Pure caquismo.
• Read also: Political donations: the CAQ renounces popular financing
An impulsive and muddled reaction, which only aims to protect perceptions and images. Another round of the washer.
By renouncing popular funding, as announced by PM Legault, the CAQ is crafting a solution in which it does not even believe.
Exaggerated opposition
We recall the facts: for several weeks, certain media have revealed that CAQ deputies seem to encourage mayors to register for fundraising cocktails for which they must pay $100 in order to meet ministers.
The opposition believes that the CAQ is “monitoring access to their ministers.”
Scandal? Not really. A clumsiness? Maybe. Bolts to tighten? Certainly. However, a simple directive to his deputies would have sufficed from the PM.
Opposition parties are also to blame. They hype up his stories. They suggest an organized ploy, as if we were returning to the pre-Charbonneau era.
This is useful although wrong: it allows the smell of corruption and influence peddling to float where there probably is none.
I understand, therefore, that PM Legault and his government are irritated. Their integrity does not deserve to be attacked.
But both his decision and his justification make no sense.
He claims to want to “complete the work of René Lévesque”. Funny argument: Lévesque actually put an end to “black electoral funds” – anonymous and unlimited financing – but precisely because he believed in popular financing! We will return for the completeness of Lévesque’s work.
Politics > beliefs
There is more politics there than convictions, in fact.
The CAQ is putting pressure on the PQ, more dependent on popular funding, to follow suit. The CAQ would be happy with only state funding based on the number of votes, that’s to its advantage.
In short, we have here, in potential, the quintessential fault of the CAQ, which consists of improvising decisions to improve its image in the short term rather than acting according to principles and the general interest.
That the PM repeats this error is worrying for the future.