Quebec Separatism’s Defeat Leaves Province a Caldron of Bitterness : Canada: Support for national unity offset anti-federalism. But many residents and businesses are considering leaving.

The first snowstorm of the season slammed unexpectedly into this city last week, and the descent of winter meshed with the sepulchral mood in much of Montreal.

Five weeks after Quebec voters rejected separation from Canada by a margin of less than 2%, the wounds inflicted by the campaign continue to fester.

Anticipating another referendum by the end of 1997, Quebeckers are digging in for an extended period of political trench warfare.

Metropolitan Montreal, where a big vote for national unity offset the separatist majority recorded nearly everywhere else in the province, finds itself an isolated bastion of Canadian federalism in Quebec.

Normally placid relations between French-speaking residents of the city and the immigrant and English-speaking population have been marred by incidents of vandalism against English-language bookstores, ethnic restaurants and even statues of Canada’s early prime ministers.

Real estate agents have begun canvassing affluent English-speaking neighborhoods such as Westmount and Hampstead, where many residents have given up and plan to move.

“There’s no point in being here anymore. It’s not going to get any better, so what’s the point?” asked Andy Katz, a Montreal native whose 17-year-old home-renovation business has struggled in the last six months as residential investment has evaporated.

Katz, 45, and his wife, Helena, 41, have hired an immigration lawyer in New Mexico in hopes of moving their family to Santa Fe.

Getting out is Topic A in Katz’s twice-a-week amateur hockey league.

“I’m not saying everyone’s going to move, but everyone’s thinking about it, and some will leave,” he said. “I don’t want to leave, but I’m going to.”

Businesses are also exploring options outside Quebec. Some forecast a decline similar to that experienced in 1976-80, when separatists first took power in the province.

At that time, nearly 200,000 people left Quebec, and Montreal was displaced by Toronto as Canada’s most populous urban center and economic capital.

“It’s the worst situation possible,” said Liza Frulla, a pro-unity member of the provincial parliament who represents part of Montreal. “The problem is, we’re not in and we’re not out.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s proposals for restoring national unity and heading off the separatists were introduced in Parliament last week--and instead widened the national fractures.

Quebec’s leaders denounced the measures for not going far enough to meet the needs of the French-speaking province. Politicians from the rest of Canada blasted them for going too far to appease Quebec.

The contradiction reinforces the conviction of many secessionists that to win the next referendum they may merely need to stand aside and watch Chretien and other federalists self-combust.

“It’s just a question of time. I think that’s the dominant feeling,” said Monique Simard, vice president of the separatist Parti Quebecois.

Waiting just offstage is Lucien Bouchard, who in January will replace the politically maladroit Jacques Parizeau as premier of Quebec. Secessionists see Bouchard as the magnetic champion to lead them over the top.

Bouchard remains determined to extract Quebec from the rest of Canada before the decade’s end and is adamantly not interested in Chretien’s unity package.

But he said in an interview that his immediate goal is healing Quebec’s political and ethnic divisions, that he will reach out to his adversaries and seek to “change the chemistry” between separatists and immigrant communities.

This might surprise opponents who remember the piercing sarcasm of Bouchard’s referendum campaign speeches.

But he returned repeatedly to the theme of reconciliation in a 40-minute talk in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, where he is serving his final days as opposition leader in Parliament.

“After a referendum like this, after such an intense debate, you have to bring people together,” he said. “It will be at the core of my political action. We need to achieve that. If we don’t, we will fail.”

He acknowledged that Parizeau’s election-night speech blaming the separatists’ defeat on “money and the ethnic vote” left “some fences to mend, obviously,” with immigrants.

“My point is we shouldn’t try to work with them so as to get their vote,” he said. “If we get it, so much the better, but the main objective . . . [is] to make sure they feel comfortable in Quebec.”

Like most separatist politicians, Bouchard, criticized during the campaign for lamenting the low birthrate of white Quebeckers, has few contacts and no advisors from Montreal’s diverse ethnic neighborhoods. Similarly, he acknowledged that he has “precious few” mainly English-speaking staff members.

“It is a challenge,” he said. “I think [I] have to show evidence of good faith. . . . There will be commitments on my part . . . and they have to be fulfilled, and I stand ready to give it my best shot. I want to meet with them, talk with them. I want to look at . . . concrete things we can do together.”

He will encounter a good deal of skepticism about his professed good intentions.

“There always is a gap between what Mr. Bouchard says and what he does,” said Jean Charest, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party.

Bouchard must also deal with a stagnant economy in Quebec. The province’s unemployment rate is higher and its growth weaker than those in Canada as a whole, and the government has been hooked for years on deficit spending.

There is little in Bouchard’s political background to prepare him for the difficult choices most economists see in Quebec’s future.

Moreover, his own separatist ambitions are part of the problem; they are seen as a drag on investment and a spur to Quebec businesses to leave the province.

In one frequently cited example, Pratt & Whitney Canada, a Montreal-based aerospace firm, announced Nov. 10 that it will concentrate hiring next year at a branch plant in suburban Toronto because of the increasing difficulty of luring top engineers to Quebec.

In the biggest blow to the economy here, Canadian Pacific Ltd. decided to move its railroad headquarters from Montreal to Calgary, in the western Canadian province of Alberta--costing Quebec more than 700 jobs, although the company denied any political motivation.

Ronald Smith, who deals in industrial real estate in the Toronto region, has recorded a sharp rise since October in inquiries from Quebec companies considering a move across the provincial border. The requests are “absolutely” linked to politics, he said.

“When someone spends 10 to 20 years building up a business, moving is not a decision one takes lightly,” he said. “But I think they’ve concluded it’s not going to get any better, it’s only going to get worse.”