Gilles Duceppe was so close, he could taste it.

For months he had been playing coy and hard to get, all the while figuring out his path to political resurrection, but his date with destiny was simply not to be.

Of course Duceppe wanted to lead the Parti Quebecois and was planning the palace coup.

Pauline Marois was on life support and Duceppe was set to pull the plug and make a play to become "separatist in chief" until it was revealed his spending habits in Ottawa may not have been totally kosher.

Parliament is going to investigate whether Duceppe broke the rules when he paid the Bloc Quebecois's Director General out of House of Commons funds, i.e. your tax money, for seven years.

Then we found out public funds were used to finance a vanity book about Duceppe.

The Bloc admitted it initially used its Commons money, which it shouldn't have done, but claims to have paid back every penny--although no one has seen the cancelled cheque.

This is the same Bloc that raked the Liberals over improper and illegal spending in the sponsorship scandal.

The holier than thou Bloc that ran the 2004 election campaign on the theme Un Parti Propre au Quebec: "A clean party in Quebec."

Quebecers are discovering the Bloc is really no different, just another slice off the same loaf.

Let's face it.

The Bloc's time in Ottawa was an open bar. From 2000 to 2010, it took in $37 million in federal taxpayers subsidies.

No need to worry about Duceppe. He walked away with an annual pension of almost $150,000 a year.

That's what I call profitable federalism.


A "mother-in-law" returns

And just when Marois thinks she is in the clear from the back stabbers, a ghost of referendums past pays her a visit.

Former Premier Bernard "I didn't really call the Canadian flag a red rag" Landry weighs in with his latest views, calling the current PQ approach to sovereignty "toxic."

The venerable Landry wants a PQ government to call a referendum without haste.

Current PQ orthodoxy calls for the PQ to run Quebec as if it were an independent state and then call a referendum. Federal transfers in the meantime of course would stay in place.

There is no doubt a lot of toxicity here. The free lunch is over, the buffet is closed and Quebecers have reached the point where they have had enough.

If you think what happened to the Bloc last May was an accident, just wait for round two

Something tells me the PQ may be headed for the same fate.

And not soon enough.