American politics has completely dominated the news in Quebec over the past month. After the media blackout that followed the attempted assassination of Donald Trump this weekend, all eyes are now on the Republican National Convention.
Just a few days ago, the attention of the Quebec media was focused on Joe Biden and the calls for his withdrawal following his disastrous performance in a televised debate at the end of June. To the point where we almost lost sight of the fact that at the same time, Justin Trudeau’s leadership was also being challenged after the Liberals lost one of their strongholds in a by-election in Ontario.
This is just one example of what some are now calling the Americanization of our media. Since Donald Trump’s leap into politics in 2015, American politics has occupied a central, sometimes preponderant, place in our media space.
So much so that people are now more informed about what is happening south of the border than at home. They sometimes have strong opinions about the cancellation of Roe v. Wade or on the construction of a wall on the Mexican border, while they think nothing much about the ArriveCAN saga or the full powers in matters of immigration demanded by the Legault government.
“It struck me a few years ago when I was giving a lecture in a library. I asked people who were able to name at least one justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to raise their hands. To my great surprise, several did. When I asked who could name a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, no one was able to. However, the Supreme Court in the United States essentially considers domestic policy issues, which have no direct impact on the lives of Quebecers and Canadians,” says political scientist Karine Prémont, a professor at the University of Sherbrooke.
An underlying trend
She and her colleague Marie-Ève Carignan published in 2021 The White House seen from Quebeca work in which they question the disproportionate space that American politics occupied in the Quebec media during the Trump presidency.
For this book, they interviewed several media personalities, as well as journalism professors. Some pointed out that this hyper-mediatization of the United States resulted in the importation into Quebec of movements that were nevertheless part of very American realities, and a priori quite different from ours. The example of Black Lives Matter is cited. “But today we could also talk about the truckers’ movement or the one against drag queens in schools,” adds Karine Prémont in hindsight.
The book was published just after Joe Biden, a “traditional” politician, took office, not to say boring. At the time, Karine Prémont believed that the attention devoted to the United States would return to a more normal level. Like other experts on American politics, she was much less solicited by the media than before. But since Trump confirmed his intention to return to office, interview requests have been piling up again.
“Three years ago, I really believed that things were going to return to normal. After the Trump years, I thought that Quebecers would be tired of American politics. But I was naive. With the Trump trials and the debate over Biden’s age, it’s back on track. And I don’t think it’s going to stop. No matter who is elected in November, the United States will continue to be extremely polarized. I think it’s this intensity that fascinates Quebecers so much,” she emphasizes.
The Obama effect, the Trump effect
American presidential elections have not always aroused such passions, as our archives attest.
In its edition of July 31, 2000, The duty had devoted only a short news agency text on page 5 to the opening of the Republican convention that would result in the inauguration of George W. Bush as the party’s candidate. No newsroom reporters had been dispatched to the scene; no column that day focused on the American elections. Two weeks later, Al Gore’s coronation at the Democratic convention deserved similar treatment in our pages.
“In 2000, the elections weren’t of interest to many people in Quebec, before the whole legal battle over the recount in Florida. September 11 pushed Quebecers to take a greater interest in what was happening in the United States. In 2004, TV channels were already giving more importance to the campaign. But it was in 2008, thanks to the presence of Barack Obama, that the coverage became enormous. And it went up another notch in 2016 with Donald Trump,” summarizes John Parisella, who has been commenting on American politics in the media for 24 years.
This former Quebec delegate to New York is regularly invited to give lectures on the United States. But John Parisella says he almost never receives requests to come and talk about his career on the Quebec political scene anymore, even though he was Robert Bourassa’s chief of staff during the pivotal period following the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords.
Entertainment?
The question of the constitutional future of Quebec, which has structured the political debate throughout Canada, has been relegated to second place in recent years and has never really been replaced by such a divisive subject. It must be admitted that Quebec and Canadian politics have become less exciting as a result. Especially compared to the twists and turns and the flashes of brilliance that news from south of the border brings every day.
“American politics is treated in Quebec as entertainment, not as politics. If we approached American politics in the same way as Quebec politics, we would talk about what directly affects us—free trade, among other things. However, this is almost never mentioned in media coverage. We never say that Biden and Trump are quite protectionist, and that it is not in our interest as Canadians. We prefer to focus on the spectacle aspect,” regrets Guillaume Lavoie, associate member of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair.
So, seen from Quebec, an American election is viewed like a Hollywood movie. On one side, there are the good guys, the Democrats; on the other, the bad guys, the Republicans.
According to Guillaume Lavoie, this very Manichean analytical grid prevents Quebecers from grasping the subtleties of American political dynamics. “Quebecers have more in common with Republicans in New York or California than with Democrats in the center of the country. Unfortunately, we don’t take the measure of it, because all the attention is focused on the presidency.”
“We are imposing the reality of Canada, where the Prime Minister is all-powerful, on the United States, where Congress has enormous countervailing power and where there is no party line,” laments Guillaume Lavoie, calling on the media to take a little more interest in the other elections that will take place in November.