A political pandemic | Press

Useless elections in Ottawa, an opposition absent in Quebec, debates where people do not listen to each other, public services patched up by the spit and an ecological crisis that still awaits to be taken seriously. Here is the best of the worst of 2021.

The gaffe: the debate in English

Talking about blunder is already too nice. By definition, a blunder is an unintentional mistake, a mess that one hastens to pick up with a minimal degree of shame. But regret, shame, or even lucidity, there was not the slightest trace in Shachi Kurl. The Canadian media consortium had the strange idea of ​​asking Angus Reid’s boss to host the leaders’ debate in English during the federal election. She didn’t even try to feign objectivity. His first question, now famous, was an attack on the leader of the Bloc.

According to her, Quebec has a particular problem of racism and the protection of French or the defense of secularism would prove it. The Inquisitor therefore asked Yves-François Blanchet to defend himself.

The ironic thing is that Angus Reid recently published a poll showing that Quebec was no more racist than the rest of the country. Ditto for the supporters of the Bloc, who are in the middle.

At least the process was consistent: a stupid question to start a failed debate from start to finish.

Flash in the pan: compulsory vaccination

What burned to burn their eyebrows last fall was the credibility of the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé. He waved the stick: health workers should be vaccinated. Otherwise, no work. He gave them two months. But he made a threat without knowing whether or not he would be able to carry it out.

Very quickly, it appeared that the health network was too fragile to afford to lose these thousands of recalcitrant workers. Despite everything, the minister maintained his bluff. Professional orders were even ready to suspend the license of their unvaccinated members! Seeing that his plan was failing, Mr. Dubé prolonged this false suspense by postponing his threat for a month. He finally pitifully gave in before the last deadline.

Getting sleep: the third link, an “ecological” project!

Let’s try to stay as consensual as possible during a paragraph. Do you support the third Québec-Lévis link? Me niether. But hey, the Legault government loves the project. He has the right to do so. However, it should be possible to do so with minimal respect for the IQ of the people.

Several Caquists qualified the project… as “ecological”! This road will even become carbon neutral in 2050, promises the government, without counting the emissions made to produce concrete, transport machinery, build electric vehicles or even add the urban infrastructure required by urban sprawl.

You may want the project to be built to develop Lévis, to shorten the transport of goods or to help out in the event of work on the other bridges. It defends itself. But please don’t make this a Greenpeace sponsored project. Don’t take us for cellars at this point.

Can do better next year: the PLQ

This is a very rare consolation for Dominique Anglade. The year 2022 could hardly be worse. The Liberals have tumbled in the polls. They are now in fourth place among Francophones, barely ahead of the Conservatives of Eric Duhaime. The party of Lapalme, Lesage, Gérin-Lajoie and Bourassa languishes at the bottom of the cellar, on the threshold of marginalization. Only the unconditional support of Anglophones and Allophones enabled it to avoid sinking.

It’s not that M^me Anglade is bad. She does her best with an ungrateful situation. Much like François Legault in 2014, she is sandwiched between the handful of moderate nationalists and multiculturalists, between progressive reformists and supporters of economic orthodoxy. She is so far away from everyone that no one can hear her.

The ticking is getting louder and louder. The elections are coming in 10 months.