POLITICS : Quebec Premier’s Illness Has Canadians Re-Evaluating Him : Once deemed a waffler, Robert Bourassa gains new respect.

For most of his 12 years as premier of the fickle province of Quebec, Robert Bourassa has been judged a competent technocrat on the economy--and a maddening waffler on the all-important questions of politics and language.

With the French-speaking province forever threatening to secede, Canadians have wanted to see Quebec’s premier either come out foursquare for independence or assert his wholehearted support for Canadian unity.

But Bourassa has done neither. His leadership style is one of ambiguity, calculation and a shrewd refusal to commit himself.

“Bourassa is sadly without a moral anchor that could steady him against unfavorable winds,” wrote novelist Mordecai Richler in a lengthy 1992 essay, summing up a common complaint.

In recent weeks, however, Canada’s widespread exasperation with Bourassa has suddenly turned into admiration, and the indifference to empathy. “He has grace,” said Graham Fraser, a political writer at Toronto’s Globe and Mail. Author and columnist Peter C. Newman now calls Bourassa “ the essential presence, the man who (has) set the national agenda” in recent years.

The reason for the re-evaluation: Bourassa is gravely ill. Suddenly, Quebecers, as well as Canadians outside the Francophone province, are being forced to contemplate political life without the wily Bourassa. Many are unhappy with what they see.

“Go he eventually must, and when he does, his departure will create a serious tear in the national fabric,” said Newman.

Canadians had known since 1990 that Bourassa suffers from malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. But earlier this month, the premier’s American doctor revealed that surgery had not arrested the course of the disease and that Bourassa was in worse health than anyone had imagined.

“With this kind of sickness, you never know what could happen,” Bourassa said upon his return from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md.

Bourassa is expected to announce in mid-February whether he will return to Maryland for experimental treatments with interleukin-2, which boosts the immune system. If he does opt for such treatment, it is hard to see how he could stay on as premier, since interleukin-2 usually involves hospitalizations and can have serious side effects.

So far, the success rate of interleukin-2 on terminal cancer patients has been less than 50%.

The bad news about Bourassa’s health comes at a particularly inauspicious time for his Liberal Party. The Liberals are divided now between a Quebec-nationalist wing--which wants greater autonomy for the province within Canada--and a traditional, federalist wing.

For all the grumbling about Bourassa’s refusal to take clear political stands, he has always won high marks for his ability to keep the Liberals loyal and united. He has no obvious successor, and if he was to step down soon, there would almost certainly be a painful, public debate within the party over Quebec’s rightful role within Canada.

And such a debate would come at a bad time for supporters of Canadian unity, since Quebec must hold a provincial election no later than the fall of 1994. The separatist Parti Quebecois would love to meet a weakened Liberal Party on the campaign trail.

No wonder the outpouring of enthusiasm for Bourassa has continued.

“It is a cruel paradox that he has never been loved and appreciated as much as now, when he may be about to leave,” said Lysiane Gagnon, a columnist for Montreal’s La Presse.