In January 2022, as the Omicron wave swept over Quebec, the leader of the Quebec Liberal Party Dominique Anglade decided to boycott the weekly telephone meeting to which Prime Minister François Legault had invited the leaders of the opposition parties while waiting the resumption of the work of the National Assembly.
Even if she herself had requested these exchanges, Ms.me Anglade had felt “instrumentalized” by a government that wanted to “look good” and simply “pretend to collaborate”. The Prime Minister did not give any other information than what was already online, she lamented.
The other leaders were equally critical. The spokesperson for Québec solidaire (QS), Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, said he had “no illusions” about the nature of these meetings. “I know very well that François Legault governs alone, governs by decree,” he added. The leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, spoke of a “simulacrum”.
Despite these reservations, both had chosen to maintain their participation. Failing to obtain additional information, they intended to take advantage of every opportunity offered to them to hound the government and put forward their point of view.
They knew very well that the absent are always wrong. The Prime Minister’s office was also quick to accuse Dominique Anglade of seeking to use the pandemic to score political points, regretting in passing the great collaboration offered by his predecessor Pierre Arcand.
They are no more fooled by the hand that Mr. Legault extended to them a week before the election of October 3, the results of which revealed more spectacularly than ever the dysfunction of a voting system that he was formally committed to reform.
Even if his offer of collaboration was above all aimed at minimizing the consequences of the reneging of his promise, they had no other choice but to accept his recent invitation to meet him in anticipation of the resumption of the parliamentary session, on January 31. . Their first instinct would probably have been to send him to hell, but the empty chair policy was not an option.
On Tuesday, the curator Éric Duhaime came out delighted with his tête-à-tête with the Prime Minister. For the leader of a party that has no representative in the National Assembly, the mere fact of having been invited was already a victory. The advantage is less obvious for the other leaders.
During the election campaign, the Prime Minister had warned that the success of this eventual collaboration would depend on the attitude of the opposition, but a government which holds such an overwhelming parliamentary majority must be the first to demonstrate its good faith. Too often, he tends to confuse collaboration with a blank check. A 90-minute encounter can be a good start as well as a sham. We will judge on the spot.
At the end of September, Mr. Legault had suggested that each of the parties represented in the National Assembly could present a bill which would be studied, but experience shows that this does not necessarily guarantee its adoption.
Last spring, the government ensured that the draft Queen’s Oath presented by QS was considered too late to be adopted. Not to mention the reform of the voting system, which was the subject of public hearings without ever going through the other legislative stages.
Discussions between four eyes can certainly be enriching, but nothing beats the test of reality. The surprise resignation of the CEO of Hydro-Quebec, Sophie Brochu, undoubtedly offers more quickly than François Legault would have liked an opportunity to test the sincerity of the Prime Minister.
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois requests that Mr.me Brochu is heard by a parliamentary commission to explain the reasons for this hasty departure, while Paul St-Pierre Plamondon demands that the appointment of his or her successor be approved by two of the three opposition parties.
The debate on the future of Hydro-Québec and on the decarbonization of the economy could well deal a blow, even fatal, to a collaboration that promises to be very hypothetical. Already, Mr. Legault is complaining about the “unfair” criticism of his energy strategy and Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon is too identified with development at all costs for a minimum of confidence to be established.
Collaboration is not a natural reflex in politics. The question is not so much whether the government and the opposition will be able to work together, but who will be most successful in demonstrating the other’s bad faith.