Martine Ouellet vows to stay on as Bloc leader despite revolt over her leadership

BlocQubcoisLeaderMartineOuelletis not budging from her insistence on promoting sovereigntyat every turn, despite it having cost her the support of most ofher caucus and a long list of former MPs.

Ouelletemerged from a seven-hour emergency meeting of party executives on Saturday appearing dumbfounded that anyone within the party would question her desire to aggressively talk up Quebec's independence.

"How canMPstell me that they think as a chief of the Bloc Qubcois, which is an independentist party, I talk too much about independence. I don't understand,"Ouelletsaid at a late afternoon news conference, where she vowed to stay on as leader.

But her approach to the sovereignty question has split the party. Seven of its10 MPs bolted from caucus on Wednesday. They likenedOuellet'sleadership to driving a car into a wall at 200 km/h.

"The loyalty of the co-pilot is in saying, 'If we continue like this we're going to crash,'" the rebel MPs said in an open letter published Saturday in the Journal deMontral, Quebec's largest circulation daily.

They believesovereignty promotion is best handled by the Parti Qubcois, a party thatOuellethas twice campaigned to lead, both times unsuccessfully.

No support from former leader, MPs

The breakaway faction is backed by a group of21 former BlocMPs including ex-leader GillesDuceppe who also called onOuelletto step down in a separate open letter.

Duceppe led the party to a series of impressive electoral results in the early 2000sby focusing on defending Quebec's interests in Ottawa. He accusedOuelletof imperilingthe party's future with her hardline strategy.

"Ouelletweakened the voice of Quebec in Ottawa atthe very moment that it needs a strong voice," said the open letter, which Duceppewrote.

There was little in whatOuellet said Saturday to indicate she was willing to compromise with her critics. She pointed out she was acclaimed as the party's leader last year and said she hasthe unanimous support of the party executive.

Ouelletwas surrounded at the news conference by members of the executive, including chairMarioBeaulieu, the party's former leader. He stepped down just ahead of the 2015 federal election when it appeared the Bloc was risking extinction.

Duceppereturned temporarily, and helped the party win the 10 seats it now holds, most in the suburban areas around Montreal.

'Door remains open'

The breakaway faction now sits as a separate parliamentary group. AfterOuellet's news conference on Saturday, they issued a statement of their own saying "nothing has changed."

"We will meet in the coming days to evaluate our options and see how we can serve Quebecers to the best of our abilities," the statement said.

Ouellet, for her part, said she still hopes the rebel MPswill return to caucus. As a sign of good faith, the Bloc'sexecutive decided not to strip them of their party memberships, a possibility that had been invoked earlier.

"The door remains open," said Ouellet.

Her current leadership woes can be traced to a speech she gave last month to a party convention, during which she called outBlocMPsfor their "resistance" to her new goals for the party.

She also blamed them for leaking information about her demands for a $95,000 annual salary from the party.

Ouelletherself does not have a seat in the House of Commons, which complicated her efforts to impose her will on the caucus.

A former Parti QubcoisMNA, she now sits as anindependent in the provincial legislature and does not intend to run in Quebec's fall election.