I see that the Bloc is upset by legislation tabled today that would increase the number of seats in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta to reflect the growing population of these provinces. This suggests that Gilles Duceppe fully understands that the power of the Bloc to obstruct the business of Canada is about to be weakened.
During the last Quebec election campaign, Jean Charest told voters he needed a majority government to deal with Quebec's problems. His pitch to have "two hands on the wheel" was made after voters returned the first minority government since 1878 in the previous election.
During the last federal election campaign, Gilles Duceppe's spouse, Yolande Brunelle, gave a rare magazine interview (to the spouse of former PQ premier Bernard Landry), in which she explained the role of the Bloc Québécois in Ottawa:
Chantal Renaud: Some say the Bloc can do nothing for sovereignty.
Yolande Brunelle: They are mistaken. Because Quebec, in voting for the Bloc, prevents Canada from having a majority government. The message? Here's a country that would be managed better without Quebec.
Canada has had a long string of minority governments, and there is no foreseeable end to this situation as long as 40 per cent or so of Quebeckers choose to send Bloc representatives to Ottawa. Meanwhile, as several speakers at the Liberal thinkers conference on the weekend noted, Canada has some serious structural problems to deal with, including the deficit, pensions and health care. At some point we will need a majority government -of whatever stripe - to deal with these problems, as Mr. Charest demonstrated yesterday in the Quebec budget and as the Chrétien-Martin government demonstrated in the 1990s.
In the interest of Canada and Canadians, one would hope that all federalist MPs would support the legislation tabled today, which will change the dynamic not in the next election but in the one after that.