Parti Québécois Leader André Boisclair predicts Prime Minister Stephen Harper's motion to recognize the Québécois as a nation within Canada will help the sovereignty forces in the province.

MPs voted on Harper's motion on Monday night, passing it by a 266-16 margin.

Quebec Opposition leader André Boisclair gestures as he asks questions to Premier Jean Charest Thursday at the Quebec legislature.
(Jacques Boissinot/Canadian Press)

He said Thursday the surprise motion brought forward in the House of Commons on Wednesday is a powerful symbol that will up the ante in any future constitutional talks, and will fuel the credibility of the independence movement.

"The fact that the federal government recognizes that there is a nation in Quebec, they will have to recognize that this nation has a right to auto-determination, and it will facilitate the process of the international recognition of a sovereign Quebec," Boisclair said.

However federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Benoit Pelletier said the government won't be baited into hasty constitutional talks.

"We should only deal with the Constitution when everyone is ready for it," he said.

He said another failed round of talks would help sovereigntists win a referendum.

Liberal member of the Quebec national assembly Pierre Reid said he sees no hurry to change the Constitution because, he said, the Harper motion strips sovereigntists of their traditional support base.

"It's a signal to Quebec nationalists: you have a right to be federalist, and to be nationalist."

Reid said the motion symbolizes a new era in federalist politics, because it shows that the rest of Canada understands something most Quebecers knew about themselves all along.