In June 2013, the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) had the idea of using the services of Jean-Luc Mongrain to moderate the discussion at its general council. Philippe Couillard was meeting with Liberal activists for the first time since he had been elected leader and he was planning “the biggest party renewal project for 30 years”.
Equal to himself, Mr. Mongrain was quick to show his caustic wit. Advising a group of young people, he had asked one of them: “Nowadays, isn’t it a bit silly for a young person to be a liberal? »
Ten years later, the question has lost none of its relevance, but it clearly does not arise in the case of the new president of the PLQ’s Youth Commission, Laurence Lefebvre, who has shown great lucidity in interview she gave to Duty last week. We certainly can’t accuse him of wearing rose-colored glasses.
“We are in a period where we are stagnating enormously”, she recognized from the outset. “The fact also that we no longer know what it is to be liberal in 2023, that really does not help us. To say that the Liberals are looking for each other is an understatement, but you don’t often hear someone express so clearly the disarray in which the party is plunged.
The Youth Commission has sometimes seriously shaken the liberal cage in the past. It is to be hoped that the lucidity of Mme Lefebvre is contagious. Last January, the party’s interim leader, Marc Tanguay, explained the historic defeat suffered on October 3 by the complexity of the Liberal message, which had confused voters. In reality, they especially saw that it changed continuously according to the targeted clientele and they didn’t appreciate it. Complexity and duplicity are very different things.
Acknowledging that there is a problem is certainly a good start, but it is not enough to solve it. The Liberals have a very sad record of renewal. For 20 years, reflection has been limited to chewing over the pamphlet on “liberal values” that Jean Charest had commissioned from Claude Ryan. As if time had stopped at the PLQ.
The good intentions expressed by Mr. Couillard in 2013 did not have the consequences that we might have hoped for. It was clear that the animation of the party did not interest him. Three years later, the outgoing president of the political committee, Jérôme Turcotte, made a devastating observation.
He noted that activists were deserting a party that had become “an extinguisher for civic engagement”. In a report submitted to the leadership of the party, he issued a warning that proved to be prescient: “Failing to act with force, it is clear that the vulnerability of our party to bad weather in the elections will only go croissant. »
As if last fall’s thaw had not been enough, the results of the recent by-election in Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne showed the extent of its decrepitude. Above all, another of his deputies should not decide to throw in the towel during his term of office.
Whenever the leader of an opposition party leaves office, opinions diverge on how quickly a successor should be found. Should we let the activists redefine the main orientations of the party before choosing a new leader, or quickly trigger a race where the various candidates will animate this reflection?
The new president of the Youth Commission is of the opinion that the Liberals should elect a permanent leader as soon as possible, while the party leadership does not seem to see any urgency. This is good because we do not rush at the door.
Historically, the Liberals have gained nothing by waiting, quite the contrary. Claude Ryan and Dominique Anglade became chiefs 17 and 19 months respectively after the departure of their predecessor and never tasted power. In 1970, Robert Bourassa was elected four months after the announcement of Jean Lesage’s resignation. In the case of Philippe Couillard, the interim had been six months.
Political parties no doubt have a duty to reflect, but Mr. Ryan had no illusions about the motives of the party he had led. “He has never made a secret of the priority importance he attaches to the conquest of power. It is primarily according to this objective that the PLQ is interested in ideas, and not for what they represent in themselves,” he declared in March 1996.
In the end, it is less opposition proposals than dissatisfaction with the government that determines the outcome of an election. Mr. Ryan had made a serious effort to restore some intellectual tone to his party, but it was a waste of time in the face of the popularity of the Lévesque government. Conversely, even if the PLQ had become an “extinguisher”, power fell ready-made into Philippe Couillard’s plate simply because of the negligence of the Marois government.