Separatists in Quebec Rely on Votes of Migrants
MONTREAL, Dec. 8 - Viviane Barbot, a Haitian immigrant and parliamentary candidate for the separatist Bloc Québécois, was passing out leaflets at the city's northern Jarry subway station the other morning to the Chinese, Iranian, Moroccan, Vietnamese and Mexican immigrants rushing to work.
Suddenly a young man shouted out in Haitian Creole, "I know the Barbot family from Haiti!" Ms. Barbot smiled broadly, though just momentarily, because he then added: "I'm voting Liberal because they give us lots of gifts. If we elect the Bloc, they will take away our country."
For the separatist movement, turning around the sentiments in that exchange is a key to creating an independent Quebec in the future. For Prime Minister Paul Martin and his governing Liberal party, keeping them just as they are will be vital not only to winning the Jan. 23 election, but to winning a third separatist referendum that is expected in the next few years.
The Bloc has put up a record nine candidates of Haitian, African, Middle Eastern and Chinese origin this year to win toss-up districts, including Ms. Barbot who stands a good chance of defeating Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew.
The party is emphasizing issues that appeal to immigrants, like fighting discrimination and increasing social assistance and job training for the unemployed.
To appeal to the growing Muslim vote, the Bloc has accepted an offer by Adil Charkaoui, a Moroccan-born man suspected of involvement in terrorist activities whom the government is trying to deport, to campaign for a local ethnic Armenian Bloc candidate who was born in Syria.
"It is a crucial vote," the Bloc Québécois leader, Gilles Duceppe, said of immigrants in an interview this week after making a campaign appearance with Gérard Labelle, a Bloc candidate born in Mauritius. "It is important for the country that I want to build that these people consider themselves as full Quebecers."
Recent polls suggest that the Bloc Québécois stands to improve on its showing last year when it won nearly 49 percent of the popular vote in Quebec to win 54 of the province's 75 seats in the House of Commons.
The Bloc was the biggest opposition force in the House of Commons after the Conservative Party over the last year and a half, and it played a crucial role in bringing down the government and forcing the early election.
The government fell after a federal inquiry released a report documenting a Liberal party scandal in Quebec including money laundering and illegal party financing during an advertising effort to increase federalist sentiment after the close 1995 referendum.
Before reports of the scandal began to emerge three years ago, the separatists were in a deep decline. But now it is the federalist side that is demoralized, with Liberal candidates mentioning their party by name only in barely visible lettering on their posters.
A good showing among immigrants and their children, who represent about 15 percent of the Quebec population, could give the separatists a majority of the popular vote next month for the first time in history and a gain of three to six seats. That would make the Bloc even stronger in a deeply divided Parliament, and guarantee a wobbly Conservative or Liberal government for the next several years.
"If they get that 50 percent, it gives them all the ammunition, credibility and legitimacy to accelerate going into the next referendum," said Christian Bourque, vice president for research of Léger Marketing, a polling firm. "In a referendum, the immigrant vote is a factor that could tip it over to yes."
A decade ago when the separatist movement lost a hard-fought referendum campaign by a hair, it won only 5 percent of the immigrant vote after writing it off. Most immigrants, especially those from war-torn countries, came to Canada for stability and have appreciated the Liberal party for its liberal immigration policies.
Those leanings are beginning to shift, especially among youths who since the late 1970's have been educated primarily in French because of provincial language laws.
Once known as a nearly all white French-Canadian party, the Bloc last year elected Maka Kotto, a Cameroon-born actor, to the House of Commons. Polls now show the Bloc has as much as 20 percent of the immigrant vote in Quebec.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/international/americas/11quebec.html