Support for "sovereignty" -- a mush-word further diluted by the usual "partnership" bilge -- had slipped to historic lows.

Quebecers' very identity seemed to be changing in the wake of Sept. 11: A large majority now defined themselves as wholly, primarily or at least partly Canadian. Just 15% defined themselves in a recent poll as "solely Quebecers." As a provincial election loomed, the Pequistes saw their dream of independence slipping away. That is, until the provincial Liberals threw them a lifeline.

Throughout the long, sordid history of Quebec's flirtation with secession, the Quebec Liberal Party has played a vital role. By its clumsy attempts to play the "good cop" to the Pequistes' "bad cop," extorting concessions from the rest of Canada in return for Quebec's continued membership in the federation, it has instead simply validated the separatist "option," encouraging Quebecers to see the rest of Canada as faintly hostile but manipulable rubes: the kind who could be suckered into "sovereignty-partnership." And while it has done incalculable harm with this routine over the years, it seems not to have realized that the game is over. Canadians are no longer willing to make endless concessions of money and powers to keep Quebec from seceding: Indeed, an increasing number would deny that it has any right to secede. Yet the party continues to peddle the same tired formulae, the same unworkable prescriptions, the same crankish obsessions.

If enacted, the party's proposals for "reform" of the federation, adopted at a weekend policy conference, would all but destroy it; but since they are unlikely ever to be enacted, they can serve only to raise expectations and fuel future disappointments. In other words, to give the PQ's ageing faithful a reason to live.

To be sure, this time the party's position comes wrapped in declarations of Quebecers' "attachment" to Canada and to federalism, if in that stilted, vaguely Marxist rhetoric the province's political class prefers. (Sample: "In the area of intergovernmental relations we favour a lucid approach that is well thought out ... and is founded on a comprehensive and coherent analysis of the situation.") But it is a debased version of Canada, and a decadent kind of federalism.

At the outset, the drafters of the party's constitutional position profess anxiety that "the foundations and the spirit of federalism are not very well understood." Only later does one discover this is meant as a criticism, not of separatists or soft nationalists, but of federalists -- that is, those who do not share the party's vision of the country.

Federalism, they instruct, means that "state sovereignty is shared by two orders of government," in such a way that "neither ... is legally subordinated to the other. Both the provinces and the federal government are sovereign in the area of jurisdiction they are granted under the Constitution." Just so. We know of all the powers granted to the provinces in general, and Quebec in particular, powers the party is adamant the province should use to the fullest, "with audacity and imagination." But what powers would it acknowledge to be exclusively federal? In what ways is the federal government sovereign?

Ah. Well. Foreign affairs? "Quebec [and other provinces] must be involved in the negotiation of international treaties...." The economic union? No, that would be given over to a Council of the Federation, composed of provincial delegates.

Immigration, now shared between the federal and provincial governments, would become almost exclusively provincial. Many more federal powers would be handed over, in whole or in part, by similar administrative agreements: criminal law, fisheries, agriculture, natural resources, transportation, regional development. After a time, they could be entrenched in the Constitution.

Wait, there's more. The feds would also hand over tax points to the provinces. Also control of federal cash transfers: No longer could Ottawa "unilaterally" decide how it would spend federal money. The provinces would have a hand in choosing Senators and Supreme Court justices. They would have a veto on most constitutional amendments and the right to opt out of others -- with compensation.

Have I left anything out? Oh yes. Quebec's "specificity" would be recognized via an interpretive clause in the Constitution. Would this have the same legal weight as "distinct society"? Let Jean Charest, the party leader, answer: "There's no question of us settling for less than [Meech Lake] in terms of constitutional interpretation." It's almost cheering, in a way. In a world of flux and turmoil, it's good to see that some things never change.