Bloc would topple Tories 'any time'
CP PHOTO/Jacques Boissinot
Kevin Dougherty, CanWest News Service; Montreal Gazette
Published: Sunday, October 22, 2006 Article tools
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Font: * * * * QUEBEC CITY -- Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe served notice Saturday that his party is prepared to defeat the Harper government in a confidence vote, even if that means provoking a federal election before Christmas.
"We will be ready before the holidays," Duceppe told about 450 delegates and observers to a weekend meeting of his party's general council.
"Any time," he challenged Prime Minister Stephen Harper. "He should not expect the Bloc to support him."
Duceppe said he learned his party must be ready for surprises in May 2005, when the Bloc, convinced the Liberal government of Paul Martin would fall on a confidence vote, spent about $600,000 for an election campaign that never happened.
"I saw a lot of money disappear," he recalled.
Martin was saved when Belinda Stronach left the Conservatives to join Martin's Liberals.
The Bloc leader said his party would vote to defeat the government if Harper calls a confidence vote before Christmas on the Clean Air Act, which sets 2050 as the long-term date to reduce greenhouse gases. The Bloc and the NDP both oppose the legislation, calling it an ineffective approach that will actually increase pollution. However a confidence vote on the act is an unlikely prospect.
A more likely occasion for a confidence vote would be next spring after the Harper government's second budget.
He recalled Harper's Quebec City pledge in a Dec. 19, 2005, campaign speech to correct the fiscal imbalance and said the Bloc intends to hold the prime minister to that commitment.
While Quebec Finance Minister Michel Audet refuses to advance a figure on how much federal money the province wants to close the fiscal imbalance, Duceppe uses the Parti Quebecois' $3.9-billion estimate and he urged Quebec Premier Jean Charest to stick to that target.
"We will be watching him," Duceppe said.
Harper's campaign commitment to solve the fiscal imbalance and give Quebec a place in Canada's delegation to UNESCO the Paris-based United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization are credited with helping his Tories win 10 Quebec seats, eight in the Quebec City region.
But recent polls indicate the Bloc is regaining support it lost to the Tories.
"Quebecers are discovering who Stephen Harper is," Duceppe said.
He also criticized Tory proposals to try children as young as 10 in adult courts, calling this "the Pampers clause."
The Bloc also opposes Tory plans to abolish the federal gun registry.
The Bloc supports Canada's military commitment in Afghanistan, but Duceppe said he agrees with British General David Richards, commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's mission, that the Taliban will gain support if the lives of ordinary Afghans do not improve soon.
Duceppe said Canada's commitment has to be humanitarian as much as military.
"We don't want the Taliban to replace the warlords," he said.
The Bloc rejects the NDP call for an immediate pullout as irresponsible.
On domestic issues, Duceppe said this coming Wednesday the Bloc is counting on support from the NDP and the Liberals for a bill to create a federal anti-replacement worker law, similar to Quebec's law limiting replacement workers during strikes.
CKA Uber 
