TORONTO, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- It would be, could be -- and probably will be -- very embarrassing.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien may well be hit with a stunning slap in the face from unhappy Liberal backbenchers next week.
Many are ready to oppose him and his office on a motion that, as strange as it sounds, would actually make the House of Commons more democratic.
The Liberal Party members are frustrated by unelected officials in the prime minister's office who wield some tight control over them.
Some broke ranks with the PMO this week and signaled they favor a Canadian Alliance motion that calls for Commons committee chairs to be elected by secret ballot.
As it turns out, that very issue is being promoted by the man who wants to replace the prime minister -- former Finance Minister Paul Martin.
So now, a simple housekeeping matter has become a battle between Chretien and Martin forces.
Chretien supporters failed this week to delay or derail a vote on the motion, so members of Parliament will get their say on it Tuesday afternoon.
And chances are the motion will pass. The opposition needs only 20 Liberals to vote against the government for it to win.
Observers wonder if the Liberal infighting is a sign backbenchers consider Chretien a lame duck because he's promised to retire in February 2004.
Quebec's separatist government, meanwhile, is dealing with a rift of its own.
Premier Bernard Landry saw his fifth Parti Quebecois Cabinet minister resign this week.
Paul Begin quit as justice minister, after criticizing Landry's slow moves on sovereignty.
Begin wanted Landry to promise another referendum if the PQ is re-elected next year, but the premier refuses to.
"I don't want to lose another referendum," Landry told reporters. "It's not anger and impatience that will take us to our goal, but courage and patience."
PQ hardliners may not have patience, but the party as a whole may not have what it needs to win an election.
An upstart conservative party called the Action Democratique du Quebec or ADQ is faring much better in the polls.
A majority of Quebecers also say they don't want another independence referendum.
Still, support for sovereignty is higher than it was during the 1980 referendum.
Recent polls show it's hovering around 40 percent.
One political pundit says the Parti Quebecois has a problem it hasn't found an answer for.
"Since its first referendum defeat in 1980, the PQ has never managed to resolve one existential question," columnist Michel Auger wrote in the French-language Journal de Montreal.
"What to do when the PQ is in power and isn't capable of winning a referendum on sovereignty?"
And finally, a "Soviet Canuckistan?"
That's what outspoken U.S. television commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan is calling Canada now.
It all comes after Ottawa criticized a U.S. law that demands Arab-Canadian visitors be photographed and fingerprinted.
The Canadian government went so far to issue a warning that the U.S. was targeting Canadian citizens born in Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Syria.
That's what got Buchanan all riled up.
"The Canadians... have been defended by the United States, (but) they pay nothing for defense," he said on his MSNBC show this week.
"That place is a complete haven for international terrorists," he added. "Even their own retired security guys say it's a complete haven. We ... need lectures from some people, not from Soviet Canuckistan."
Critics on this side of the border called Buchanan's comments "disgraceful" and "based in ignorance."
The prime minister's office essentially agreed, but used gentler language to describe its reaction.
Just for the record, Buchanan doesn't think much of America's neighbor to the north and number one trading partner.
"For most Americans, Canada is sort of like a case of latent arthritis," he said in 1992. "We really don't think about it, unless it acts up."
