Among the many utterly inane features of Canadian politics – along with, for example, regional development programs, Question Period and the Reform Party – is our penchant for speculating, endlessly, about when so-and-so is going to retire.

Every recent Canadian political leader of significance has experienced it: Jean Chretien, Brian Mulroney, John Turner, you name it. No sooner do the poor guys (and, only very occasionally, gals) achieve high office, following years of chicken and handshakes in church basements hither and yon, when some cynic clutching a notepad starts taking bets on a leadership change.

What is most remarkable about all of this is that the speculation will take place even when a leader is popular. In June 1990, for example, mere moments after Jean Chretien achieved a convincing first-ballot victory at the last Liberal Party leadership convention, the tongues of television pundits were wagging about Mr. Chretien’s ability to survive in his new role for a few months. The fact that he has gone on to be the most popular Prime Minister in the history of polling doesn’t deter the soothsayers, however: every week or so, one of them can be counted upon to cough up a leadership “analysis” piece about when Mr. Chretien will be retiring, replete with anonymous sources and not much else.

Pierre Trudeau used to find this sort of thing immensely amusing, and I am reliably informed that Mr. Chretien does, as well. They both know, after all, that – failing a military coup – that it is no simple thing to dislodge a First Minister. There are exceptions to this, of course ( British Columbia’s much-investigated Glen Clark comes to mind) but, as a rule, leadership is not easily removed from those who have captured it.

Which may explain the conflicting emotions now besetting Quebec’s own First Minister – or, Prime Minister, as he is called there - Lucien Bouchard.

Mr. Bouchard cannot be accused of having lucked into the post of Premier of Quebec, or having had an unsuccessful political career. Not so long ago, he brought Canada to within a few thousand votes of annihilation; a few weeks later, in January 1996, the cerebral lawyer from St. Jean cruised to a coronation as leader of the Parti Quebecois – and Premier of la belle province. In November 1998, he secured another substantial PQ majority in the National Assembly, outpacing Jean Charest’s Liberals by 26 seats. Along the way, he has balanced Quebec’s budget, and stared down a number of potentially disastrous labour disputes.

That said, the Death Watch has begun in earnest for the PQ’s mercurial leader. With support for a referendum on sovereignty now slipping to their lowest levels in years, the province’s separatist chattering classes have concluded that the end is nigh. In November of last year, even Bouchard was forced to address the doomsaying prognostications, when he insisted that he would lead the Parti Quebecois to another victory in a year or so.

Not so fast, Lucy. There are plenty of reasons why you might be persuaded to pack a bag, sooner rather than later. A sampling:

• Well, for starters, your family is leaving town: Bouchard’s wife, Audrey Best, is eyeing a legal career in her home state of California. She does not plan to leave the couple’s twins, Alexandre and Simon, mired in one of Quebec City’s impressive snowbanks. Count on it.
  
  
• You’re not going to win the next election: Back-to-back wins are not uncommon in Quebec provincial politics. Rene Levesque did it, Robert Bourassa did it, Jean Lesage did it. But no party has won three successive majorities in Quebec since the bad old days of Maurice Duplessis in the 1940s and 1950s. The PQ is done like dinner, if historical trends mean anything – and, in Quebec, they do.
  
  
• You have that far-away look again: No Canadian political leader has played footsie with more political causes than Lucien Bouchard. As a youngster, he was a federalist; then he decided he sympathized with sovereignty. After Mr. Trudeau became Liberal Party leader, Mr. Bouchard changed his mind again, and campaigned for the Grits in the 1972 election. By 1976, he was stumping for the Parti Quebecois. Then, in 1985 – to ensure further confusion - he accepted an appointment by Brian Mulroney to become Canada’s Ambassador to France. When 1988 rolled around, he was a member of Mr. Mulroney’s cabinet – and, by 1991, he was leading the separatist Bloc Quebcois in the House of Commons. Quebec –watchers in the nation’s capital note that Bouchard seemed to lose all interest in his job following the July 1999 illegal nurse’s strike. Next stop: leadership of the Natural Law Party!
  
  
• Referendum-it is has beset Quebec: The Parti Quebecois’ very raison d’etre, sovereignty, needs a double dose of Viagra. Jean Chretien’s Clarity Act did not do what Mr. Bouchard and his cabal fervently hoped – namely, restoke the fires of separatist sentiment. Polling even showed that – qu’elle horreur! – sovereignty supporters understood what moved Mr. Chretien to table his rules for secession.

As the Clash put it, in a different context: will he stay, or will he go? Well, if he wants to lose his family, the election, and a chance at a sovereign Quebec, he’ll run. Otherwise, he’ll frappe la rue.

Mr. Bouchard, for his part, is fed up with all of this leadership fortune-telling. .“Speculation,” he sniffed a few weeks ago, “has now become a national sport.”

True enough. But what we really want know is – when are you leaving, Mr. Bouchard?

[Warren Kinsella is a public policy lawyer with McMillan Binch and a former assistant to Jean Chretien.]