Destiny does not come to pick you up at your doorstep early in the morning to take you to the summits. At most he gives you an ambiguous sign, from afar, between dog and wolf, while you yourselves are half asleep. The thing is possible, he seems to say (destiny). Not certain, not probable, possible. But only if you bleed blood and water, show audacity and cunning, intelligence and seduction, take advantage of the mistakes of your competitors or their marital or health problems, in short from the chance of things, small and large. And again, he adds (fate, always), I’m not completely sure of what I’m saying about it.
Imagine young Gabriel
Nadeau-Dubois thinking of capturing this signal. Not the one, lyrical and full of youthful arrogance that we saw with his fist in the air in 2012 on the barricades of Printemps érable when he was 22 years old. Rather, the one who emerged from this formative experience – as one emerges, alive but strangely damaged, from a cesarean -, but occupied the following four years in reflection.
First by compiling, at the expense of the CSN, collective construction agreements, then by pouring out his skillful rhetoric into the microphones of Radio-Canada, by doing his baccalaureate in history and culture, by immersing his brain in a little philosophy , ultimately obtaining his master’s degree in sociology. Yes, he is a sociologist. Did you know ?
Clear the junk
He is 26 years old. He is ready to respond to the signal sent to him by destiny and that everyone reminds him of on every street corner. He has chosen his path: it will be Québec solidaire. In my kitchen, he refuses my proposal to join the Parti Québécois (I was once its leader, it’s in the archives). I recognized him as a solid reformist, but our differences on secularism were irreducible. Above all, he had to sociologize that my party was nothing more than a dying echo of the past, carrying a one-way ticket to the basement of history. That QS was the elevator to take.
Not as is. He had smelled it enough to notice that beneath its innovative exterior, the solidarity machine was made of bric-a-brac imagined by boomers who had frequented the gypsy a lot in the heyday of the epic conflicts between Marxist-Leninists and Trotskyists. , resigned to the fact that the proletariat would never be interested in their rantings. With the feminists of the pre-trans era, they calculated that, to exist, you had to plant your flag to the left of Lucien Bouchard’s Parti Québécois.
GND (this is my reading) had clearly noted that the youth responded to the sirens of the new party, but that to make it capable of overcoming revolt and becoming a tool of power, it was immediately necessary to clean it up. In other words, putting the Trotskyists in the minority.
He therefore decided to seek, in a detour, a favorable wind. So, rather than immediately responding to the urgent call of his old comrades and entering the ranks through the door designated for him, he chose to form his own troop, which he would bring in with him – and for him — in the solidarity vehicle in sufficient numbers, perhaps, to give him the majorities necessary for the renovation he dreamed of.
It was the adventure of “Must speak”: a tour of the regions, 18 popular assemblies, 174 kitchen assemblies, a book to boot. Enough to shower the QS machine with a downpour of change. Still, his three accomplices on the tour would have had to set an example by following him to the end. Jean-Martin Aussant, eager to enter QS with him, chose to return to the PQ fold. Claire Bolduc, a major regional figure in Abitibi, opted for a position as prefect in her neck of the woods. Only Maïtée Labrecque-Saganash agreed, but only in 2022, to join the solidarity movement.
False start
The harvest was therefore very slim when GND joined the left party in March 2017. He became Gouin’s deputy and male spokesperson in a contested election, but which he won hands down at the congress at the end of 2017. He wiped out the same day, his first ideological defeat. He had campaigned for the opening of negotiations with the PQ towards the creation of an electoral pact. It was, he thought, the choice that a pragmatic party would make. He was not the only one: Amir Khadir and Andrés Fontecilla had staked their credibility on it, especially since a Léger poll indicated that 87% of solidarity voters were in favor and that this alliance would give the
social democrats-independence a majority government.
GND witnessed, helplessly, the triumph of the intransigents, who rejected by 75% the simple proposal to open talks, at the same time tearing up the transpartisan sovereignist agreement recently negotiated with the Bloc, National Option and the PQ. This crazy day of congress confirmed in front of the newcomer the clear predominance of the supporters of the non-government party. But in what trouble
had he just embarked?
He had suffered a lot, during the Maple Spring, from being only a “spokesperson” for his association. He opened up about it in his book, published in 2013, Stand your ground (Lux): “Target of virulent criticism and attacked from all sides for “my” refusal to condemn violence, I was then going through the most trying moments of the strike, especially since the position adopted by the coalition did not correspond entirely mine. I have sometimes asked myself if I want my face, my name and my voice to be associated with such confrontations and their inevitable excesses for a long time to come. »
Five years later, here he is again plunged into the exact same dilemma, crowned “spokesperson” for people who, obviously, spit at the first opportunity to find themselves in the antechamber of power.
I was with him shortly afterward during a panel in front of over a thousand Unifor union delegates. At the microphone, a trade unionist, appalled like us by the senseless cuts then imposed by a liberal government that seemed indestructible, begged us to join forces to put an end to this nightmare. “There’s like a message there,” I whispered, mockingly, into Gabriel’s ear. “You know very well that it’s not me who decides,” he replied, annoyed. Honestly, I felt sorry for him.
The escape
I cannot say how many snakes GND must have swallowed since then, biding his time or preparing his exit. He has certainly won several battles, dominating the 2022 electoral campaign, with disappointment as his only reward. Nevertheless, the support of 90% of the delegates at the last congress gave him the fuel he no longer expected: a predominant position.
When, in addition to the rusty refrains of Mao’s castoffs, he was called upon to apologize for being who he was by a resigning punk actress from Quebec, Catherine Dorion, then by an impatient farmer from Rouyn-Noranda who had also resigned, Émilise Lessard-Therrien, her cup was full. The prisoner of
Politburo judged that the time had come to
escape.
The counter-revolutionary can finally come out of the closet. He wants to change the platform, he wants to change the program, to cleanse it of its leftist past, he wants to change the structure of power, to break with the self-managing utopia. “Who is the real leader of Québec solidaire? » he seems to ask, vaguely quoting someone. And we hear him respond in perfectly decodable terms: the real boss must be me! He wants, for form’s sake, to keep the title of co-spokesperson. Provided that his voice is preponderant and that it is, finally, his own words.
Next on Wednesday: The counter-revolution.
Jean-François Lisée is a columnist. He led the PQ from 2016 to 2018. He published Through the mouth of my pencils. [email protected].