MONTREAL - Desperately seeking unfaithful separatists. That's what both Liberal Premier Jean Charest and Action democratique du Quebec Leader Mario Dumont were doing on Friday - singing a siren song for sovereigntists who might stray from the Parti Quebecois in Monday's provincial election.
"I see there are a lot of sovereigntists who don't want a referendum, who say 'No, that's not what I want, I'm not there,' " Charest said in Thetford Mines, about 80 kilometres south of Quebec City.
Charest said another referendum wouldn't advance Quebec.
"They know that a referendum will divide us and that's not what Quebec needs right now when we've made very significant gains within the federation in the last four years."
Charest, Dumont and PQ Leader Andre Boisclair are in a three-way race to govern Quebec with an outcome that's almost impossible to predict and where every vote is looming as important.
Dumont also made his pitch for supple sovereigntists. He asked what he's calling "realistic" sovereigntists to vote for the ADQ.
The ADQ leader attacked Boisclair and said the PQ leader is "too weak" to lead Quebec.
Dumont has attracted at least one public and vocal supporter of an independent Quebec, author Victor-Levy Beaulieu, who said he intends to vote ADQ because he doesn't like the urbane and urban direction the PQ has taken.
Charest warned voters on Friday about supporting the ADQ, saying it's just a "waiting room" for sovereigntists.
"It's true there are people who see the ADQ like a means to advance sovereignty," the premier said.
Dumont, who supported sovereignty in the 1995 referendum, has renounced independence and now supports what he calls an "autonomous" Quebec within Canada.
Boisclair spent Friday saying he plans to win a majority government and isn't worried about flirting sovereigntists.
"I think that sovereigntists tempted to vote for the Action democratique du Quebec have understood that Harper, Charest, Dumont - it's the same bunch," he said.
"They're coming back to the Parti Quebecois."
Boisclair, whose PQ program says a referendum would be held soon after taking power, was asked how he would achieve that objective if Quebecers didn't want one.
His reply: "We're going to act in a responsible manner and on the matter of sovereignty I will never act as if I am the sole owner of the sovereignty idea. This project belongs to Quebecers."
He added he would build a coalition of sovereigntists to support a referendum.
Also on Friday, Quebec's chief returning officer announced that Muslim women will have to remove their face coverings if they want to vote on Monday.
Marcel Blanchet reversed an earlier decision and is now telling Muslim women who wear a niqab to show their faces when they cast their ballot.
Facing threats from ordinary citizens that they would show up at polling stations wearing masks, Blanchet said in Quebec City that voting day must proceed without incident.
Blanchet had to get two bodyguards as a result of his initial decision and Elections Quebec had received threatening phone calls and e-mails.
Quebec's three main political leaders had asked Blanchet to reverse the decision.
Blanchet says he's using special powers under electoral law to make the change.
Former PQ premier Jacques Parizeau also asked sovereigntists not to stray even if they're not totally happy with their leader or party.
In a speech before about 200 junior college students, the 76-year-old Parizeau called on sovereigntists to keep their eye on the objective. His wife, Lisette Lapointe, is a PQ candidate in a Montreal-area riding.
"I know it's not easy for certain of you to say 'I don't like this party or there's someone in the party I don't like or I would like it if he were different,' " Parizeau said.
"(But) think about the objective. . .think about the goal.
"If we want the sovereignty of Quebec enough, we have to think about things other than that."
Without naming him, Parizeau slammed Dumont.
"An attempt to realize the autonomy of Quebec, that's what's now happening," Parizeau said.
"It's the same buzzword (former Quebec premier Maurice) Duplessis used all through the '40s and '50s.
"But that went no where," he added.
