by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Hey, what happened? I mean, what the friggin' frick happened? One minute you're calling for a pizza and by the time the box is at your door, Quebecers have hopped beds from the ADQ to the PQ to the Liberals.

Now the separatists are out and Captain Canada is in. Language police are gingerly discarding uniforms and swimming across the St. Lawrence. Instead of hopping in a cortège of limos, the PQ's 372 cabinet ministers will fill in their pension papers as soon as they get their Tercels tuned at Speedy.

Just a few hours ago the PQ was even with the Liberals and it looked like they'd win, thanks to the solid advantage the system offers the rural woodchopper vote.

But overnight the Liberals had a serious lead. Why? How?

Most figure the debate changed everything. For those who missed it, the decisive moment occurred when Charest blasted Landry by saying - and I translate this from the original French - "So I hear you've got that blame-the-immigrants guy campaigning for you… I mean, what's up with that?"

But if the debate pulled Charest even, it was the phenomenon-to-be-named-later that launched Charest's team into the big lead.

SARS did it. When you turn on the TV and see dozens dying just down the road in a rapidly worsening epidemic, Quebecers started wondering if our hospitals are up to snuff.

The Liberals owned health care while the PQ addressed this issue with the ol' Gallic-shrug technique. In one ad, a soft-focused Premier Landry repressed his usual bulging forehead vein long enough to tell us that, "We believe that eating well and living right and exercising are also keys to health care," to paraphrase the nonsense. Hey, when the plague hits, you don't need a doctor tsk-tsking you for firing up the BBQ every night for the last three weeks. No sir, you want the scalpels and dope.

Frankly, the PQ government left me tense. They were perpetually one youth conference away from passing lousy new restrictions on our civil liberties. The way the party is rigged, it encourages grass-roots meddling, meaning that a fast-talking CÉGEP student could sell the rest of the crowd on a nutty policy, which the brass would be obliged to follow, a set-up that deeply discouraged the PQ's two great leaders, Lévesque and Bouchard.

This time the PQ, rather admirably, appealed to Quebecers' laziness, promising to make every weekend a three-day affair. Tell your boss you're just not showing up one day this week and see how fast your career motors up that greasy pole. Then Landry tried to rope that all-important just-graduated-parent demographic by promising tax breaks for those who have kids right after university. Then we heard something about tax credits to holiday in Quebec. Hey, isn't the entire point of a vacation to go away?

And of course women and immigrants don't vote for the PQ, so Landry obsessed over them. Women, anyway. He wants more female candidates. Talk about your who-gives-a-shit issues. Does it matter what the gender is of the person nodding their head to the leader? Is it important to know whether your MNA has an innie or outie?

And Landry - apparently too cheap to buy a ring - hauled his fading vedette sack buddy (can you describe a 60 year old as a "girlfriend?") everywhere. She looked a little too anxious to redecorate the palace with her framed yé-yé records.

Thank God for Mario "Mr. Puniverse" Dumont, who makes up for his scrawny pecs by calling his gang an "action" rather than a "party." Cool. Maybe he could call them the "X-Treme Action Democratikz" next time. But I'd never vote for a candidate under 70 because they could quit young and collect pensions for decades.

The church bells rang loud Tuesday. Birds sang and streets were awash in the warm spring rain. A new era started this week.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca