KONRAD YAKABUSKI talks to young people from ethnic minorities who are endorsing sovereignty

In what was once the chapel at Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, the elite Montreal private school founded by the Jesuits in 1928, the altar has been glassed off from the rest of the room, like a relic from a distant past.

On the other side of the transparent divider, about 200 people, most of them from the multi-ethnic Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood nearby, have gathered to hear Parti Québécois Leader André Boisclair give a stirring speech about immigration, discrimination and unemployment among visible minorities. And, of course, about sovereignty.

There are Arab women wearing head scarves, an Indian woman in a sari. There are Haitians, Asians and North Africans. No one seems to notice, or care, that they're meeting where clean-cut French-Canadian Catholic boys once came to pray. This crowd is overwhelmingly young and most have no memory of Quebec as a fief of the Catholic Church. And while many of their elders might still reject the sovereigntist movement as one made up of francophone ethnic nationalists, those gathered here are enthusiastically approving of Mr. Boisclair's message that they are as Québécois as he.

It would be hard for many of them to feel like anything else. They are the "children of Bill 101" -- either first- or second-generation immigrants who grew up in Quebec attending French-language public schools, as mandated by provincial law since 1977. Their education and, more important, their socialization among francophone Quebeckers, has led them to define themselves as Québécois as much as, if not more than, Canadian. Many see sovereignty as merely the formalization of what is already a reality for them: Quebec, they will tell you, is their country.

"There's no doubt. In Quebec, I feel chez moi. In Canada, I feel like a visitor," said Akos Verboczy, 30, who immigrated with his parents from Hungary in 1986. "I wouldn't say all the children of Bill 101 are sovereigntists. But we are a lot more sovereigntist than our parents."

That wouldn't be hard. In the 1995 referendum, it is estimated that as many as 95 per cent of allophones -- those whose mother tongue is neither English or French -- voted against sovereignty partnership. PQ Premier Jacques Parizeau's referendum-night attribution of the Yes side's defeat to "money and ethnic votes" for a time drove an even deeper wedge between immigrant communities and the sovereigntist cause.

Political demographers predicted it was the beginning of the end for the sovereigntists. After all, the hard-line separatists weren't getting any younger. And a new generation of bilingual, or trilingual, Quebeckers was looking outward. Whether on the right or the left, the causes that grabbed them were global in nature.

Yet, a decade later, sovereigntist support is back above 50 per cent. The extraordinary efforts made since then by the Bloc Québécois and PQ to repair the damage done by Mr. Parizeau's declaration appear to have worked. Mr. Boisclair's election as PQ Leader last month was also a sign that the sovereigntist movement has broadened its base. Since he was named Quebec's first minister of citizen relations in 1996 -- relegating the old, and apparently exclusionary, nomenclature of the ministry of immigration to the dustbin -- Mr. Boisclair has worked to build bridges with allophones and immigrants.

Mr. Boisclair and Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe have gone out of their way to "de-ethnicize" the sovereigntist movement. And the Bloc -- which has nine so-called ethnic candidates running in the Jan. 23 election -- has consistently adopted positions on federal Liberal policies that appeal to minorities in Quebec, from supporting restitution payments for Chinese Canadians whose ancestors paid a head tax to get into the country, to standing up for human rights in the face of Ottawa's tough measures against terrorism.

Most of all, the PQ and Bloc have attempted to instill in Quebec's ethnic minorities the impression that the Liberals have taken them for granted. The Bloc's success in attracting more immigrant voters, which was especially evident in ridings with large ethnic populations in the 2004 election, played a part in Prime Minister Paul Martin's decision to choose Michaëlle Jean, a Haitian-born Montrealer, as Governor-General.

"Even if I think that move was smart, even brilliant, I have to wonder if it will be enough to reverse the trend [against the Liberals]" said Alain Gagnon, a political science professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal. "In many of these [immigrant]communities, the real question in this election is: Is the government clean or dirty?"

The sponsorship scandal, which resonates particularly with voters who fled countries where government corruption was rampant, could see the Bloc register its best score in this election thanks to new endorsements from immigrants. Recent polls have pegged the party's support among allophones at about 20 per cent; this does not include immigrants or ethnic voters whose first language is French, such as many Haitians or North Africans.

Sill, Mr. Verboczy and his children of Bill 101 cohorts gathered at the Brébeuf rally do not evoke the Gomery report or any other aspects of the sponsorship scandal to explain their support for the PQ and Bloc. Their sovereigntist convictions are deep-seated and not likely to be influenced by flavour-of-the-month politics.

So why, in a world where Canada is admired as a model of diversity and harmony, where even Lisa Simpson of The Simpsons fame prefers to travel with a Canadian flag stitched on her backpack, are more young Quebeckers of ethnic origin endorsing sovereignty?

"To them, Canada is the Post Office and the money. Quebec is a more important marker of identification for them," said Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies in Montreal. "The message the federalists have been sending is not emotional. The [sovereigntist]message is more about who you are."

You certainly get that impression listening to Mr. Verboczy and Farouk Karim, 29, a Madagascar-born child of Bill 101 who ran for the PQ in a recent by-election in the Outremont riding. Both men attended the French-language Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Elementary School. They grew up watching the same Quebec-made TV shows; they worshipped many of the same Québécois music, TV and movie stars.

Both men speak excellent English which, they point out, they did not learn at school. " The Price is Right. Family Feud. The Cosby Show," Mr. Karim offers by way of explanation. His English-language cultural references are American, not Canadian.

Mr. Verboczy dismisses suggestions that he and his friends might be less sovereigntist if they knew the rest of Canada better. He has travelled extensively across Canada, he counters.

"To my friends in Edmonton, I'm a Quebecker," he said. "Even they sense there's a difference. . . . Right now, we have two governments that, for historical reasons, can't agree. We're turning in circles."

"Besides," Mr. Karim said, "we have something to tell the world. Quebec is unique in North America."

Mr. Verboczy and his friends are living proof that the adoption in 1977 of the Charter of the French Language by René Lévesque's PQ government has had consequences no one, not even sovereigntists, foresaw. While the biggest public battles were fought over commercial signage, Bill 101's most dramatic impact has been to transform French Quebec from a white Catholic block into a multi-ethnic, multi-denominational mosaic. The change is almost exclusively evident in the Greater Montreal Area, which has traditionally become home to more than 80 per cent of Quebec's immigrants. On Montreal's Métro, it is hardly a surprise any more to see black, Asian and white teenagers chatting each other up in French. Intermarriage between white francophone Quebeckers and visible minorities is also on the rise.

The result is that federalist predictions that the sovereigntist flame would eventually die out as baby boomer francophones got older and immigration became Quebec's main source of population renewal have proved erroneous -- or premature, at least. While the cohort of old-stock francophones between 45 and 65 still forms the core of sovereigntist support, significant inroads among groups previously considered monolithically federalist are keeping the flame alive. In the process, the new recruits are changing the cause itself.

In 1995, sovereigntist strategists made no serious attempt to court immigrants. They believed the only way for the Yes side to win was to rally an overwhelming majority of pure francophone Quebeckers. The integration since then of an increasing number of high-profile ethnic Quebeckers into the sovereigntist camp has changed not only its face, but the substance of arguments in favour of sovereignty.

Older, hard-line sovereigntists for whom the desire for Quebec independence has been rooted in a traditional resentment of francophones' treatment within Canada have had to surrender leadership of the cause to those who see French as only one element of the sovereigntist platform. For them, language is no more important to the "project" than social justice, environmentalism and pacifism. Mr. Boisclair's greatest challenge will be ensuring a peaceful co-habitation between the two groups within the sovereigntist movement -- and keeping the hard-liners satisfied.

Mr. Boisclair must first get elected as premier before he can put his sovereignty proposal before voters in a referendum. Unfortunately for him, many of the same young voters -- both old-stock francophones and new immigrants -- who like the idea of sovereignty may not vote for the PQ in the next election. Unhappy with the established political parties, they may opt for the left-wing Union des forces progressistes or the Green Party.

Of course, such vote-splitting is not expected to be a factor for the sovereigntists in the Jan. 23 federal election. Since there is no referendum on the immediate horizon, the Bloc will likely be able to count on the votes of thousands of young allophones who are not committed sovereigntists but simply want to express their disapproval of the Liberals.

That they can cast a vote for a sovereigntist party at all illustrates that the era when ethnic Quebeckers constituted a monolithic block of federalist voters is over.

"Before, it was practically a betrayal of your community to go with the sovereigntists," said Liberal candidate Raymond Bachand. "Now, it's like you don't care if your neighbour is sovereigntist. That kind of stigma has disappeared."

And with it, federalist hopes that defeating sovereignty was merely a waiting game.

School enrolment in Quebec for 2002-2003

Enrolment in junior, primary and secondary public and private schools according to mother tongue:

Enrolment in junior, primary and secondary public and private schools according to language of instruction:

French: 991,047

English: 122,527

Native languages: 2,659

SOURCE: QUEBEC MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

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