i love canada...

QUEBEC, Oct. 20 - Quebec voters are a famously tolerant lot. They elect many gay and lesbian politicians, and they seem to think that political leaders who don't admit to having smoked marijuana are lacking in joie de vivre.

One premier in the 1970's ran over and killed a homeless man and then was re-elected.

So nobody was particularly surprised when André Boisclair, a 39-year-old gay man who banters about his sexuality on television talk shows, became the instant front-runner in the leadership race to head the separatist Parti Québécois.

The real test of Quebecers' broad-mindedness began last month, however, with a published report about Mr. Boisclair's lively night life in Quebec City - complete with excessive drinking and cocaine use - while serving in the provincial cabinet in the 1990's. The article described "wild weekends at the end of which you can't recall where you left your rented car."

Mr. Boisclair immediately faced a media frenzy, which only gathered steam as he first ducked all questions. Although he finally acknowledged cocaine use, he still refuses to say how often he took it, when he stopped taking it and where he got it.

In the United States, this sort of revelation usually means it's time to think seriously about that career in lobbying. But Mr. Boisclair's poll numbers did not drop. In fact, they soared, at least initially, with more than 70 percent of Quebecers saying in polls that his cocaine use was not an issue.