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PQ Leader Pauline Marois delivers her opening speech during the party's general council meeting on Jan. 27, 2012, in Montreal.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's move to transform Canada has breathed new life into the Parti Québécois, which after being battered for weeks by internal divisions is now rallying behind Leader Pauline Marois' opposition to Ottawa's conservative agenda.

Quebeckers will be ashamed to be part of Stephen Harper's Canada, Ms. Marois said Friday in a speech to more than 400 party delegates gathered in Montreal for a weekend meeting. If Quebeckers want change, she said, then Mr. Harper's reforms are giving them reason to support the PQ and embrace the only real change possible: a change of country.

"The most fundamental change for Quebec is to go from Stephen Harper's Canada to Quebec as a country. We want to change countries," Ms. Marois told cheering party delegates.

The PQ is preparing for an election and the Harper government has become its prime target to attract nationalist support in the province.

Ms. Marois wants to convince the party that achieving sovereignty is still part of her agenda. But in her speech, she declined to give details as to how she planned on achieving political independence. There was no timetable for holding another referendum on sovereignty and no sign one will be defined any time soon.

Behind the effort to attack Mr. Harper is also the urgent need for Ms. Marois to rebuild party unity over her leadership in time for the next election. The PQ has been embroiled in an internal conflict in which Ms. Marois' leadership was being challenged within the party by those who wanted former Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe to take over the PQ. The voices of dissent accused Ms. Marois of being too soft on sovereignty.

While Ms. Marois stood her ground, Mr. Duceppe retreated following allegations that the Bloc had used public funds to pay a party official. He said he has abandoned his ambition of returning to active political life in order to focus all of his attention on "defending my integrity and reestablishing my reputation."

"We have a great responsibility, one to unite in order to succeed. The sense of urgency ... is rooted in Ottawa," Ms. Marois said in her speech on Friday. "Quebec's real adversary is in Ottawa: It is Stephen Harper's Conservative government."

Those leading the fight against Ms. Marois appear to have accepted to close ranks for now.

"We sounded the alarm and expressed the fear that the party headed for a brick wall. Well, we take notice of the situation ... and we must concentrate on defeating Jean Charest's Liberals and François Legault's Coalition," said Pierre Dubuc, one of the more vocal dissidents in the party.

In her speech, the PQ Leader pointed to a long list of Conservative policies that went against the values she said Quebeckers hold. By imposing tougher sentences on young offenders, she said Canada "has chosen prisons" over education. And when the Harper government reneged on its commitment to fight climate change under the Kyoto accord, he was also going against Quebec's interests, she said.

Canada is being transformed into an "oil country" and has chosen military planes over helping families, Ms. Marois said. And Mr. Harper is on the verge of abandoning seniors with proposed changes to old age security program, she added.

"I'm ashamed of what I see. I don't recognize myself in this country. With the Conservative government, the world is closing its doors on Quebec. We have to change that and that is what we will do," Ms. Marois said.

An offensive against Ottawa is part of the PQ strategy to convince Quebeckers that Jean Charest's Liberals and François Legault's Coalition Avenir Quebec are committed to working with the federal government rather than to fight for Quebec. Ms. Marois called them "apostles of the status quo."

Since he launched the idea of creating a new party less than a year ago by promising to bury the debate over Quebec sovereignty, Mr. Legault has attracted support away from Ms. Marois, driving the PQ down to third-place status in public opinion polls. By attacking Ottawa, Ms. Marois is also attempting to convince voters that Mr. Legault would have no bargaining power to take on a government as determined as that of Mr. Harper.

"This position of weakness places Quebec at the mercy of the Conservatives in Ottawa. The politics of François Legault amount to writing a blank cheque to Stephen Harper," Ms. Marois said.

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