On Monday night, a non-partisan journalist unknown outside Ontario scored a major blow against the leader of the Bloc Quebecois. Moments later, that same separatist recovered by beating up on the Prime Minister of Canada.
If you weren't already convinced that Paul Martin is done like burnt popcorn, this should have done the trick.
Until this week, there was still one semi-persuasive argument to vote Liberal on Jan. 23: In the event of a Quebec sovereignty referendum, or some lesser unity crisis, better we should have Martin than Stephen Harper leading federalist forces. The Prime Minister had more roots in the province, his French was better, his party's ideology was more in line with Quebecers', and he had more experience dealing with this sort of thing.
I admit that I couldn't quite get that argument out of the back of my head. Then I watched Martin go head-to-head with Gilles Duceppe on whether Quebec should be part of Canada. When I found myself even momentarily siding with the separatist, I knew that the last best reason to support the Liberals had evaporated.
After being beaten up early in the debate on his ethics, Martin had a chance to win back a few hearts by taking on a guy who wants to break up the country. To make it easier, they were debating in English, which Duceppe speaks with an awkward Clouseauesque flourish. And moderator Steve Paikin had already thrown the Bloc Quebecois leader off-stride by challenging his hypocrisy on accepting one gay marriage vote as a final edict but lobbying for a third sovereignty vote after losing the first two.
Then Martin got thoroughly schooled.
Bad enough that the PM's limp economic argument about strength in numbers backfired, with Duceppe pointing out that if size matters so much Canada should join the United States. Much worse was when, moments later, he got boxed into such a corner that he wound up sheepishly granting that Quebec is "a nation."
A prime minister campaigning in a referendum by telling Quebecers they belong to a nation that should voluntarily belong to another nation is a less than enticing prospect.
But then, undermining the federalist cause would be nothing new for Martin.
In 1990, as his leadership contest with Jean Chretien collided with Meech Lake, Martin's supporters did sovereigntists a favour by painting the next prime minister's opposition to the accord as proof he was a traitor to Quebec. During the '95 referendum campaign, Martin dented federalist credibility with the hysterical claim that Quebec would lose a million jobs if it separated. Later, he opposed the Clarity Act. Upon winning the Liberal leadership, he named Bloc co-founder Jean Lapierre as his Quebec lieutenant. And as Prime Minister, he's made a hash of federal-provincial relations.
For strong federalists, Harper's appeal is not much greater. He's a devolutionist, threatening to make the federal government irrelevant through further decentralization. He's as much - probably more - of an asymmetrical federalist than Martin. And his roots are in a party that once seemed untroubled by the notion of Quebec breaking off.
Even so, he's no longer any more of a liability to unity than Martin.
For starters, he's now more popular in Quebec. Not only are the Tories polling ahead of the Liberals there; according to a mid-week Strategic Counsel poll, 43% of Quebecers have a favourable impression of Harper. Why is it impressive that 57% of Quebecers dislike him? Because a staggering 80% dislike Martin.
More important is how he'll fare in Quebec during a crisis. And much as Harper's dull style won't inspire waves of pro-Canada patriotism, at least he has some degree of intestinal fortitude.
The current campaign has shown that when the going gets tough, Martin falls to pieces. Wild-eyed and cranky, he'll say absolutely anything to try to dig himself out of a hole. Considering that he proposed a change to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for the sole purpose of trying to catch his opponent off-guard during a debate, it's a frightening prospect what he'd come up with when the future of the country rested on his shoulders.
Frankly, I don't much like the idea Harper being in that position, either. But he can't be any worse.
