The federal bureaucrat responsible for the Plains of Abraham says he's prepared to resign over a battle re-enactment controversy — but only if the government asks him to leave.

Andre Juneau said Wednesday he will not quit as head of the National Battlefields Commission just because sovereigntist politicians are asking him to.

Juneau was forced to cancel a planned summer re-enactment of the 1759 Plains of Abraham battle at Quebec City, which led to the fall of New France.

The embattled battlefields boss received a grilling at a House of Commons committee Wednesday where Bloc Québécois MPs asked for his resignation.

He replied he would resign at the request of Heritage Minister James Moore — but not at the Bloc's behest.

"I won't resign because the Bloc is asking for it," Juneau said after the committee hearing.

"I've written to the minister. If the minister asks me to leave for reasons he judges appropriate, it will be my pleasure to reply, 'yes,' to his request."

Moore's office confirmed it received the letter but a spokeswoman for the minister said Juneau's dismissal "hasn't been discussed."

Juneau said it wasn't just the public outcry and threats of violence that prompted the cancellation, but also the realization that politicians weren't willing to stick up for the event.

Juneau said that he received 150 threatening letters over the planned re-enactment and that he turned them over to the Quebec City police.

The police deemed two of the alleged threats serious enough to warrant an investigation.

Juneau said the police could not have ensured the safety of visiting participants, especially as they wandered around Quebec City tourist attractions away from the re-enactment site.

While the controversy brewed, a variety of federalist politicians — including Premier Jean Charest and some cabinet ministers in Ottawa — declared they would steer clear of the event.

Juneau said that lack of political support made the cancellation inevitable.

He said the emotional wounds from the conquest of New France appeared wide open for some people, even after 250 years.

"It's fresher than we thought," Juneau said. "But not for everybody. Not for a majority of people. A lot of people are pretty happy with what they are, as French-speaking Canadians."

The federalist parties did not call for Juneau's resignation.

However, New Democrat MP Tom Mulcair called it an error in judgment for the federal government to get involved in re-enacting the event, one commonly seen by francophone Quebecers as a historic tragedy.

The Conservatives appeared particularly eager to lay blame for the debacle at the feet of the Bloc Québécois.

They noted that the Bloc and its provincial cousin, the Parti Québécois, are the biggest advertisers in a sovereigntist newsletter that raised the prospect of violence if the event went ahead.

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre made the link repeatedly, accusing the Bloc Québécois again and again of "financing" a newspaper that endorses violence and racism.

The accusation had Bloc MPs leaping to their feet and sputtering in rage at Poilievre's attack, with one of them swearing loudly enough to be heard from the back corner of the committee room.