Since the October 3 election, charitable souls have flocked to the bedside of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) and are looking for a way to resuscitate it.
“Let the PLQ rise! wrote former minister Benoît Pelletier on Saturday in our pages, inviting him to “return to his roots” with regard to the political and constitutional future of Canada and to be more critical of Canadian federalism.
On the same day, the former senator and former editor-in-chief of The Press André Pratte proposed a broad consultation of the members of the PLQ over the next few months, so that it can “evolve in harmony with the concerns and interests of Quebecers”.
The question is whether he is still able to pull himself together. Over the years, Messrs. Pelletier and Pratte, like others, have multiplied the texts of the same water without this producing the slightest effect. Immobilism seems to have become the trademark of the PLQ.
The Liberals are nostalgic for their nationalist and progressive past. The Quiet Revolution was undoubtedly a period of ferment, but there is also an element of myth in this “ideas machine” that the PLQ would have once been.
When he became its leader in 1978, Claude Ryan was able to see that reflection was not a natural reflex there. Two years later, he was pleased that, under his leadership, the liberal congresses no longer automatically made the fortune of the surrounding bars.
Invited as a speaker at the General Council in March 1996, he passed on his former party a judgment of a cold lucidity which had upset many. ” He [le PLQ] has never made a secret of the priority importance he attaches to the conquest of power. It is primarily for this purpose that the QLP is interested in ideas, and not for what they represent in themselves. »
Six years later, Mr. Ryan himself had to make up for the paucity of thought that characterized the QLP by publishing, at the request of Jean Charest, his booklet entitled Liberal valueswhich still serves as a compass for the Liberals.
Certainly, a political party should not be a weather vane, which accords its principles to its interest of the moment, but it should not lock itself into immutable certainties, under penalty of becoming fossilized.
For twenty years, the promises of renewal have been as hollow as they are numerous. Hearing Dominique Anglade declare that the PLQ must “again become the crossroads between the great ideas of today and tomorrow” gives the impression of listening to an old record.
In 2013, Philippe Couillard also proposed to shake off the intellectual torpor of his party. At the time, he intended not only to invite activists to a vast brainstorming exercise, but he also envisaged the creation of a think tank independent who could formulate original proposals and train “high caliber research personnel”. Of course, none of this materialized.
Repositioning the PLQ is not easy. Benoît Pelletier rightly criticizes the party for unconditionally adhering to Canadian federalism, regardless of the fate it might reserve for Quebec. But how to be more critical of Ottawa without playing into the hands of the Legault government, which monopolizes the autonomist niche?
In a text published in November 2021, but which remains quite topical, Mr. Pelletier had denounced a “postnational slippage” which does not only translate into complacency in the face of the centralizing tendencies of the federation.
“The defense of rights and freedoms should not be a fixation”, also wrote the former minister. “A refocusing is needed, not between left and right, but between individual freedom and the collective interest of the Quebec nation”, particularly on language issues.
Given the electoral base of the PLQ, such a refocusing is a delicate operation. It owes essentially to non-French-speaking voters for having retained its official opposition status. This support comes at a price.
André Pratte believes that the conclusions of the consultation of the members should be studied at the next congress, which must be held in 2023. The danger is that there will be interference between the debate on the orientation of the party and the vote of confidence to which Mme Anglade will have to submit.
At the PQ convention in June 2005, the debate on extending the provisions of Bill 101 to CEGEPs had a negative effect on Bernard Landry’s vote of confidence. The extension had been rejected, and his supporters had expressed their dissatisfaction by refusing their confidence in Mr. Landry. We can however think that, in the present circumstances, Mrs.me Anglade would gladly be satisfied with the support of 76.2% that the former leader of the PQ had deemed insufficient.