New Separatist Wrangle Looms for Quebeckers : Canada: Polls predict provincial voters will side today with the independence-minded Parti Quebecois after a bland campaign.

After an unexpectedly airless, dispassionate campaign, Quebec voters decide today whether to plunge Canada into a new wrangle over whether the province should separate from the rest of the country.

Most polls predict a sizable parliamentary majority for Parti Quebecois, which has promised to hold a referendum on Quebec’s sovereignty within 10 months if it takes over the provincial government.

Despite the stakes, the 50-day campaign has raised more shrugs than hackles in Quebec.

Analysts cite a number of reasons for voter ennui. Part of it is timing. The six weeks leading up to Labor Day are regarded in Quebec as a period for vacationing, not politics.

And neither of the principal party leaders, Jacques Parizeau of the PQ and Daniel Johnson of the Liberals, is particularly inspiring.

The last time the country went through this struggle, in the 1970s and early ‘80s, the forces of Canadian unity were led by the brilliant, acerbic Pierre Elliott Trudeau and the separatists by the anguished, intense Rene Levesque.

In contrast, when Parizeau and Johnson, Quebec’s current premier, met in their televised debate Aug. 29, they engaged in a bloodless exchange of numbers, like two bookkeepers in a game of dueling calculators. The post-mortem consensus: a thuddingly dull draw.

But what may be most important of all are the often contradictory, insular impulses of the Quebec voter. While the rest of Canada, and much of the world, sees separatism as the campaign’s overriding issue, for most Quebeckers the dominant element is simple fatigue with the Liberals.

Liberals have governed here for nine years, the last four of which have been spent in economic recession.

The polls say as much, and so does Raynald Coutu, a 51-year-old antiques dealer in this riverside town of 14,000 set amid rolling hills about 80 miles southeast of Montreal. “We need a change, and Parizeau has around him some new blood,” Coutu said, sitting behind a formidable desk in a corner of his shop.

He also thinks the PQ will be more assertive on behalf of Quebec in the struggles over control of taxes and government programs that are the staples of Canadian domestic politics.

“Parizeau will be more aggressive and we’ll have a better chance to gain something,” he said.

But if Parizeau puts Quebec independence to a vote next year as he says he will, Coutu will cast his ballot “No.”

In 1980, when Levesque’s PQ government put a similar referendum on the ballot and lost, 60% to 40%, Coutu voted in favor.

But since then, Coutu has bought and sold one antiques store and purchased another. He made a fine profit buying and refurbishing a Montreal office building, unloading it before the recession.

Sovereignty, and all the economic uncertainties that accompany it, is a young person’s game, Coutu said. “If you’re 50 years old, and look at what you have, and your pension coming up, you wonder, why should you risk it?” he said.

Coutu is in the large middle ground of Quebec’s French-speaking voters--pollster Jean-Marc Leger puts it at 20% of the electorate--who lean toward independence but are hesitant to take the final leap. What they really are looking for is some kind of special accommodation from the rest of Canada.

The longstanding joke in Quebec puts it this way: “Quebeckers want an independent Quebec within a united Canada.”

But the rest of Canada does not seem to be in an accommodating mood when it comes to Quebec--and that gives hard-line separatists hope.

It is perhaps with voters like Coutu in mind that the PQ came up with its campaign slogan: “Another Way to Govern.” Parizeau has not backed away from his promise to hold a sovereignty referendum after taking over the provincial premiership. But he has tried to focus his campaign on economic issues rather than the separatist option.

Parizeau says he is talking about issues that voters are interested in; critics suggest he is running away from his party’s founding principle.

In a recent campaign appearance, Johnson contended that Parizeau is soft-pedaling sovereignty because the case for it “can’t be made. It’s no show, no go. . . . If the case could be made, he would have made it 20 years ago and every day since.”

Following what was generally regarded as a disappointing showing in the debate, Johnson has stepped up the pace and vigor of his campaign, finally shaking his image as an emotionless technocrat. He is making never-say-die speeches to party faithful and sparring with journalists, particularly opinionated radio talk show hosts.

“You’re telling lies!” he shouted at one. “What you’re saying is dumb!”

Johnson, the son of one Quebec premier and the brother of another, became premier in January after Robert Bourassa retired because of ill health. A former business executive with a Harvard MBA, Johnson held various economic posts in the Bourassa government before taking the top job.

But political insiders say that unless the Liberals win at least 40 of the 125 seats in the provincial Parliament today, Johnson could be toppled from his leadership post.

For all of his problems, polls continue to show Johnson, 49, personally more popular than Parizeau, even if his party trails the PQ.

Parizeau’s image problems are longstanding. A former university professor, he fairly radiates smugness, and he is often described in the media as “arrogant.” The holder of a doctorate from the London School of Economics who speaks English with an Etonian accent, Parizeau’s tendency toward three-piece suits and phrases such as “good show” brings repeated references in the English-language press to upper-class bumbler Bertie Wooster and other P. G. Wodehouse characters.

One of the more amusing aspects of the campaign has been the handlers’ efforts to transform the candidates into Regular Guys. Johnson has been photographed playing softball, volleyball and golf. Unfortunately, he always seems to be wearing street shoes more appropriate for a bank board meeting.

Parizeau, 64, went on Musique Plus, the Quebec version of MTV, and disclosed his favorite scatological term and that a childhood nickname was “vibrant weasel.”

With the polls showing the PQ building its lead, Parizeau’s campaign has, of late, curtailed his schedule, limited his access to the press and placed him in carefully controlled appearances.

Jobs and the economy are the themes of Parizeau’s message, but Quebec independence underlies it.

For example, he has promised a new freeway and an extension of the Montreal subway, lower air fares to remote parts of the province, shorter waiting times at hospitals and improved social programs--all without raising taxes or increasing the provincial deficit.

The money will be available when independence eliminates duplicative programs of the national and provincial governments, he says. Parizeau’s estimate is that elimination of duplication would save $3 billion, but he has never explained how he arrived at that total.

One potentially incendiary issue that has received little attention in the campaign is language.

The last PQ government (1976-85) enforced a law requiring that all outdoor signs be in French only and that virtually all business in the province be conducted in French.

The law was loudly resented by the province’s sizable non-French-speaking population. It later was modified by Bourassa’s government, although French remains the officially dominant language.

The PQ platform calls for no major language law changes, but some elements within the party favor tougher legislation, including such provisions as requiring French proficiency to enter English-language universities.

Most polls point to the PQ winning as many as 85 to 90 seats in the 125-member National Assembly, as the provincial Parliament is called. These same polls show a decline in sentiment for independence, with as few as four in 10 Quebeckers saying they would support some sort of sovereignty for the province.

But pollster Leger cautions that the post-election dynamic of a separatist government in Quebec City could raise support for independence.