In a 1948 propaganda film, it is said that “the Honorable Maurice Duplessis has given his province more than it has ever received from all the Liberal governments put together”. Yes, “Duplessis gives to his province”, we repeat.
According to him, it was not the people’s money that this government was distributing, but that of its leader. Faced with so much generosity, the citizens had only to bow. Nobody asked them to articulate any proposals. Continuing their routine was all they were told to do. They knew who to vote for. Any other form of awareness of the world would have been deemed out of place.
During the 1956 election campaign, Duplessists claimed that the facts now spoke for themselves. Not a word, ever, about the presence of an army of servile ventriloquists dedicated to helping these facts sing the glory of the regime everywhere.
In the time of Duplessis and before him, the dead returned to the world of the living on the eve of elections. They appeared, against all expectations, on electoral lists. Such ghosts rushed to vote, as if any hope of a different world had to be killed in the name of the past.
There is something fascinating in the sudden appearance, along our dilapidated roads and on our hypnotizing screens, of uninhibited advertisements praising the record of a government in the manner of yesteryear, congratulating for example its fear of ‘immigration. Yesterday as today, the objective pursued by this partisan hype remains the same: to see that the population is grateful so that the anointing of the next election will renew the same people in their functions.
In Caquistan, judging by these advertisements, the propensity to deal with effects rather than causes appears to be common. Such a logical vice prevails. While society is sinking into an ocean swollen by inflation, this government is paying $500 to 6.4 million Quebecers to make them forget that the water is rising. The measure may appear as inefficient as digging in the sand to stem a tide, the Caquistan welcomes it, as it congratulates itself on giving $200 to 3 million Quebecers to fight poverty and $400 to those who are aged. But how does this lead to transforming the conditions that preside over the sad situation of these people?
The same principle without bite is applied to regional transport: tickets at $500 are offered following subsidies offered to airlines. No fundamental change corrects the foundations of this situation. But the CAQ gives to its province.
While the automobile appears more and more like a serious problem, the CAQ sets it up as a system. She is therefore pleased to have reduced the price of the driving licence. What about his idea of engulfing 10 billion in a tunnel to gain ten minutes between Quebec and Lévis? This project alone would be enough to make the CAQ the perfect personification of denial and irresponsible bonhomie when it comes to transportation and the environment. This formidable machination of nothing that is this third link, this great public lesson in waste delivered for four years with indecent aplomb, why don’t they mention it in their balance sheet?
Some executives in the parapublic sector continue to receive more money than all the members of the Council of Ministers put together. How far will this mess continue? The Caquistan does not know. But he congratulates himself, shamelessly, for having increased the salaries of nurses and teachers by a few coins. He says nothing about the fact that he bargained for expired collective agreements, that he imposed working conditions and, above all, that he let these servants of the state be crushed more and more under the weight of a rickety system, constantly on the verge of bursting.
In centers for the elderly, it has been common knowledge for years that baths are rare, food unsavory and abuse a reality. During the pandemic, it also appeared that private CHSLDs were places of death without any other equivalent in Canada. The coroner responsible for investigating the carnage confirmed the failure of this system. In Caquistan, we had already committed to continuing in the same direction as before, by launching the construction of more “homes for seniors”, continuing to focus on CHSLDs. Coroner Géhane Kamel, however, indicates that home care should be preferred. Since the 1970s, reports have been piling up that suggest following this path. The few investments in home care of which the Caquistan boasts have not changed the general direction envisaged for the elderly, these eternally forgotten people.
In its vast brawling operation, the CAQ went so far as to congratulate itself on having adopted Bill 96 on the French language. However, this step had not even been taken by the National Assembly! It was Christine Labrie, MP for Sherbrooke, who pointed this out. And this elected official was treated by the Prime Minister with an arrogance increasingly characteristic of his regime.
During the 2018 Quebec election, 34% of registered voters did not go to vote. Of those who attended, only 37% voted for the CAQ. This was enough for the party to win 60% of the seats. Which gave him 100% power. The promise made by the CAQ to reform this twisted system was quickly swept under the rug. Should this also be noted in the balance sheet of a government accustomed, in recent years, to governing by decree, without making too much of a case for democracy?
On the slope of such a slippery balance sheet, it would not be surprising if the Caquistan ended up losing their footing when they least expected it. After all, urns also know how to be funeral.