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‘We have to re-engage in Canada. I have the feeling that other Canadians feel that Quebecers are on the sidelines’

Mr. Couillard, 55, who is considered the front-runner, spelled out his vision for the party in a December article in Le Devoir, calling for a “return to the sources” of Liberal ideals. The party, he said, has always stood for cultural diversity and friendship with progressives in the United States and Canada.

In the interview, he said that while the federalist-sovereigntist debate has “shifted a little bit to the backstage,” it remains crucial to defining his party.

He is in favour of an eventual constitutional deal to include Quebec — he called it “closing the loop” opened with the 1982 repatriation — but said first Quebec has work to do.

“We need to have a conversation in Quebec about what constitutes our identity and our distinctiveness,” he said. “And then we have to re-engage in Canada. I have the feeling that other Canadians feel that Quebecers are on the sidelines.”

Asked what, aside from the constitutional question, most distinguishes the Liberals from the PQ, he said the Liberals are more pro-business.

The Liberals are “a very tolerant and inclusive movement…. If you listen to the PQ discourse, they talk about language, they talk about culture, they talk about identity, it always comes from the point of view of the francophone majority.”

At 65, Mr. Bachand is the oldest of the candidates, and he said friends asked him why he would want to get involved in a leadership race. As a former finance minister, his strong suit is the economy, and he said it is a concern for Quebec’s future that motivates him. “As you see in Europe today, if the economy doesn’t work, if your public finances are not in order, then everything is an illusion,” he said. In just a few months in power, the PQ government has already driven away business, he said, and he fears the situation will worsen.