Upon his arrival as leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ), Éric Duhaime promised Quebecers a major “nationalist and patriotic” shift.1. It must be said that there was work to be done: his predecessor at the head of the PCQ, Adrien Pouliot, made many of his communications “bilingual”, opposed the school clauses of Bill 101 and the prohibition the wearing of religious symbols, and wanted to entrust the immigration thresholds to the business community (which currently recommends doubling them)2.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
So Duhaime replaced his party’s old logo with a fleur-de-lis and backed Bill 21, hoping to reach out to the more conservative “blue” electorate potentially sensitive to his right-wing economic positions. But as the saying goes: hunt the natural, it comes back at a gallop!
The fact is that Quebec libertarians have traditionally been hostile to nationalism as it has been defined since the Quiet Revolution and even since Lionel Groulx, that is, the state’s commitment to defend Quebec identity and the French fact, a minority in Canada and on the continent.
This doctrine does not mix well with an intransigent libertarianism, for which any state constraint appears as an affront to individual freedoms, defined in a maximalist way.
The loss of importance of the issue of the pandemic and health measures in public debate and the resurgence of the language issue forced Éric Duhaime to make a choice. He could have embodied the alternative to the CAQ among nationalist voters, but he preferred to maintain his libertarian line, in the hope of seducing English speakers who would like to turn away from the Liberal Party.3.
New workhorse
Thus, the leader of the PCQ has made opposition to Bill 96 a new hobbyhorse, judging that the moderate measures it contains are too great an affront to individual freedoms. In the same breath, he boasts of Montreal’s status as a “bilingual metropolis”, while saying that he is personally inclined to raise the immigration thresholds, against the advice of its members. Moreover, it proposes to abolish quotas for French-language music on the radio, showing itself at the same time to be more radical than the Liberal Party of Quebec and suggesting that the “freedom of becoming anglicized” takes precedence over the defense of the French fact their eyes.
At the end of the day, one wonders what the “Conservative” Party of Quebec intends to keep of the Quebec identity. In the current state of affairs, it places itself in competition with the Liberal Party and Québec solidaire to embody the most radical opposition to CAQ nationalism. The October 3 elections will reveal whether the “red” alternative to the present “blue” government is more center (left?) liberal, left solidarity or right libertarian. One thing is certain, while the identity debate continues to divide Quebec, the Coalition avenir Québec appears to be alone in speaking to the majority of Quebecers who seem to adhere to its vision of nationalism.
2. Ideas to unblock Quebec – How to break the triangle of immobilityAdrien Pouliot, Accent Grave, 2014