By HENRY AUBIN - Many Quebecers are hungry for constitutional peace. They want provincial politicians to put la question nationale behind them and to fix public finances, public schools and the health system.
When it surfaced last fall, a group founded by sovereignist François Legault and federalist Charles Sirois therefore seemed to be a dream come true. Their Coalition pour l'avenir du Québec - a provincial party in gestation - said it sought to transcend constitutional politics and bring a laserlike focus onto cutting the debt and repairing tattered services.
If such a party were to come to power (as polls suggest it would) and move Quebec beyond the polarizing constitutional dispute, that alone would do more for Montreal Island's prosperity than anything in the 75-page economic-development strategy that the Tremblay administration published this week.
But this group is hardly the political saviour that many many people seek. Legault is the group's dominant player and, if this group wins the next election, would become premier. (Who knows what businessman Sirois would become.) Legault suggested this week that the coalition is only provisionally neutral on sovereignty. Asked by reporters if, as premier, he would ever call a referendum, he said: "Certainly not in a first mandate." Later, in trying to clarify, he said that he was 54 years old, that he would be ready to retire from public life at 65 and that "I don't think in my active life that I will work again on a referendum." Note the wiggle word "think."
Legault also said: "I think we need about 10 years to rebuild our power relationship (rapport de force)" by working on health, education and the economy. Quebec would then "have the capacity to choose the (constitutional) status that best suits it."
Strictly speaking, this does not contradict what the coalition has said all along. In its carefully worded manifesto last fall, the Legault-Sirois group said: "Even if the constitutional status of a state is important, it is not the only determining factor in our future. The national issue's dead end must therefore not prevent us from offering those who follow us a dynamic and prosperous Quebec, always master of its destiny."
Translation: The neverendum is sort of over ("dead end"), but not really over ("master of its destiny"). In his remarks this week, however, Legault underlines his own sympathies, and as premier he would have more sway than any federalists in his cabinet. Indeed, if the coalition becomes a formal party (as seems all but certain), the relative equilibrium between its sovereignist and federalist founders would disappear. Here's more of what Legault said Tuesday: "If we create a political party, it would need a constitutional position. We could not remain in the same position as the coalition."
He added: "We'd have to know what our claims would be to Ottawa, and what we'd do if our claims were not accepted." And yet, he added: "We would have no intention - over a period of about 10 years, a predictable period - of working for sovereignty."
The cat is out of the bag. A Legault government might not explicitly work toward a referendum, as would the Parti Québécois, but it might prepare the ground for one.
The difference between a Marois government and a Legault government is that the latter would have federalists in its ranks, a more polite tone toward the feds and a longer-term horizon for a possible referendum.
Another difference is that Legault says he would tackle Quebec's immediate problems more earnestly than other parties. But fixing those problems would require sacrifices on the part of the public. Slashing the province's debt, for example, would mean higher taxes and/or fewer services. Investors also would be shy of a place with only tentative political stability. The Coalition pour l'avenir du Québec is a great concept. But it needs leadership that is truly neutral.
haubin@montrealgazette.com