Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe said Wednesday that Canada should no longer have a governor general and called the monarchy "ridiculous," but critics dismissed his attack as a vain attempt to regain his party's relevancy.
Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean is currently in France, where she is promoting Quebec City's upcoming 400th anniversary of its founding. She has said the event will be a celebration of francophones across Canada.
"There are a million of them out there fighting to save their language and their culture," she said. "And I will tell President Sarkozy, 'Look beyond Quebec.'"
Duceppe took issue with those remarks.
"We're not celebrating Canada, we're celebrating the foundation of Quebec," he told reporters outside the House of Commons.
"And first of all, I don't feel I'm being represented at all by someone who represents the Queen. It says that this is not a democratic system. She's representing the Queen of England."
Before speaking to the media, Duceppe had said during question period: "Does the prime minister realize that we are speaking of the 400th anniversary of Quebec City, the cradle of the Quebec nation? Isn't it the Quebec nation we're celebrating, not the ridiculous monarchy?"
Prime Minister Stephen Harper shot back that Canada was created along with the founding of Quebec, and the celebration should be for all Canadians.
"The leader of the Bloc is giving me the opportunity to underscore that 400 years ago, in Quebec, our country was born in French," Harper said.
"The founding of Quebec City was also the founding of the Canadian state. The Governor General today is the successor to Samuel de Champlain, the first governor of Canada.
"All Canadians celebrate this extremely important event in our history."
Jean's comments in France were given little press coverage in Quebec, most notably in the lower half of a story in Montreal's Le Devoir newspaper. Conservative MP Jason Kenney said Duceppe was struggling to finds issues that would generate support for his party.
"The Bloc just can't stand the fact that Quebecers are happy to be part of Canada," he told CTV's Mike Duffy Live. "Right now, we have the lowest level of support for separation in 35 years. The BQ came in third in the last election."
Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc called Duceppe's comments a "petty stunt" to "create controversy around what is a happy, national celebration."
"You've got a separatist party that's grasping for air, and is simply trying to create a whole artificial crisis where one doesn't exist," he said. "I thought it was a rather pathetic display."
With files from The Canadian Press
