Canadians already have their country and now Quebecers must have theirs, Gilles Duceppe said Saturday, issuing a rallying call of sorts to the province's sovereigntists.

"Choosing another strategy would mean accepting to be forever in the minority with the sad results we have had since the beginning of Canada," the Bloc Quebecois leader said.

With Duceppe's sovereignist party in imminent danger of being trounced by a one-two punch of the Conservatives and the New Democrats on May 2, he is urging Quebecers who favour independence to step up.

"We want Quebec to become a country. We must fight for that in Ottawa."

For voters who worry about strife and instability, Duceppe said breaking up Canada need not be hostile.

"Our goal is to (produce) a country existing in friendship with Canada. We don't want revenge. We want to say positively that we want to exist in this contemporary world. Not against others, but for ourselves with the others."

Duceppe has also called in the big guns of the Parti Quebecois — the BQ's ally on the provincial scene — to come to the aid of his imperilled party.

On Monday, former PQ premier Jacques Parizeau, now 80, will join Duceppe in St. Lambert, Que., where he is expected to issue a rallying cry to Quebec voters to resist the temptation to shift allegiances to Jack Layton's surging New Democrats.

Parizeau's entry into the federal campaign follows that of Pauline Marois. The current PQ leader, buoyed by a strong confidence vote at the PQ convention a week ago, added her voice to the call to vote for Bloc candidates on Friday.

Speaking in Montreal on Saturday morning, Duceppe said a strong turnout is key to stopping the NDP in Quebec and a Conservative majority on the national level.

The Bloc leader said while he "respects all our adversaries," the party can't take anything for granted.

Throughout the last week, with opinion polls showing the BQ in deep trouble, Duceppe has been pushing the nationalist button by suggesting Quebec is inherently different from the rest of the country and only the BQ is poised to represent its interests.

"Those who want a country have only one choice," Duceppe said, preaching to the converted at party headquarters, where a few dozen volunteers prepared to call voters in ridings which have long been BQ strongholds but now face a challenge from the NDP.

Duceppe contends that as long as they are part of Canada, Quebec MPs from other parties will always have to add water to their wine, accepting the will of the majority from other regions.

He cites the recent proposal by the Conservatives — also supported by the Liberals and the NDP — to help Newfoundland and Labrador underwrite the cost of the massive Lower Churchill hydroelectric project, when Quebec built James Bay without a penny from federal coffers.

"It was Quebec facing the rest of Canada, facing the three federalist parties."

Meanwhile, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff called Duceppe's push for Quebec independence "discouraging" during a campaign stop in Summerside, P.E.I.