Towards the provincial elections | The CAQ takes on Laval

(Quebec) Several Liberal strongholds in Laval are threatened by the popularity of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ). For the Liberal Party (PLQ), the challenge is twofold to prevent Jesus Island from being repainted blue: only one incumbent, Saul Polo, is running for re-election. And he fears a CAQ scan that is harmful to democracy.

Charles Lecavalier
The Press

“It’s a danger. A real threat to democracy, as the saying goes [le député péquiste] Pascal Berube. The population misunderstands the negative impact of having a government with a super majority, and the excesses of arrogance and abuse of power are very real,” he said in an interview with The Press.

The member for Laval-des-Rapides is himself in danger in his riding. And he wants to highlight the “importance” of opposition deputies, unknown to the population.

“It’s inconvenient to have an elected official who attracts media attention on certain subjects. My colleague from Sainte-Rose [Christopher Skeete, CAQ] is confined to making government announcements. »

Mr. Polo was himself a deputy in power in the Couillard government. “I speak from experience,” he says.

He is calling on Quebec to do more to fight the scourge of gun violence, a subject that causes great concern among his constituents, and made headlines in the spring because Premier François Legault called an “anecdote” of his personal immigration story, he who integrated successfully in French. On this question, he does not want to let go.

By wanting to control the language spoken by immigrants at home, and by recruiting “tenors of sovereignty with an identity discourse like Bernard Drainville”, the CAQ has a discourse that is increasingly similar to that of the Parti Québécois (PQ ), he says. The PLQ says it fears that the CAQ is secretly preparing a referendum. This is not “a lifeline”, but rather a “consideration”, says Saul Polo.

The federalist vote

Political scientist Yannick Dufresne, a professor at Laval University and a specialist in electoral behavior, explains that the PLQ uses this discourse to bring the more federalist CAQs back to the fold.

This is what the PLQ, which reigned in Laval for a long time because the PQ and the Action Démocratique du Québec, then the CAQ, separated the nationalist vote, notes Geneviève Tellier, political scientist at the University of Ottawa.

But according to her, this strategy misses the target: if the CAQ has a good chance of winning most of the ridings of Laval, it is because of the collapse of the PQ vote. “And by having this speech, the PLQ forgets the essential, which is that it is no longer that [la division souverainiste-fédéraliste] what is at stake in an election in Quebec,” she said.

Survey analysis Philippe J. Fournier directs the Qc125.com project, “a statistical model of electoral projection based on electoral trends, demographic evolution and political surveys”. It abounds. “Those who think that Laval had become like the West Island are mistaken. Yes, the Liberals won five out of six ridings in 2018, but by pretty tight margins,” he notes.

At the end of June, his projection tool predicted the victory of five elected CAQists. There would be only one riding left in the PLQ, Chomedey.

Reform of Law 101

On the side of the CAQ, Alice Abou-Khalil, who is running in the riding of Fabre, explains the success of the party in Laval by the positive results of the government. “It’s true that the demographics have changed in Laval. We have cultural communities which are present and which are liberal by default. But people look at the colossal work being done. It is a government that is on the ground, close to the people and attentive, ”she says.

In her riding, she will not hesitate to take up the pilgrim’s staff and meet with English-speaking communities to tell them about the good sides of the reform of Bill 101, a “balanced and necessary” law. She believes that by implying that the CAQ is planning a referendum in secret, the PLQ is not carrying out a “clean campaign”.

The candidate of the Conservative Party of Quebec in Chomedey, the lawyer Konstantinos Merakos, for his part strongly opposes Bill 96, which he wishes to abolish. “This is one of the issues that will set me apart. The PLQ speaks of sovereignty to have the English vote without having to argue about taxes, health. And the CAQ is the PQ 2.0,” he says.

It also offers “multilingual” police services to better connect with young people in order to fight street gangs.

Oncology nurse Josée Bélanger is running for Québec solidaire in Vimont. It was her environmental involvement that attracted her to the left-wing party. She believes that safeguarding the woods and wetlands of Île de Laval is an important subject for the local population.

On the Parti Québécois side, no candidate was available to speak to The Press.