Gilles Duceppe is the most fortunate of federal party leaders in some respects. As leader of the Bloc Quebecois, whose presence in a single province consigns it to perpetual opposition, he doesn't have to appeal to the broad spectrum of Canadian voters or advocate responsible policies that he would be morally bound to implement if his party were ever elected to govern. As such he is free to spout all manner of nonsense that might serve his partisan interest.
The impunity he enjoys was on blatant display this week as Duceppe posted his shopping list of demands on the federal government as a condition for Bloc support for the upcoming federal budget. The price tag is no less than a cool $5 billion, a figure for which Duceppe dug deep into the bag of dubious Quebec claims on the federal purse.
The big-ticket item is the $2.2 billion that the Quebec government is demanding as compensation for harmonizing its provincial sales tax with the federal GST back in 1992 -this though Quebec has already profited handsomely by piggybacking its sales tax onto the GST, calculating the tax a consumer pays on not just the price of an item but on the price plus the GST. It is the only province to do so.
The Bloc is also demanding $800 million more a year for higher education, essentially a subsidy for Quebec's ridiculously low tuition rates, and $400 million in compensation for the ice storm way back in 1998. And -oh yes, it wants the feds to pony up $175 million for a new Quebec City arena that would primarily benefit private interests. All this comes even though Quebec is already the prime beneficiary of federal equalization payments. The payments to this province will be $7.6 billion for the coming fiscal year, which is more than the total to be paid to all five of the other equalization-collecting provinces.
If he seriously expected the deficit-strapped Harper government to bow meekly to all of this, Duceppe would be delusional. In fact, he probably knows better and is more seriously counting on a federal refusal that would stir up anti-Ottawa sentiment in Quebec, which would considerably benefit his party if an election were precipitated by the government being defeated on its budget. And if he does happen to get his way on the big payout, he'll be able to campaign on his success in extracting booty for Quebec from the feds.
What Quebecers need to realize is that what might be a win-win position for Duceppe and the Bloc is not in their best interest. If the feds decline to cave in to the Bloc and this abets another sweep in Quebec for the party, it will of course mean a further reduction of Quebec's voice in the next federal administration.