The planet is burning, it is being shot in the streets of Montreal, there is a shortage of employees everywhere, our schools continue to produce functional illiterates and nurses are still in a hurry like lemons with OST …
But our PM has just appointed a minister responsible for the return of the Nordics to Quebec. And not just any minister, one of the most important in the Cabinet, the Minister of Finance himself, Eric Girard.
OK, I’m a bit of bad faith: you can skate and chew gum at the same time. I know it well. But a WP has “political” capital, small or large, depending on the circumstances. He must choose wisely where he spends it.
Stimulating the practice of hockey in Quebec, the return of the Nordiques, sending more Quebecers to the NHL: that was the big one slapshot policy of François Legault, last week.
It made some beautiful images, no doubt. The PM in blue-white-red, on the ice at the Bell Center, filmed very, very, very closely, to the point that I wondered if we didn’t want to make up the fact that the PM seems to be skating lightly on the boot…
How? ‘Or’ What ?
If I make fun of the PM’s skate kick?
But no but no. I lost some of my beauty on the ice, too. I’m like an old singer who doesn’t dare to sing in the shower anymore because she’s in pain knowing what she’s lost, I’m in a bad position to talk about anyone’s skating. I no longer dare to go to the ice rink in the neighborhood park.
I am not making fun of the PM’s skate stroke: I am not making fun of the attempt to make up for that.
But no doubt: big publicity stunt, big media eclipse, last Thursday and Friday, with François Legault who tackles the urgent national problem of local hockey, skates on the feet, bareheaded on the ice of the Bell Center .
Still, whatever I look for, I do not see in what parallel universe the sustainability of Quebec hockey can be among the 745 priorities of a premier of Quebec.
Encourage Quebecers to do sport? OK, great, sport is good. I’m in. But put your “political” capital at the service of ONE sport? Aim to send more Quebecers to the NHL? Put a minister on the case of the return of the Nordics?
There we are in political marketing.
We are also in the diversion.
Diversion is a universal feint in politics. When things go wrong, hop, delude yourself and change the subject of the conversation. Find a scarecrow, sing the praises of the Nation, whatever …
Not that things are going badly for the PM, he still walks on the water. The polls give him more seats in the next election, in less than a year. We even whisper a scenario with 100 seats, which is no longer the order of walking on water: we are levitating, downright.
But still, small clouds appear on the horizon: the grumbling over the third link at 10 billion begins to swell, the plan to repatriate nurses with bonuses of $ 15,000 clearly does not work, the PM’s affection for governance by decree is increasingly “uneasy” and the coroner’s inquest into the deaths of the first wave in 2020 show the contours of something like a lack of preparation in the ministerial offices of the time …
I love hockey, make no mistake about it. This sport has given me a lot. But I do not see why the State is poking its nose into the sustainability of hockey, our-national-sport.
Why hockey?
How about soccer, rolling, softball, basketball, cross-country skiing, gymnastics, brisk walking?
Why not all the sports ?
Yes, yes, I know: hockey-is-our-national-sport. It’s just that I have the curious impression that, for Mr. Legault, it has more to do with “national” than with “hockey” …
See the poster on his lectern at the Bell Center: HOCKEY, OUR PRIDE, “our”, as in “Us”, and “Us”, the CAQ has a monopoly.
She wants to keep it.