Over the past few days, we have witnessed various dangerous behaviors (intimidation, harassment, verbal abuse, death threats, etc.) towards the leaders of various political parties, volunteers installing election signs, new candidates running for the next provincial elections, federal deputies… The political climate is changing to such an extent in Quebec and Canada that the security of politicians has had to be reinforced: there are more bodyguards, the visibility of police officers at partisan rallies has increased, leaders are offered party to wear bulletproof vests, and what more… A little more, it’s like being on the other side of the border, with our neighbors to the South, used to such baseness which has become commonplace and which weakens all the more democracy.
Moreover, even electoral campaign strategies are not immune to vicious and reactive intentions, which are akin to pure impulsive revenge, much more insidious, each going there from displacements which “punish” the adversaries for having trampled their stronghold the day before… Don’t come to my territory and don’t walk in my flowerbeds or I’ll take out my big guns! Rather childish and “schoolyard child” as a campaign approach… Will our elected officials all soon have an orange forelock?
In the context of this provincial election campaign, all party leaders agree that this increase in threats against elected officials is unacceptable and worrisome. All call for more protection. All but one. The only one who does not seem to feel concerned by this new American-style reality is the leader of the PCQ, Éric Duhaime, who has indeed declared: “If the Sûreté du Québec judges that I do not need to have protection, it’s probably because my safety isn’t threatened” and “We don’t need bodyguards because the people are with us”.
Following this reasoning, which is simplistic to say the least, should we therefore understand that the attacks against the other parties would come from PCQ militants? Are these “people” who support the PCQ so disconnected and moved by ultra-individualistic far-right ideas that they would lend themselves to the same blind servility that these innocent Americans proudly exposed to us on January 6, 2021 at the Capitol? And, closer to home, during the antics of protesters in Ottawa in January 2022? The question is valid…
What is certain is that the population has the right to a fair and respectful campaign, and not to a game of the king of the mountain that five-year-old children like to dispute on a mound of snow. Not offering it to him means that we believe that Quebecers have neither the intelligence nor the capacity for reflection sufficient to judge which party presents the most profitable ideas and projects to ensure them a future that lives up to their aspirations. . Debates of ideas and content, please! To this day, they are camouflaged under thick layers of paint. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go back to your history books and look back a bit. You will certainly see Lévesque and Trudeau offering us something very different, raising spirits and inflaming discussions around the tables on Sundays, regardless of our political allegiance. Continuing the campaign on its violent, threatening and void of content momentum will mean that we flout our democratic institutions more and more seriously and that we will henceforth have the sole leitmotif: “Glory to individual freedoms, collective rights and democracy can go dress again “