Who can stop the government of François Legault (or draw attention in another direction) since the decisive victory of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) on October 3, if not the members of his own parliamentary group?
Despite a difficult campaign, the CAQ received 40.98% of the votes of Quebecers, compared to 37.42% four years ago. No less than 90 CAQ deputies will enter the Parliament Building next Tuesday, 14 more than when the National Assembly was dissolved last August. “Vague caquiste”, “vague caquiste”, still repeated the solidarity on Thursday, giving the impression that they were coming out of the water for the first time 10 days after the ballot.
The CAQ caucus appears today as the main counter-power to Prime Minister François Legault.
“When you have a supermajority like that, the dissension doesn’t necessarily come from outside, it comes from inside, from people who are dissatisfied with the way things are going,” points out Mireille Lalancette, full professor in social communication at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières, before turning his gaze to Western Canada. After being voted into power by nearly 55% of voters and winning 72% of the seats in the Legislative Assembly, the United Conservative Party of Alberta led by Premier Jason Kenney has been plagued by divisiveness, recalls- she.
In a parliamentary group, “for it to work, in theory, everyone must have the opportunity to express themselves and feel listened to,” according to Professor Lalancette. “It’s all about listening to people’s needs,” she adds, recalling that “the CAQ is a coalition [formée] of people from all walks of life” who do not necessarily share an objective transcending all others, such as the independence of Quebec for the PQ.
François Legault has always been more sensitive to the feelings and resentments of public opinion than to those of pressure groups, including employers’ associations and unions or even municipalities. He closely monitors the polls, but also the comments at the bottom of his social media posts (less than before the COVID-19 pandemic, that said). But his “ focus group privileged is his caucus, says a person accompanying him in the exercise of power for four years. He holds weekly meetings with all his deputies, regular meetings with one group of deputies, then another. He also exchanges emails with many of them. That won’t change, she says.
“We will see to what extent Mr. Legault and his team will treat their caucus well”, notes for her part Mireille Lalancette at the dawn of the 43e Quebec legislature.
One MP, one file
The day after the election, François Legault invited each of the elected or re-elected deputies of the CAQ to inform his executive assistant, Sébastien Lauzon, which file he would like to manage, whether he sits on the Council of Ministers or not.
Mr. Legault had entrusted the “mission of accelerating the deployment of high-speed Internet services throughout Quebec” to the Member of Parliament for Orford, Gilles Bélanger, at the end of 2020. To achieve this, he raised him to the title of parliamentary assistant, as he had done with Donald Martel (Saint-Laurent project) and Samuel Poulin (youth) in the fall of 2018.
Moreover, the CAQ leader took advantage of his first post-election meeting with his 89 elected officials to emphasize that the ministers of his new government will truly work with their parliamentary assistants. The problem: the number of the latter must not exceed 20, provides for the Act respecting the National Assembly.
Mr. Legault’s close guard cites as an example (once again) the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, who, according to her, knew how to team up not only with his parliamentary assistant, Marilyne Picard, but also with “simple deputies” , like Shirley Dorismond (Marie-Victorin) and Nancy Guillemette (Roberval). The first had been entrusted with the task of bringing to Mr. Dubé ideas from the field that could promote Quebecers’ access to a health professional. The second had been tasked with advising Mr. Dubé on expanding medical assistance in dying.
Parliamentary reform
In addition, many elected officials are pinning a lot of hope on parliamentary reform that would increase the role of MNAs, even if it means restricting that of ministers, during the study of bills, for example.
For his part, the President of the National Assembly, François Paradis, suggested the creation of “a new section for the business of the day reserved for the study of public bills of deputies”, “both for the deputies of the opposition only for those in the government who are not ministers”.
Be that as it may, the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, Éric Duhaime, will perhaps hang around the restaurant Le Parlementaire, where the CAQ deputies discuss frankly with their leader, François Legault, every Wednesday evening of parliamentary session, hoping that a defector falls into his arms. “Four years is a long time, there will be deputies who will resign, who will be in green joual”, he also predicted on Radio X on October 4th.
With Isabelle Porter