Quebec’s red wave carries a tide of expectations
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Jeffrey Simpson
The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Nov. 13, 2015
The Liberal government can fairly be said to be truly national. It has MPs from every province, although it has a higher share of the seats in some provinces than others.
Winning a handful of seats in Alberta and 17 in British Columbia makes this government rather unique. But it is the government’s Quebec representation that stands out. Not since the election of 1988, Brian Mulroney’s second majority triumph, have there been more Quebec MPs in government than in opposition.
In every election thereafter, Quebeckers put themselves in opposition by voting Bloc Québécois or NDP, usually quite overwhelmingly. Only once, in 2000, was the split even close between being in opposition and government. The Bloc took 38 seats that year, the governing Liberals 36.
The return of Quebeckers to government is of course good news for the Liberals, who had not won the largest number of seats in that province since the days of Trudeau the Elder. It’s also good news for Canada, since it illustrates that the federal system can work for Quebeckers, especially if they join the government.
Being in opposition for nearly three decades became a habit of mind in many quarters of Quebec. It reinforced the idea that Ottawa counted for little; or, if anything, that the federal government was an distant, even ominous, entity that needed to be constantly checked by Quebec MPs in opposition.
Stephen Harper tried, especially in his first term, to implant the Conservative Party in the province beyond some small tendrils. That he failed was not for lack of trying in those early years. Thereafter, his was a hopeless cause. Francophone Quebeckers just could not warm to him or to much of his agenda. Since they were not ready to turn to the Liberals, they settled in again with the Bloc Québécois, and then with the NDP.
The NDP will be doing much soul searching internally about what happened to the “orange wave” that swept over the province in the 2011 election. It receded quite spectacularly in the last half of the 2015 campaign as many Quebeckers who forcefully wanted Mr. Harper gone detected a Liberal surge across Canada and wished to join the action.
It was said that NDP leader Tom Mulcair’s position on the niqab hurt his party, and indeed it did. But his position was also that of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, so why did the same position apparently hurt one but not the other?
In any event, Quebec broke the NDP’s heart, because the only way the party could take the largest number of seats, and therefore form government, was to retain its 2011 Quebec base and go from there. Instead, the base cracked, then crumbled as a red wave washed over Quebec.
Not for a very long time, maybe as long ago as before the Second World War, have so many strongly federalist stars lined up in the Quebec political firmament.
Mr. Trudeau is obviously a federalist in the mould of his father. Denis Coderre, the very popular mayor of Montreal, is a former Liberal MP and a vocal advocate, when required, for federalism.
Premier Philippe Couillard is a committed federalist who, while always defending Quebec’s “interests,” also defends Canada and insists that Quebeckers are much better off participating fully in federalism than being the odd person out. Right now, the biggest opposition Mr. Couillard has is in the streets, where public-sector unions are often most at home, demonstrating against government restraint. This bit of street theatre happens with considerable regularity, attracts media attention (some of it quite fawning), but leaves most Quebec taxpayers-cum-voters unimpressed.
With so many federalist stars aligned in Quebec, and with a majority of Quebec MPs in the government caucus, co-operation should be much easier than in decades gone by. But results will be wanted/demanded by voters who sent all these people to Ottawa, Quebec City and Montreal.
The open palms from the Quebec government and Bombardier for a huge federal injection of cash will be hard to resist. Bombardier is, of course, the author of its own misfortune over the C Series jet, which is way behind schedule, far over budget and draining cash.
Mr. Trudeau says he wants a “business case” for assisting the company. Well, he should demand one, including the end of the Bombardier family’s control through super-voting shares.
In the end, the “political case” will matter most. MPs, as they have in the past, will become the “Honorable Members from Bombardier.”
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