Ah, the intellectuals… Could they finally stop polluting our debates with ideas that no one is interested in? Like… the reform of the voting system, for example.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
This is essentially what François Legault insinuated when he was questioned on Sunday, on the airwaves of Radio-Canada, about the reform that his government dropped as if it were a smelly old sock. .
“Apart from a few intellectuals, the change in the voting method does not interest Quebecers,” he said.
What has stung candidate Legault? He simply decided to use a proven method in politics: divide and conquer.
This same François Legault, in 2018, believed that the status quo on the question of the voting method was untenable.
The current system has served us well, but it is increasingly showing its limits. Citizens feel that their vote counts less and less. The status quo feeds cynicism in Quebec.
Francois Legault, in 2018
He had promised that if he took power, a reform would be adopted in his first term.
François Legault’s recent statement can therefore only be explained in two ways:
- Either he was once an intellectual and he is no longer. If this is the case, we assume that he will soon stop sharing his book recommendations on social networks (it would be a shame, this habit is very nice).
- Either he shows demagoguery and flirts with a well-known populist technique: denouncing the elites.
We lean towards the second explanation.
Especially since it was not the only divisive exit from the head of the CAQ during his appearance on the special program Five leaders, one election.
He also twice denounced the Montrealers.
“The people of Montreal must stop looking down on the people of Quebec and Lévis,” he said, defending the third link.
He then used the same technique in another controversial file that makes the CAQ look bad: that of the Horne Foundry in Rouyn-Noranda.
“We are going to consult the people of Rouyn-Noranda in the coming weeks. They are the ones who will decide. Not the people of Montreal. »
But who said that “the people of Montreal” were going to make a decision in this file? Nobody.
We could even blame the Montreal media for having ignored this issue for too long. It is the grumbling of the citizens of Rouyn-Noranda that has made all of Quebec now interested in this environmental scandal.
And that’s perfectly normal. The opposite would be worrying.
Just as it is perfectly normal, as Yves Boisvert pointed out on Tuesday, that the third link has become a national issue.
François Legault is very skilful. He reframes the foundry debate by implying that we are once again faced with a file where condescending Montrealers want to get involved in what does not concern them.
The reform of the voting system. The third link. The Horne Foundry. In all three cases, to get out of trouble, he stirs the blood of all those who have the impression that a Montreal intellectual elite rules Quebec by looking down on all those who do not live in the metropolis.
Montrealers are perhaps not always sensitive enough to the fate of those who live outside the metropolis. But make no mistake. Here, we are witnessing a diversionary operation.
Faced with a difficult question, François Legault reacts like a swimmer in front of a school of piranhas, which throws a piece of meat so that the fish rush in another direction.
The problem is that creating a diversion in this way is dangerous.
To reduce fundamental issues to a “Montréal versus the regions” debate or to a struggle between the priorities of intellectuals and those of the people is to play with fire.
It is a terribly divisive and polarizing strategy. And Quebec cannot allow our politicians to seek to increase divisions.
What’s worse is that the prime minister’s lead over his rivals is such that he doesn’t need to resort to such methods.
He would do well to remember that he is the Prime Minister (of all Quebecers) and that with this power come great responsibilities.