At Swearing-In, Quebec’s Premier Pushes Separatism

Separatist leader Lucien Bouchard was sworn in as premier of Quebec on Monday, vowing to lead the French-speaking province to independence from Canada after first bringing it financial stability.

In an inaugural speech almost entirely devoted to economic and cultural issues, Bouchard, 57, pledged to focus his efforts on cutting the nearly $3-billion provincial budget deficit and reducing unemployment, which chronically registers about two percentage points above the national figure and stood at 11.3% in December.

Quebec has the highest per capita taxes in Canada, and Bouchard said he will try to trim the debt mainly through government spending cuts.

“This is our first task; we must not mortgage our future,” he said. He vowed to consult all parts of Quebec society, including business leaders who largely oppose separatism, in his economic planning.

Bouchard takes office three months after a referendum in which Quebec voters rejected separation from the rest of Canada by a margin of only 50.6% to 49.4%. Bouchard indicated that he would prefer to call the next referendum no earlier than 1997 but has not ruled out an earlier vote.

The latest poll in Quebec, published Saturday in two newspapers, Le Journal de Montreal and the Globe and Mail of Toronto, showed voters currently in favor of separation 52.4% to 47.6%.

Bouchard’s mere presence in the premier’s chair in Quebec City ensures that Quebec’s status will remain a hot-button issue. While Monday’s speech was conciliatory, Bouchard can be a fiery speaker with a volcanic temper.

On Saturday, for example, he declared that Canada “is not a real country” when asked at a news conference in Montreal about suggestions that Quebec could be divided after a pro-independence vote.

The idea is being floated by English-speaking activists in Montreal, political commentators outside the province and even a newly appointed federal Cabinet minister from Quebec. They suggest that areas of Quebec that vote to remain a part of Canada--in all likelihood Montreal and northern expanses occupied by Indians and Inuit--could do so even if the rest of the province opts for independence.

Bouchard flatly rejected such proposals, calling them a provocation. But, he was asked by a reporter, if Canada is divisible, why not Quebec?

“Canada is divisible because it is not a real country,” he replied. “There are two peoples and two nations and two territories. And this [Quebec] is ours. It will never, never be partitioned.”

Bouchard is credited with single-handedly making the last referendum as close as it was. He assumed command of the separatist campaign from Jacques Parizeau, his predecessor as Quebec premier, three weeks before the Oct. 30 election, and his emotion-charged appeals to Quebec nationalism immediately reversed the separatists’ sharp decline in the polls.

Parizeau, 65, announced his retirement the day after the referendum, clearing the way for Bouchard, who had been leader of the main opposition party in the Canadian national Parliament.

Bouchard is by far the most popular and trusted politician in Quebec, according to polls. His near-heroic status was solidified after he battled back from a December 1994 attack by a muscle-destroying bacteria that forced the amputation of his left leg and nearly cost him his life.

As Bouchard was being sworn in at the chateau-style provincial parliament building in Quebec City, Canada’s leading federalist was regrouping his forces at the other end of the country.

Prime Minister Jean Chretien, declining in popularity and under fire for nearly losing the referendum, began two days of meetings with members of his Liberal Party parliamentary delegation at a downtown Vancouver hotel, where a new government strategy for national unity is expected to emerge.

Chretien offered a rather mild retort Monday to Bouchard’s comment about Canada not being a “real country.”

“A country is not a piece of land with one language,” he told high school students in Vancouver. “I don’t know how he’ll be able to say that when he meets veterans who went to many wars to defend a country that is called Canada.”