Charest may indeed be the best hope of saving the jobs of 46 Liberal MNAs.

But we should be leery of any attempt to equate the fate of the country with the fate of the Quebec Liberal party, still less with the career choices of a former junior cabinet minister. As far as the country's interests are concerned, the essential task is not to elect a Liberal government, but to transform the Liberals into a genuinely federalist party. It would be better, indeed, for the Liberals to lose on a frankly federalist platform than to win by outbidding the Parti Quebecois for the nationalist vote.

Consider first what would happen if the PQ won the election. Only three results are conceivable. One, Lucien Bouchard declines, in the face of discouraging polls, even to hold a referendum. In which case the issue dies and his party tears itself apart. Two, he holds a referendum, and loses, for the third time in a generation. Again, the issue dies and the party tears itself apart. Three, he holds a referendum and wins by the narrowest of margins.

The legitimacy of the contest is disputed, the province is plunged into chaos, the feds refuse to move, the world yawns -- and the party tears itself apart.

One way or another, the separatist project would reach its inevitable terminus, taking the PQ with it.

But now consider what would happen if the Liberals were to win, after a campaign marked by heavy appeals to nationalist sentiment. The result would inevitably be interpreted as a mandate to renegotiate the federation.

Enormous pressure would be brought to bear on the other provinces: Quebecers had just said Yes to Canada. How could we say No to them?

Already Charest is being talked up, not just as the man who could persuade Quebecers to give Canada "one more chance," but as the one with federalist credentials enough to bring the rest of Canada around on the Liberals' long- cherished dream, special status for Quebec. Indeed, don't be surprised to see Charest demand some promise of constitutional change before reluctantly accepting the saviour's mantle.

But special status, whatever the political class may think, isn't acceptable to the public. And lying in the reeds, waiting for the effort to fail, would be the Pequistes. A Liberal victory, in short, solves nothing. A nationalist Liberal government, sitting across from a separatist opposition, is the same old good cop-bad cop routine of which the country has grown abundantly weary.

Chances are the Liberals will lose the next election no matter who leads them. But win or lose, they would best serve their country by positioning themselves as robust and unapologetic advocates for federalism, not, as in previous campaigns, as separatists with their hands on their wallets. Those Quebec Liberals who still dream of capturing the traditional centre ground of Quebec politics, neither unconditionally federalist nor outright separatist, must understand that the old centre is disappearing. Recent federal initiatives, notably the Supreme Court reference, have tended to polarize opinion in Quebec. For the first time in their adult lives, soft nationalists are being forced to choose.

That's hell on traditional pols like Charest, who have made a career of holding out to Quebecers the promise of a "third way." But it's a fact. And it calls for a fundamental change in strategy. For too long, the Quebec Liberal party has allowed the separatists to define the terms of debate; they were too afraid to do anything else. But a party motivated only by fear cannot hope to prevail. Perhaps now the Liberals will come out of their defensive crouch.

Perhaps they will realize that they can succeed only by redefining the political spectrum: by making politics more than a test of how much you can extract from the rest of the country.

No, of course they won't: that's why they're so eager to court Charest. The challenge remains: how to prod the Liberals in a more federalist direction.

To which we will return in another column.