Canada's Chretien urges all Quebec to join him

MONTREAL, Quebec (Reuters) -- Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien on Friday urged separatist voters in French-speaking Quebec to switch to his Liberals in the Nov. 27 general election, saying only he could guarantee the province would be fully represented in Ottawa.

Speaking as two new polls showed his party with a commanding, albeit narrowing, lead nationally, Chretien said it was important that the number of Liberal members of Parliament elected in Quebec increase from the current band of 29.

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"It is very, very important for all of Quebec to be at the table with the government to assure ourselves that things will continue to go well in the country, and in particular in the province of Quebec," he told a campaign rally in Montreal.

Chretien, who this week dared separatist Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard this week to hold a new referendum on gaining independence from Canada if he thought he could win, said people were tired of talk about referendums and separation.

"This is not a temporary fatigue. It's a very deep one. It's not the kind of fatigue where you say, 'I'll take two weeks of holiday, or a year's holiday, or a year's sabbatical and then I'll come back.' No, what people want is to say, 'We really want to move on to something else, please."'

The polls still signal that Chretien will win an overall majority nationally, though they show him gaining few if any seats in Quebec.

A poll by Environics Research Group said the Liberals were ahead of the right-wing, small-government Canadian Alliance party by 45 percent to 29 percent, compared with a 44-25 spread in a poll by the same company last week. An Ipsos-Reid poll this week put the spread at 42 percent to 29 percent for the Liberals, compared with 45-28 last week.

But Ipsos-Reid also crucially showed the Liberals had boosted their support in the powerful province of Ontario, where it holds 101 of the 103 available seats and could, with current projections, again sweep or nearly sweep the province.

The Alliance must break through in Ontario to stand any chance of winning a majority in the 301-seat House of Commons. In the Ipsos-Reid poll its support there fell four points to 24 percent while the Liberals rose two points to 53 percent.

Ipsos-Reid pollster Darrell Bricker said Alliance leader Stockwell Day had clearly been hurt by comments from key lieutenants suggesting they back the idea of private health care. This is sensitive for most Canadians, who say they want more money pumped into the creaking state-funded medicare system.

The Globe and Mail, which commissioned the Reid poll with CTV, said if the figures translated into votes, the Liberals would end up with 171 seats, 10 more than present, and the number of Alliance seats would rise 15 to 73.

The 66-year-old Chretien, increasingly branded arrogant by opponents, ignored protests from party members and called this election less than three-and-a-half years into his second five-year mandate.

The poll suggests the Liberals can survive a slump in support in the Alliance's western heartland by keeping their Ontario seats and regaining the support of Atlantic Canada.

But Chretien remains unpopular in much of Quebec. He firmly opposes the Quebec government's separatist aims and this year pushed though the so-called Clarity Bill, which would make it harder for the province to break away from Canada after holding an independence referendum.

Quebec has held two such polls in the last 20 years, both of which failed. Chretien's reward for the bill was a torrent of abuse from those Quebeckers who want more sovereignty.

Even if the Liberals do retain a majority government, it could well be at the expense of its support out West, where the Alliance has been widening its already strong lead.

"Make no mistake about it, the Liberal Party of Canada, like its opponents, has been reduced to a regionally based party with a bit of spillover support outside its core areas," commented Globe columnist Edward Greenspon.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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