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Quebec Three-way Tight Till the End
Province's first minority in 100 years predicted.
Today is the last of eight crazy days in Canadian politics.
A week ago, Stephen Harper dropped his second budget as prime minister. It was a document that, as The Tyee's Laura Drake predicted, left B.C. in the cold. Environmentalists, housing advocates and even Newfoundlanders were unhappy with what they saw.
But the above groups were hardly Harper's target market. This budget was about something else, something a little more...belle. In a word: Quebec.
The Tories offered hundreds of millions of dollars in new transfer payments to la belle province in the budget. The spending was done with two related goals: 1) Add Quebec nationalists to Harper's conservative coalition, allowing him to win a majority government; 2) Prove to said nationalists that Jean Charest's Quebec Liberals can bring home the federal bacon, shoring them up before today's provincial vote.
Whether or not Harper succeeded in the first goal, we won't know for a while, as his government now appears temporarily safe. As for the second, well, stay tuned.
When the budget first dropped, McGill University political scientist Eric Belanger predicted that it would not be enough to save Charest, who ran, by all accounts, a lacklustre campaign. However, by yesterday, blogger cum number-cruncher Gregory Morrow saw a slim Liberal minority government in the polls.
Charest, who was elected in 2003, was record-breakingly unpopular at one point in his mandate. He failed in attempts to both trim spending and cut taxes, making enemies on both the right and left of the electorate. Sovereigntists, too, are no fans of the one-time federal party leader. Given all that, just holding on to his job is some kind of accomplishment, if not a great one.
Charest's plan going into this election was simple: monger fear. His Parti Québécois opponent, André Boisclair, was bound by a party platform that promised another referendum on separation if elected, something most Quebecers told pollsters they didn't want. Charest's top plan was to be the guy who wasn't going.
Two things happened to derail that plan.
The first and most serious was Mario Dumont and the Action Démocratique du Québec. Dumont, a former Young Liberal and one-time sovereignty supporter, was written off as a spent force at the start of this campaign. Having founded his party more than a decade ago and with still just four seats in the National Assembly, the small-government populist was expected to fade away like other fringe politicians of the past.
Instead, Dumont, who has been described as Quebec's answer to Preston Manning, surged. His middle-ground take on the national question (he called himself an autonomist on the campaign trail) found traction with voters tired of one-issue politics. His promise to abolish school boards and slash welfare rolls found support in the regions outside Montreal, where anti-metropolitan sentiment has long simmered. In Quebec city, home to most provincial bureaucrats, Dumont won support and could pick up more than 10 seats by playing off resentment of the perceived cushy lives of pencil pushers. He even undercut Charest on university tuition, an issue that has long dogged the premier, by promising a smaller increase than the already modest one proposed by the Liberals.
No matter if Boisclair or Charest walks away with the minority tonight, it will probably be Dumont holding the balance of power. What that means for Quebec, and for the rest of Canada, remains to be seen. But here's one prediction: a Harper majority in Ottawa plus Dumont power in Quebec will eventually mean a smaller, less active federal government. When I spoke to a Dumont spokesperson Sunday he was clear: we don't need more powers, we just need the federal government to butt out of the ones we have, namely education and health care. And, big spending budget aside (which really wasn't all that big spending at all if you look at it through the eyes of Will McMartin), Stephen Harper has advocated small government and provincial autonomy for most of his professional life. So while it's Quebecers who are today deciding what role they want government to play in their lives, it may be all Canadians who eventually live with the answer: namely, a reduced one. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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G West
5 years ago
Irioy of ironies
Can one imagine the irony of a situation where the PQ manages to squeak out a small majority government tonight, driving calmly back into power in Quebec City between the two squabbling 'right-wing' parties and then spending Harper's more than $3 billion largess over the next two years in order to make a reality of pee wee's rhetorical excess when he declared that the Quebecois were indeed a nation?
Interesing times indeed. And not entirely out of the question either.
Elliot
5 years ago
did someone say something
did someone say something about right-wing parties in quebec? sorry. there hasn't been one since duplessis. currently one is just more left than the other.
G West
5 years ago
El
Perhaps you might be reminded what Federal party Jean Charest represented and which current Federal party has been courting Mario Dumont's supporters.
And, there are 3 parties in the race - a fact your post fails to even acknowledge. On the other hand, I have no trouble agreeing with the observation that Quebec and its citizens are generally far more progressive than many other Canadians in some of the other provinces.
Once upon a time BC was a progressive and decent place to live. Now it has become the home of many of the country's greediest folk and most selfish and narcissistic scriveners.
Elliot
5 years ago
they're not progressive,
they're not progressive, they're just more used to getting something for nothing. in fact one of the reasons the adq is so popular is b/c they've promised $400/month for each child under 6 that isn't in daycare. the students have the most subsidized fees in the country but it's not good enough, they want FREE tuition. quite the place. you weren't really suggesting that charest is a real conservative, i hope.
G West
5 years ago
And it shows
Their birth rate is rising - it's better than Alberta's now. They have one of the best educated populations in the country and the costs for their day care outlays are already more than 50% recouped by the increase in women's participation in the work force.
Sounds progressive to me my friend. What did you have in mind? I think that free tuition is a great idea. That's what the progressive tax is all about. The only way Charest ever won the last election (let alone winning this one - which is far from a sure thing) is because he knows the Quebec electorate and the nature of their progressive institutions and history.
That doesn't mean he's not a conservative - it just means he's a moderately astute politician.
God that BC should be such a humane, welcoming and well-educated place.
You might want to actually go and live there for a while El, you might even like it. I sure did.
G West
5 years ago
45/45/34 at 6pm
ADQ/Liberals/PQ
Very interesting. I wonder if pee wee is having second thoughts?
realisticman
5 years ago
Harper Wins
After all the Liberals and Mulroney trying to bring the Quebecers towards Canada, it seems that Harper has succeeded and again confounded his critics. A couple of years ago I had friends saying that Harper was a disaster, he'd alienate Quebecers, the PQ will gain and there would be a another referendum. Well, er, no. Charest has squeaked in and the more right-wing ADQ has upset the whole cart, leaping by 13% and becoming the new opposition!. The two horses Stephen Harper backed came in, first and second. See how Chantal reads the entrails.
(Note off topic: Barry's house is still there hidden in the trees.)
G West
5 years ago
seems that Harper has succeeded
Don't think that reaction is entirely accurate.
In fact, this is going to be Harper's worst nightmare. Look for a new PQ leader and another election in the very near future.
The ADQ members are a bunch of rank amateurs and Harper is going to rue the day he interfered so directly in provincial politics. My view - he looks like a rank beginner tonight. And still he hasn't a clue about how to appeal to the urban voter.
I'm glad it's still there - that at least is positive news – thanks r/man
Elliot
5 years ago
you're bang on realistic;
you're bang on realistic; the voters clearly rejected the pequistes and clearly rode the populist conservative wave by getting behind the adq, at least as much as they can be conservative in la belle province. it all bodes well for harper and leaves dion in the dust. sounds good to me, especially since charest will have to seriously consider resigning now.
G West
5 years ago
El
Have a look at the popular vote.
This is the worst possible result for both Harper and the country. And don't forget to notice that the Liberal portion of the Francophone vote was lower than it has ever been. This is real trouble....and not just for Charest.
Harper has blown his wad on a pig in a poke.
Elliot
5 years ago
i don't think it matters g.
i don't think it matters g. generally speaking the quebeckers are happy with harper and dion hasn't endeared himself to them. if they are rejecting separatism as these results may suggest then who will they vote for in a federal election? and the sudden popularity of the populist (sort of right) adq suggests that they may turn to the cpc in numbers next time. this could be big trouble for the liberals and the ndp, who have gained no ground whatsoever in quebec in recent years.
G West
5 years ago
I don't think so El. That's not what my friends in Montreal say
The fact that less than 24% of the French speaking population in the province voted for a conservative premier (Charest) who had Harper in his back pocket along with 3.6 Billion dollars doesn't spell anything good for Canada or for Quebec as a part of the country's future.
I do agree that Dion won't do well in Quebec if the election is held in the next 6 months. After that, however, all bets in Quebec will be off. Dion, if he wants a share of power has only one way to get it and that's a strategic alliance with the real liberal parties to unite the forces of reason against the forces of reaction. Of course, he has to break off with Marissen and the other BCLiberal scum that will bring him down in any case if he doesn't. He probably hasn't got the beans to realize that having those guys in your camp is poison.
But the poor results for the PQ mean that Duceppe and the Bloc will prop up pee wee for the foreseeable future so a progressive coalition actually has time to build if the Dion brain trust in Ontario has enough sense to realize what all this means and take the steps to get it going.
Remember that twice as many people in this country fear or hate Harper than love him - in fact I don't even think most of his supporters love him - and all the non right-wing parties have to do is find a way to bring those folks together.
If they do, it'll be the end of right wing reactionary government and the making of a real positive future for this country for a generation. Just as trends are swinging to liberalism in the States (as revealed in a Pew study released last week).
If they don't, as I've said before, then God help us all because Harper will hang on for a generation as well. Moreover, with John Reynolds and Tom Flanagan pushing the evil buttons on Harper's control panel the country will probably not even exist 20 years from now.
Jay Currie
5 years ago
The French Vote
G West nails it in his first sentence even if the rest of his comment is a bit dodgey.
Charest was decisively rejected by French Quebec. He won big in Anglo and Allophone ridings, largely lost everywhere else. So does Charest speak for Quebec? Perhaps. Does he speak for the French nation within Quebec? Decisively, non.
Which brings up the interesting question of the legitimacy of a Quebec Premier who cannot claim at least a decent minority support among Francophones? Or, perhaps even more to the point, why is Charest to be Premier at all? Is there no deal Dumont could make with the PQ?
Over at my blogI make the point that at this stage it looks like a great deal of Charest's popular vote came from Jacques Parizeau's "Anglos and ethnics". In effect, Charest vote maps the federal Liberals' vote in the last federal election while the ADQ's came in ridings where the CPC won or did well.
Harper needs to think about that both from the perspective of the CPC and of the nation. (Or is it nations?)
G West
5 years ago
Dodgy? jay currie, dodgy?
What exactly is 'dodgy' about it?
Did the worm turn overnight and Stephen Harper wake up with 60% of polled respondents yearning for 4 years and more of his government?
I've seen no indication from Quebec that the population there will do anything other than advance their usual project of increasing provincial autonomy. They'll do that as they usually do, by calculating accurately which 'federalist' party will afford their local aspirations the most 'green' backs if not green power.
As to the 'two solitudes' hinted at over at your blog I have no disagreement. It has been ever thus in this country - and it is, in some real way, the dynamic tension between the two permanent blocks in this country that has preserved as well as threatened its existence from the beginning - and before.
Instead of pretending there aren't differences or imagining that they don't mean anything, it's long past time to celebrate them and stop playing politics over them. Mr. Harper’s ‘distinct nation’ was a political act and not a gesture of solidarity and the Francophone voter sniffed it out last night – big time. The role of Mario Dumont in Canada’s future is the next big question mark for the whole nation.
Mr. Harper's unfortunate decision to make his strongest provincial ally a Jean Charest who never did speak for the French part of the Canadian reality may turn out to be his biggest mistake, among many.
lynn
5 years ago
Not so easily fooled
G West wrote:
.
Exactly. Well said.
realisticman
5 years ago
There are two allies
QUEBEC Stephen Harper promises to remain neutral -- up to a point -- in the upcoming Quebec election, the leader of the province's third-largest party said Tuesday.
Mario Dumont, leader of the Action democratique du Quebec, said the prime minister personally assured him in a meeting Tuesday that he would not play favourites between the governing Liberals and the ADQ.
quote]Ex-Dumont staffers in Harper gov't forge bond between Tories, ADQ
By ALEXANDER PANETTA
OTTAWA (CP) - Extensive ties between the Harper government and Quebec's third-largest political party belie the popular wisdom that the federal powers that be are pulling in unison for a Liberal re-election in the province.
From the lowest echelons of the federal government all the way up to the Prime Minister's Office, political operatives who worked for and in some cases helped build the Action democratique du Quebec are sprinkled throughout the Harper Conservatives.
"I'd even say a majority of the Conservatives' francophone personnel are Adequistes," one federal government official said Monday.
realisticman
5 years ago
Deeply and Securly Rooted with the same ideology
http://kerplonka.blogspot.com/2007/03/harpercharest-harperdumont-axis.html
G West
5 years ago
r/man
You are not seriously suggesting that the decision to continue funding a comprehensive professional and affordable daycare program in Quebec while funding was withdrawn for the other provinces and territories and a mean-spirited "taxable" child care benefit was substituted in the rest of Canada as the sole childcare initiative of Harper and the CPC was not political interference, are you?
Without even mentioning the recent budget and its obvious reach-around to the Charest 'Liberals' in the middle of an election (and the several statements and appearances by the PM in the province during the provincial campaign) I can't think what you're talking about.
This will NOT be a stable government and, what is, within a few percentage points of being a 3-way tie, is going to make for very interesting situation.
Anyone who thinks Mario Dumont and the ADQ are traditional Québec federalists knows absolutely NOTHING about the politics of Quebec Province. Had Les péquistes chosen a leader with less personal baggage yesterday's result could have been very different - a 4% swing in votes is all that would be required to have turned this result on its head. All those who think it’s now full speed ahead and that this is going to be un dossier facile are in for, in my view, a very rude awakening. Canada is fast turning into a mean an selfish place – exactly as Lynn ha pointed out in another almost concurrent discussion here.
Either that or you're still smoking some of the stuff that was undoubtedly in the air at at that Jefferson Airplance concert in 1968.