In time, Jean Charest may be seen to have presided over the death of not one, but two political parties. It isn't his fault, really: parties turn to a leader like Charest when they are already brain-dead, broken of spirit and bereft of purpose. Unable to decide what they really stand for, unwilling to confront the insurmountable divisions within their ranks, their desperate partisans find in Charest a perfect fit, since he palpably believes in nothing and everything at once.

There is something ineffably sad, then, in Charest's imminent departure from the federal Tories for the Quebec Liberal Party. They are two sinking ships, and neither the going nor the coming can avert that fate. Charest himself is ruined, politically speaking. By tacking so carefully towards Quebec nationalists, notably in the matter of the Supreme Court reference, he may have saved himself a spot on the QLP, but at the cost of permanently alienating what remains of the Tory party in the rest of Canada. Indeed, had he not jumped -- er, if he does not jump -- he would very probably have been dumped.

He will not find life any easier at the helm of the QLP. Those in his vast media fan club who think he is going back to his native province to take on Lucien Bouchard are in for a nasty shock. It is not Bouchard he will run against, but Jean Chretien. The QLP are too wedded to their thirty-year strategy of courting the nationalist vote to turn back now.

Yet they must realize that the game is over. The separatist peek-a-boo in which Liberal leaders from Jean Lesage to Daniel Johson have engaged with the rest of Canada -- give us special status, or the separatists will take Quebec out of Canada -- has been deprived of both its founding premises.

Canadians outside Quebec are no longer responsive to the "knife at the throat." And the knife itself is increasingly seen to be made of rubber. For as long as the game was in play, it was possible to hold the party's fractious factions, federalist and nationalist, together. Nationalists could pride themseives that they were defending Quebec's superior interests; federalists could console themselves they were saving Canada. But when neither side can be deluded any longer, they will find less and less reason to stay together.

So if, as expected, Charest follows the advice of the QLP establishment and sticks to the nationalist line, he can have little to gain. If he is lucky, he will lose badly, and be spared squandering whatever goodwill he retains in the rest of the country. But a close race might inspire him to some truly wild promises, which would forever disqualify him from a return to federal politics. Worse yet, he might win, and be expected to deliver. At which point, the Liberal coalition would inevitably fracture. If he backed off, having raised expectations to such heights, the nationalists would desert him. If he pressed on, the federalists would walk.

But if the QLP would seem a dismal lot, it is nothing compared to the home for stray dogs the federal Conservative party has become. The Tories have always been the party of the "outs," those left behind by Liberal machine politics. But they have never been quite so indiscriminate in the assortment of delusionaries and lost causes they now seem willing to embrace: Maritimers who think the pogey is coming back; Quebec nationalists trying to revive Meech Lake; and most embarrassingly, aging careerists who believe they can rebuild a national party out of the Senate.

Some in the party are cheered at Charest's departure, believing this will open the way to a merger with Reform. It's easy to see why Tories might want this -- those Tories, that is, who do not despise Reform utterly. But what's in it for Reform? Do not underestimate the achievement of the last election.

The optics of Official Opposition status, with Reform MPs popping up opposite the Liberals every day on the television news, are compelling: more and more, the party appears to the public as a credible government in waiting. That, more than anything else, is the key to the much-coveted Reform breakthrough in Ontario.

That may not show in the polls yet, but as the next election approaches, voters with a reason to toss the Liberals out will look first to Reform.

What, then, do the Tories have to offer in a merger? Unless they can find a leader who can do damage to Reform in the west, they really bring nothing to the table.

No one can be happy at the death of a once great party. But for the Tories, even more than the Quebec Liberals, it's over. It is only Charest's misfortune to have been present at both their deathbeds.