does not amount to much. After asymmetrical federalism, after a federalism of openness, we now have correspondence federalism. It consists of sending letters and hoping.
"Not only does he have no demands, he's against those who have them.
"Do you know why? It's because he's scared. He's scared of what it means to ask more for Quebec.
"He's scared of making the federal government look bad, so he asks for nothing." Marois used the attack to cap a week spent pumping up her sovereignty action plan.
The proposal - endorsed by the council yesterday without dissent from normally cranky hard-liners - is to be debated for the next two years before becoming official PQ policy in 2011.
To loud applause and shouts of "We want a country," Marois said her more aggressive tack aims to replace the "defeatist, wait-and-see" approach to reform practised by federalists.
"Some said that all Pauline Marois wants, when it comes down to it, is to realize sovereignty," she said. "You know what? They are totally and completely right.
"What I want is always more for Quebec. Each time we see the federal government meddle in our affairs, we will put them in their place." The Marois plan takes a piecemeal approach to sovereignty, arguing that as long as Quebec is in the federation, it should flex its muscles.
A PQ government would attempt to take full power in areas of provincial and shared jurisdiction, as well as taking on new powers - for example, collecting all taxes in the province.
Former PQ leaders Jacques Parizeau and Bernard Landry have said that if the PQ must provoke a crisis with the federal government to achieve its goals, then it should do so.
Yesterday, members of the hard-line SPQ-Libre - Syndicalistes et progressistes pour un Québec libre - agreed.
"No social change has ever happened without a crisis," said SPQ-Libre president Marc Laviolette.
More moderate péquistes kept their distance from Parizeau's remarks, however.
"Going to get more powers for Quebec does not mean there is a crisis," said Marie-Victorin MNA Bernard Drainville. "It just means here's what we want, we need it, Quebecers support us, we are ready to negotiate the repatriation of this power.
"Once we repatriate one power, we identify another that we have to go get. The march toward sovereignty will never stop.
"In the same way nobody says I have enough freedom, we will never say we have enough sovereignty. We will always want more.
"We recognize Quebecers are not ready to say they want all of this right now, so we propose to go and get it stage by stage, piece by piece." At a news conference wrapping up the meeting, Marois repeated that referendums will be a last resort after other options have failed.
"There's a panoply of means that we can use in our discussions with Ottawa," she said, including administrative arrangements and bilateral or multilateral constitutional talks.
For now, the party's focus is on the June 22 by-elections in Rivière-du-Loup, to replace former Action démocratique du Québec leader Mario Dumont, and Marguerite-Bourgeoys, to replace former Liberal finance minister Monique Jérôme-Forget.
The PQ moved yesterday's council meeting to Rivière du Loup to create a media splash for its candidate, Paul Crête, a former Bloc Québécois MP.
The Liberals have suggested the council meeting violated Quebec's electoral law, which imposes spending limits on candidates in by-elections. They say hotel, convention and travel costs should be considered part of the PQ's campaign.
But the PQ says it received clearance from the electoral officer and the event adds only "a few thousand" dollars to its spending.
Two Liberal "observers" were on hand yesterday to take notes on what the PQ was doing, but Marois appeared not at all worried as she entered the convention hall flanked by Crête and Christine Normandin, the PQ candidate in Marguerite-Bourgeoys.
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Bilingual mayor? Mais non, PQ delegates say
The Parti Québécois stepped into the Montreal municipal election campaign yesterday by denouncing the notion that the new mayor should be bilingual.
Delegates adopted an "emergency" resolution denouncing those who feel unilingualism in the mayoralty is unacceptable.
The resolution states that while bilingualism is a "undeniable advantage," it should in no way be considered a prerequisite to direct Quebec's metropolis where French is the only language with official status.
"Since when does a premier, a party leader or even a dépanneur clerk have to speak English in Montreal?" PQ youth wing member Guillaume Raymond told PQ members.
"When I heard of this debate, I asked myself, 'Do I really live in Quebec?' "
Youth wing colleague Antoine Lapointe added: "It's not just one person being attacked. It's not just the population of Montreal that is under attack. It's our people who are being insulted."
pauthier@ thegazette.canwest.com