Québec Election: 7 Apr 14

[Nfld Sapper]

I was just waiting for her to channel Jacques Parizeau and blame the defeat on the anglophone, allophones and, all those students... ;D

 

[Remius]

I was just waiting for her to channel Jacques Parizeau and blame the defeat on the anglophone, allophones and, all those students... ;D

I'm no fan but I suspect she has a bit more class than that.

 

[a_majoor]

Why the Québec solidaire will NOT be the party to carry the mantel of separatism. So long as the impulses behind the PQ continue to exist in Quebec society, some form of populist party (maybe even the PQ under new management) will exist. The QS is simply too far from the mainstream to attract more than limited support:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/04/07/jonathan-kay-can-quebec-solidaire-become-the-go-to-sovereigntist-option-for-2018/

Jonathan Kay: Can Québec solidaire become the go-to sovereigntist option for 2018?

Jonathan Kay | April 7, 2014 | Last Updated: Apr 8 10:17 AM ET
More from Jonathan Kay | @jonkay

Given the Parti Québécois’ historic rout in Monday night’s election, it’s natural to ask: Is this it for separatism? Will Quebec now become just a “normal” province — a French version of Ontario?

No. With rare global exceptions, separatist movements don’t just collapse (when they do, it’s usually because they are led by a single charismatic leader, who dies). Moreover, separatism in Quebec isn’t just a “movement” with a defined goal. It’s a sort of posture meant to indicate resentment toward Ottawa and all things Anglo-dominated. That political reflex will never go away completely, at least not within my lifetime.

What might go away well before I do, though is the Parti Québécois. There is nothing written in stone that says the PQ must remain the ordained vessel of the separatist movement. There’s also a little party called Québec solidaire. Last night, it elected only three MNAs — but the PQ’s 2014 collapse gives QS a lot of upside in 2018.

Until 2012, the words “Québec solidaire” meant one thing, and one thing only, to Canadians outside Quebec: a lone Iranian-born anti-Zionist oddball MNA named Amir Khadir conducting an eccentric weekly protest outside a Montreal shoe store that sold Israeli products. It was the sort of stunt that former NDP foreign affairs critic Svend Robinson might have gone in for back in the pre-Jack Layton days.
 
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But things changed 18 months ago, when the tiny sovereigntist party elected a second MNA, Françoise David, an articulate leftist who has better things to do with her Saturdays than try to bankrupt local businesses. Many viewers scored her as the winner of the March 20 leaders’ debate. And her party’s stance on the secularism charter is clear and principled.

Not to say that QS isn’t a little weird. Its founding principles include not only “equality, environmental integrity, civil liberties, solidarity, justice, and peace,” but also something called “alter-globalization,” which is a sort of global co-operative movement that some leftists imagine as an alterative to (real) globalization’s “neoliberal” (i.e., capitalist) tendencies.

Moreover, QS has an odd organizational structure that seems one step removed from a 1970’s-era Soviet-styled “workers’ party.” Cells within Québec solidaire include such organizations as The Quebec Communist Party and Décroissance conviviale, a group that promotes “degrowth.” The party also has no “leader” per se, but rather is led by a four-person collective. Spokesman duties are divided, by party statute, between a man and a woman (one of whom can’t be an MNA).

Indeed, the QS is so hard-left that it looks more like a university student-union slate than a mainstream provincial political party. Still, there is something admirable about QS that distinguishes it from the Parti Québécois, its larger sovereigntist cousin: Unlike the PQ, the QS always has sought to gain power for a distinct and well-articulated purpose.

While the PQ has conceived of independence as a quasi-mystical goal in and of itself, QS operates on the principle that separatism is a means toward the creation of a sort of neo-communist ultra-feminist Naomi-Klein-land. It’s an end that I happen to think is misguided, but at least there’s some form of substance to it.

Lots of commentators outside Quebec have been horrified by Pauline Marois’ strategy of playing to her base’s suspicion of Anglos and immigrants. But given that the PQ has no real vision of what kind of society it wants to create — beyond the fact that, in some vague way, it will reflect the identity of “real” Quebecers — it was inevitable that it fell back on old-fashioned tribalism. That’s something QS avoids: It’s a pro-immigrant party that welcomes one and all — as long as you’re on the left.

Before this election, QS was a leftwing sovereigntist party that happened to be pluralistic. But given the way the PQ used the secularism charter as a defining issue, that’s changed: QS is now seen by many as a pluralistic party that happens to be left-wing. And no doubt it will soften some of its less attractive positions as soon as it begins to get a taste of mainstream credibility.

I doubt the 32 MNAs that the Parti Québécois elected on Monday night are ready to roll their brand into a fringe party. But it will be interesting to see how things play out during the bitter round of finger-pointing that’s about to play out among PQ ranks. In politics, it’s not just about numbers, it’s about brand. And right now, the PQ’s brand is so tarnished that even its long-time supporters may consider formerly unimaginable options for promoting the separatist cause.

 

[GAP]

I'm no fan but I suspect she has a bit more class than that.

Not much more. I suspect she thought that, but remembered what happened to Jacques Parizeau.

 

[upandatom]

I'm not so sure.  I'll be interested to see the demographics on this one.  With 71% voter turn out it is a decent but not awesome showing, I would like to see what the youth turnout was like.  Last time remember that there was that maple spring brouhaha that motivated students to come and vote. 

Definitly a newer generation of Quebecers have spoken.  One that is more in sync with Canada and the world than that babyboomer generation that grew up in an era of social(ist) revolution around the world and remember a time when French Quebecers were not the dominant force in Quebec.

By younger I am more referring to the eligible voters that have been around since the 95 referendum, and the Student vote which marois threw away with lies.

I wrote about it earlier how the voters in the 95 referendum now are most likely career orientated, comfortably situated, nice homes, nice jobs good benefit plan and are not so easily swayed by made up problems etc from the Marois Govt . Even at that, the majority of the voters from that referendum are either too old to care, or moved on.

Maybe the new Generation of voters is a better term to use.

This was a strong statement about a whole Canada, not a Canada with a Quebec state. I was proud to see it as well, that the people came to their sense.

I read Facebook statuses about how the rest of Canada was like hey the snow is melting, and Quebec is like "suck it marois."

Also- From Harper "I would like to thank Pauline Marois for her, public service" Usually the PM says more on a matter other then a brief thanks,

 

[a_majoor]

Also- From Harper "I would like to thank Pauline Marois for her, public service" Usually the PM says more on a matter other then a brief thanks,

Good manners and good form require the Prime Minister to make some sort of statement without doing the happy dance. "I would like to thank Pauline Marois for her public service" is a polite send off, and you can read "Don't let the door hit you on the way out" into that if you are so inclined... >

 

[cupper]

She didn't even get a please play again when she rolled up her rim. ;D

 

[Journeyman]

Good manners and good form require the Prime Minister to make some sort of statement without doing the happy dance.

Unless you're that other Trudeau........ 

 

[upandatom]

Good manners and good form require the Prime Minister to make some sort of statement without doing the happy dance. "I would like to thank Pauline Marois for her public service" is a polite send off, and you can read "Don't let the door hit you on the way out" into that if you are so inclined... >

I clearly thought/remembered when the last provincial change the PM went into more detail about the quality of work, or etc regardless of the political party ie- the last election.

unlike this short but sweet GTFO of that chair,

 

[Edward Campbell]

Two interesting post mortems on the Quebec election:

In the Globe and Mail Lysiane Gagnon suggests we have Scenes from a PQ defeat: A party in denial, a province in rebellion. The denial, she opines was in the speeches, especially by M. Drainville; the rebellion is evident in the fact that voters no longer trust the PQ to govern for the province, they know that independence, which is not most people's priority, will be back on the table, no matter what the PQ says during the election campaign.

In Le Devoir we find Requiem pour le projet de pays and we read that many of the most prominent separatists, people like Gérard Bouchard and Louise Beaudoin, despair for their movement.

I sense that, as I said before, most Quebecers no longer 'need' a separate nation. They are reasonably content to be a nation within a broad, they would prefer looser, federal state. What amazes me is that Stephen Harper is not more popular; Quebec nationalists should love him because he, more than any other federal leader, might give them what they want: less and less federal intrusion into their daily lives. But ...  :dunno:  (Actually, I do understand why they dislike his socio-economic policies and, especially, ht e'law and order' agenda.)

 

[ModlrMike]

Pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if the loss of interest in separation is at all due to the expansion of the internet in people's lives. In the '95 referendum period, the rest of the world was no as easily accessed as it is today. Could it be that Quebecers in the 20-40 age group are now more worldly and less insular than their parents, and less susceptible to arguments made in a vacuum?

 

[Remius]

Pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if the loss of interest in separation is at all due to the expansion of the internet in people's lives. In the '95 referendum period, the rest of the world was no as easily accessed as it is today. Could it be that Quebecers in the 20-40 age group are now more worldly and less insular than their parents, and less susceptible to arguments made in a vacuum?

I'm am sure that it has had an effect.  Interweb, media, free trade, etc etc.  But also, in the article provided by Mr. Campbell above, in which Gerard Bouchard states that the youth of today are more preoccupied with the concept and values of individual rights than with the concept of the right to a sovereign nation.  It is as good as any other reason for this shift.

But also, they are not fighting the old fight.  Largely because there is nothing to fight against.  Their language, their laws, their culture is all protected and no one is trying to take it away.  I was raised in a generation where we had to fight for our education but it was at the tail end of that fight with only a few vestiges of that time that were left.  The old guard remembers having to fight for their rights and was arguably a fight for cultural survival.  Rights that are now enshrined and protected.  They see that they do have a place in Canada and the world and that there is no more "boogey man" (or bonhomme sept heure).

The PQ is trying to find that foe, that great threat but no one is buying it because they aren't seeing it.  PM Harper deserves kudos for doing nothing.  Staying out of it and getting other leaders to do the same.  He did not want to give the PQ the enemy they were hoping for and it worked.