“Do I announce my resignation right away, this evening? »
On April 7, 2014, the first results of the Quebec elections flashed on the screen and François Legault saw the worst. To his loyal chief of staff Martin Koskinen, he admits to being ready to move on.
But suddenly the tide turns. Despite a slight drop in the percentage of votes, he managed to elect three additional deputies (from 19 to 22). The worst is avoided: the third way remains alive.
The anecdote is told in Conquering power, an essay by Pascal Mailhot and Éric Montigny which traces the rise of the political “third way”, between federalism and independence. The book, published by Boréal, will be on sale on March 19, while we mark the 30e anniversary of the creation of Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ).
The authors are respectively former close collaborators of François Legault and Mario Dumont. There is no great critical perspective there. But they have the merit of making us relive the story with a captivating foray behind the scenes.
The essay reminds us that politics depends as much on personal ambitions as on accidents. And it also shows the difficulty in Quebec of finding a way between the Liberals and the PQ without being caught in a vice or being completely forgotten.
It is a series of hopes and abandonments, half-victories and bitter defeats which symbolizes the eternal ambiguity of Quebecers in the face of their destiny. All this, in the context of a weakening balance of power.
To understand the rise of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), we often mention the 2017 partial in Louis-Hébert won by Geneviève Guilbault. But the defeat in Chauveau in 2015 was just as decisive. It was the latest in a series of disappointments that led to the nationalist turn.
Upon his return to politics in 2011, Mr. Legault promised to put the national question on the back burner for a decade. At what point ? The book reveals that he had even approached a certain… Philippe Couillard.
The CAQ swallowed up the ADQ in 2011, which had become more to the right. In this young coalition, the ex-PQ members are not yet numerous or influential. To reassure the most federalists of his clan, Mr. Legault blocks the reform of Law 101 of the Marois government, which, according to him, would go too far. Ironically, he thus fought against measures that he would boast of having adopted a decade later.
The “third way”, for Mr. Legault, then consists of talking as little as possible about autonomy. It also differentiates itself from the ADQ by believing in the involvement of a strong state in the economy, but by subjecting it to private management methods.
Neither left nor right, neither federalist nor separatist: this positioning is difficult to sell. The CAQ quickly finds itself lost in the middle of nowhere.
In 2013, Mr. Legault seemed little interested and even exasperated by the debate on the charter of secularism. He is falling in the polls. The seat projections are disastrous: the CAQ would elect only one MP.
The late historian Frédéric Bastien reveals that the Supreme Court would have collaborated with Pierre Elliott Trudeau before rendering its opinion on the unilateral patriation of the Constitution. Mr. Legault pays little attention to it. “What does it change tomorrow morning in Quebec? », he says. Lucien Bouchard will call him to order.
In March 2014, the arrival of Pierre Karl Péladeau to the Parti Québécois (PQ) created a shock. Polarization is increasing around the national question. “We said to ourselves: it’s game over for us,” recalls Mr. Koskinen.
With the energy of despair, Mr. Legault saves his skin in the TVA debate. But the future will be difficult. In 2015, CAQ leader Gérard Deltell resigned in Chauveau and the Liberals won the election. At the end of the summer, the CAQ leader summoned his close guard to the party headquarters, on the banks of the Lachine Canal. “I’m tired of sitting on the fence,” he says.
“We change the name or we close the shop,” he adds, half-seriously, report Mailhot and Montigny.
A nationalist turn is brewing. The multi-colored logo is replaced by light blue with a fleur-de-lys, and a platform will be presented shortly after to a general council in Laval.
Is this a real priority or rather a new label? Mr. Legault will focus more on the “defense of the taxpayer” and on wearing down the Liberals. It channels the thirst for change. With the collapse of the PQ, the CAQ is counting on a rallying of nationalists.
Among them, Stéphane Gobeil. The PQ advisor had already called Mr. Legault a “junk Moses”. But in turn, he will put the independence dream aside.
In the CAQ’s “New project for nationalists”, the list of demands for the federal government is a compromise. “More than Meech, less than the Allaire report,” Mr. Legault has already summarized. None of his requests for repatriation of powers have been accepted. But today, he boasts of gains with his reform of Law 101 and his Law on State Secularismwhich are resisting the courts thanks to the notwithstanding provision.
Mario Dumont was not supposed to lead the ADQ. Resigned ex-president of the youth commission of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ), he slammed the door in 1992. The party had just rejected the Allaire report, a nationalist platform. Its author, Jean Allaire, will create a new party. But his fragile health forced him to leave shortly after. Dumont replaces him. He doubts. “Look, I’m just 23,” he confided to relatives.
PHOTO DENIS COURVILLE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Moncef Guitouni, president of the Democratic Action of Quebec, Jean Allaire, outgoing leader of the party, and Mario Dumont, interim leader, in May 1994
After campaigning for Yes in 1995, Dumont proposed a moratorium on constitutional issues.
In September 2002, at the Canadian Club in Toronto, in front of “the biggest Canadian flag ever seen,” he officially turned his back on this debate.
After winning partial elections, he lost seats in the 2003 elections. It was a disappointment and division. Within the party, the more nationalist and pragmatic economic wing faces that of the libertarian right.
Like the CAQ in 2015, the ADQ will table a nationalist platform in 2004. The title: “The ADQ: the autonomist path”. A return to the party’s roots. Observers are skeptical. They wonder what this new word “iste” means.
As the CAQ will do later, Mr. Dumont will mainly benefit from the weakness of his adversaries. The Adequist leader does not take the initiative to talk about reasonable accommodations. But when the media makes it a priority, he jumps on the bandwagon. At the end of the 2007 general elections, he led the official opposition. While his entourage celebrates the election of 41 deputies, the leader nevertheless looks gloomy. “You don’t understand…” he told them. He foresees the impossible expectations, the unpreparedness of his troops and the attacks to come, all in the context of a minority government where there is no time to master the profession. The following year, there was an electoral rout. He resigns.
Once again, in the National Assembly, there are only two political forces: the Liberals and the PQ.
The essay shows the media’s eagerness to announce the death of the parties, and the doubts of their leaders.
In 1998, the ADQ was asked to scuttle itself. In 2002, there was already speculation about the date of the PQ’s funeral, and its leader Bernard Landry himself often threatened to resign. “I’m going back to teach!” », he says more than once to those around him. Shortly before him, Lucien Bouchard had thrown in the towel, noting that even he was not succeeding in giving his people a taste for independence. And in 2009, his protégé François Legault will do the same thing.
Upon its return in 2011, the CAQ enjoyed a popularity that was as astonishing as it was ephemeral. After two electoral defeats, in 2012 and 2014, Mr. Legault’s morale is at its lowest.
In April 2014, a certain Mario Dumont took up his pen. He sees no future for the third way. The PQ is declining and the CAQ is stagnating. Who can dislodge the liberals? Nobody, he fears. “I don’t think I will see another party in power again in my lifetime. I am 43 years old. »
A few years later, others would reverse his prophecy. After the CAQ’s victories in 2018 and 2022, observers feared a different future. The PQ was dying, the PLQ was divorcing from the francophones and QS was hitting its ceiling. The CAQ seemed unbeatable.
Today, she is swaying. What future for the third way? If history repeats itself, the answer will depend on electoral opportunities, depending on which battles have been lost or abandoned by the other parties.
Conquering power – how a third political way emerged in Quebec
Editions du Boréal
304 pages