It’s still weird, this obsession. At the end of the debate last Thursday, the Prime Minister showed his game, affirming that his first objective had been to denounce Québec solidaire and its tax appetite for the middle class.
We understand the businessman Legault not to adhere to the doctrine of solidarity. But it has plenty to oppose also the other parties that try to steal seats from it. His outgoing deputies in Beauce and in certain ridings in Quebec must have been very surprised to learn that the threat came from those in solidarity and not from Éric Duhaime, who was capable of bringing together 3,000 people in the capital.
The reality is that facing the CAQ Goliath, four Davids are moving their slingshots towards various areas of its political anatomy. The Liberals confront the CAQ in Laval and in the Outaouais. Éric Duhaime bites his black hocks in Beauce, Lévis and Chauveau. The Parti Québécois resisted its attempted invasion in the East—Gaspésie, Côte-Nord—as well as in Joliette, and wanted to seize Camille-Laurin. The orange party disturbs the CAQ, yes, but only in Estrie, Abitibi, in two counties of the capital and in Maurice-Richard.
The CAQ chief’s desire to inflate the importance of QS is not new. For nearly a year, he has designated Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois as his favorite adversary and seems to be burning with desire to see him strip the Liberals of the position of leader of the official opposition.
At first glance, one might have thought that he was instrumentalizing GND in his desire to eradicate the Parti Québécois. But the liberals know that QS robbed them of their younger voters in 2018, with the new generation of non-French-speaking Trudeauists finding at QS the same multicultural and post-national discourse as at the parent company. (Don’t ask yourself why there is never — I mean really never — a Quebec flag at solidarity events. It’s so as not to scare off post-nationalists and Trudeauists, who are allergic to it.)
The stepping stone offered by the CAQ to QS would therefore also serve to try to empty some of the remaining Liberal electorate from within.
The Duplessis Method
Legault uses in this campaign an old technique of reverse psychology. It is said that Liberal leader Georges-Émile Lapalme boasted to Maurice Duplessis of always giving big tips, then telling the recipients of his generosity: “Vote Liberal! Duplessis reportedly retorted: “Me, I don’t tip and I say: ‘vote liberal!’ »
By attacking QS, even having had an orange credit card made which he regularly brandishes, Legault certainly hopes that a few hesitants who may have been charmed by the left-wing rhetoric drive their non-surcharged Toyota Camry to the polling station instead. support the CAQ instead. But it is mainly aimed at those who really do not want to vote CAQ. By telling them that the election opposes two visions, his own and that of QS, he calls on them to unite behind the one who – he claims – scares him the most.
This speech can obviously have no effect on the electorate of Éric Duhaime, the furthest from solidarity themes. But the noisy opposition to orange taxes allows François Legault to pose as a defender of the portfolio of good people, and therefore to occupy part of the space coveted by Duhaime.
Is this political calculation only tactical? Disposable after the election? I do not think so. Legault has already compared his party to the Union Nationale. In addition to its moderate autonomist position, centered on the economy, the attraction of the National Union was its longevity. A political hegemony spanning a quarter of a century.
A powerful repellent
How to ensure that the CAQ becomes for the foreseeable future the only party of government? By choosing among his adversaries the one who has the least chance of becoming one. The PLQ and the PQ, despite all their recent insults, are parties that have governed and that could, under the right circumstances, claim power. They each have their own political flavour, but are sufficiently centrist to have known – and still know how – to build winning coalitions.
Québec solidaire, on the contrary, offers a left-wing ideological anchoring that is not conducive to the construction of coalitions, even in the medium term. Whether we like it or not, wokism is a powerful electoral foil as soon as it overflows from its primary base. It is true that 36% of people under 35 make the solidarity choice. A feat. But that means 64% don’t.
However cynical he may be, François Legault’s bet is therefore the right one. If he can choose his opponent, he might as well choose the one he loves to hate. The others torment its flanks: the PQ on language and identity; the PCQ on its abandonment of the center right; the PLQ on the economy. Three themes that are dear to him and on which he must appear strong.
Québec solidaire, the frontal attack, really offers a different vision on several points: a nationalism emptied of its substance, an aversion to business and to the market, a flirt with the dangerous ideas of disarming the police, the disappearance of genres and all-out nationalizations.
These are debates as he likes them. This is the peril he prefers. The one who assures him of victory.
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