It was a wave of recognition and even love that carried Paul St-Pierre Plamondon (PSPP) to a record vote of confidence of 98.5% in the 18e congress of the Parti Québécois.
Seen from the outside, the result of the October 3 election—the worst in its history—appears very modest, but the activists gathered in Sherbrooke nonetheless had the feeling of a renaissance, to which they largely attribute the merit to their leader.
They should also thank heaven for having inspired the candidate of Québec solidaire in Camille-Laurin with the bad idea of stealing a PQ leaflet from a mailbox. Without his withdrawal, PSPP would undoubtedly have been beaten. Who knows what would have become of him?
It nevertheless remains true that he led a remarkable campaign, and his refusal to take the oath to the king marked the spirits, but his greatest merit in the eyes of the militants is undoubtedly to have replaced independence at the center of the PQ discourse. , without the downsides of staging or “winning conditions”.
It is not the defeats that have fueled the protests of the PQ leaders in the past, but their presumed lukewarmness towards sovereignty or the defense of French. In either case, PSPP is currently above suspicion.
Certainly, there is no question of returning to the scenario of the referendum election. The referendum remains an obligatory step, but this “refounding” of the PQ is intended as a kind of return to the purity of its first years of existence.
There are undeniably encouraging factors. The PQ vote is better distributed throughout Quebec than that of QS and the Quebec Liberal Party, so the numerous second places obtained on October 3 could very well make the PQ the alternative to the Legault government. Especially the day when Mr. Legault himself will bow out.
There are unmistakable signs. Despite its setbacks in recent years, the PQ is the party whose share of funding provided by its members and sympathizers is the largest, whether in terms of the total amount or the number of donors. The surplus was 1.2 million in 2022. At this rate, it will have the means to achieve its ambitions in 2026.
According to the recent Léger-The duty, 48% of Francophones would vote Yes in a possible referendum. There is a large pool of potential voters for the PQ, whose commitment to independence is indisputable, while that of QS is questionable.
Last fall, it was the PQ that suffered the most from the dysfunction of the voting system. The political landscape is also quite different from what it was in 1976, when a party with just six MPs suddenly found itself in power. The new multiparty reality makes such an explosion virtually impossible.
The progress recorded by the latest polls does not bring the PQ any less closer to the “paying zone”, where each additional point can result in a harvest of seats as disproportionate as the reverse.
The main downside remains its sub-
performance among young voters. The lessers
30 years are nevertheless very present within the party, including the national executive, and constitute half of the delegates to the congress. They will have to find a way to be more contagious, but it is not clear that a new budget for Year I or a White Paper on the Scottish model will be enough to dispel the mistrust that the PQ’s so-called identity policies inspire. to a large part of the younger generation.
“It’s an exciting time to be an activist for the PQ”, launched PSPP at the end of the congress, but he also warned that the “road will be[it] full of pitfalls”. It is certain that the reappearance of the PQ on the radar will also expose it to new attacks, but its progress could also expose it to temptations from which it is currently easy to escape, as has happened in the past, when the age of innocence gave way to that of the search for power.
For the moment, an intransigent separatism is undoubtedly the most profitable position for the PQ, but bringing back to the fold those whom the procrastination following the 1995 referendum had removed will not necessarily be enough to regain power, without which nothing is possible. .
In the mid-1970s, those who promoted etapism, then “good government”, were not disguised federalists seeking to derail the sovereignist project. They sincerely believed that was the only way to achieve the goal.
Even Jacques Parizeau, whose faith in independence no one can doubt, had found it necessary to give up the clear and direct question he wanted to ask when he was in opposition, in the hope of convincing more moderate voters. The same causes have the unfortunate habit of producing the same effects.