There's a trend which seems to be emerging at Gilles Duceppe's evening rallies.

A couple of trends actually.

First, Duceppe has no problem drawing a decent-sized crowd every night of the week. Between 250 and 500 supporters have shown up for all of his events, including his speech Friday night in Sorel, Que., a relatively small community an hour east of Montreal.

The other trend is the average age of the people coming to see Duceppe. With the exception of his nomination party in downtown Montreal on Thursday, where lots of under-30s and even under-20s were quaffing cold ones and having a hoot, generally speaking Bloc supporters who bother to attend these speeches are anywhere between late middle-age and older.

Tonight, to illustrate a point about a defeated Bloc bill in the House, candidate Louis Plamondon asked how many in the hall of about 250 people were retired. Close to half stood up.

—Tim Duboyce