During the many years that I debated the future of Quebec with the separatists, I always thought that the sovereignist project would never die, that Quebecers would always keep this ultimate possibility in their toolbox, in the event where their existence as a distinct nation would become impossible within Canada. I never would have imagined that the movement would one day be as weak as it is now. The defection of Bernard Drainville, whose impassioned and enthralling speeches for sovereignty all remember, seems to me to inflict a very serious wound on him.
It is not just that Mr. Drainville leaves the raft to board the CAQ liner. There is the person. The moment. Above all, there is the manner. Let’s reread the comments he made during his press briefing last Tuesday: “We can, as Quebecers, make progress with our current status, with the powers we have. […] We are not condemned to powerlessness because we do not have all the powers. We can act and improve our society and improve the lives of Quebecers with the autonomy we have. »
These remarks radically contradict the sovereignist discourse of the last 50 years, from René Lévesque until today, according to which Canadian federalism is a straitjacket that prevents Quebec from developing according to its own personality. What Bernard Drainville said on Tuesday, with the exception of his support for Bills 21 and 96, I could have said myself: nothing prevents Quebec from continuing to move forward as it has done since Confederation.
The ex-journalist’s U-turn occurs the very week when the activities marking the hundredth anniversary of the birth of René Lévesque, the father of the modern independence movement, are launched. However, the height of misfortune for the Parti Québécois, the former head of training and honorary president of the commemoration, Lucien Bouchard, drops that the PQ “does not deserve to go very well”. As for independence, it is no longer a “project”, but “a dream”: “What form will this project take? How will it transform? It may not be a sovereignist project […] »
A project that became a dream
Mr. Bouchard knows the meaning of words. However, the meaning of “dream” in the dictionary is as follows: “A project too beautiful to be realized one day. » Robert refers us to the word “illusion”. In short, according to the former prime minister, the death knell has sounded for independence as a realistic project.
I agree with Mr. Bouchard when he says that “there is something that will not die and that will express itself in one way or another in Quebec political life”. This something, in my opinion, is the idea that Quebec must protect, promote, develop its own way of doing things, as far as culture is concerned, of course, but also culture in the broad sense, that which comes in politics, the economy, the arts, social justice, the environment, education, etc. In other words, it is nationalism, a way of seeing and living Quebec shared by the vast majority of Quebecers, including a large number of people who also continue to identify as federalists.
Will separatist sentiment rise from the ashes in the wake of the Supreme Court judgments on 21 and 96, as the remaining separatists hope with all their might? Perhaps, but it is far from certain as the situation has changed.
Beyond insults
Of course, the opposition parties did not fail to call Mr. Drainville an “opportunist”. But their insults fail to hide the disarray of the “old parties” that are the PQ and the Liberal Party of Quebec in the face of such a powerful movement of the tectonic plates of Quebec politics. The PQ, which suffered hard blow after hard blow, was more weakened than ever. As for the PLQ, it is reduced to agitating the supposed “separatist governance” of the CAQ, a specter all the less frightening since some of Mr. Legault’s most influential ministers have publicly renewed their profession of federalist faith.
However, here again, Mr. Bouchard is right: “What is happening to the Liberal Party is not good for Quebec democracy. It does not matter for the elections which will come, I think. But in the future, this party must be reconstituted. “As for me, I do not exclude that this renewal of life can occur by next October 3, the leader Dominique Anglade having refocused her message around the historical values of the formation.
However, in the longer term, the Liberal Party will have to rebuild itself, taking into account the fact that, as Mr. Drainville said: “People have no appetite for this debate. We spent 50 years debating it. And there, what Quebecers tell us is “so work in Canada to strengthen us, to improve our daily lives”. Having made the same observation, Mr.me Anglade first attempted a turn towards a nationalist left; it lost its militants in the mist. What direction will the party take after the elections, assuming the CAQ is re-elected?
We can insult Mr. Drainville all we want, it is difficult to contradict his reading of certain facts. The Quebec of today has nothing to do with the one where René Lévesque was born 100 years ago, bears little resemblance to the one he dreamed of leading to “sovereignty-association” in 1968, and is already very different from the one who rejected independence in 1980 and 1995. If it wants to emerge from marginality, the Parti Québécois will have to take note. The Liberal Party of Quebec too, if it wants to be perceived again as a government in the making.