Less than two months ago, Prime Minister François Legault invited Quebecers to remember, during the next federal election, that Justin Trudeau had refused to contribute more substantially to the funding of health services.
It didn’t take him long to bury the hatchet. Rarely had we seen the Prime Minister of Quebec as smooth with his federal vis-à-vis as Mr. Legault was on Tuesday during the official announcement of the entry of the Davie shipyard into the club of beneficiaries of the National Strategy of shipbuilding.
While bickering seems to be the daily lot of federal-provincial relations, there have also been moments of harmony. Yet even back in the days of the Meech Lake Accord, Robert Bourassa and Brian Mulroney hadn’t cooed as loudly as these unlikely lovebirds.
It is true that this day was long awaited. The history of Canada’s oldest shipyard has been turbulent to say the least over the past few decades. The new orders for icebreakers, which could total more than 8.5 billion, as well as the 840 million that will be invested in its modernization promise it many years of prosperity, from which the whole region will benefit.
This remains relatively modest compared to the planned tens of billions that will have to be spent to meet the objectives of the Strategy, but as Mr. Legault said about the Canada Health Transfer: “It’s better than nothing”.
Mr. Trudeau was obviously not going to miss such a great opportunity to scratch the Conservatives by criticizing Stephen Harper’s government for having excluded Quebec from the bonanza in 2010 for the benefit of the Irving shipyards in New Brunswick and Seaspan in British Columbia. .
He could have been reminded of the embarrassing lawsuit his own government filed in 2018 against Vice Admiral Mark Norman, whom he accused of leaking confidential information that the Liberals had decided to reassess, under pressure from Irving, the decision of the Harper government to entrust the Davie with the transformation of the civilian container ship Asterix as an interim replenishment tanker for the Canadian Navy.
After Mr Norman was suspended from duty and his life turned upside down for two years, the charges were dropped for lack of evidence. That he is not responsible for leaking this information does not mean that it was false, however.
Be that as it may, Mr. Trudeau can now present himself as a righter of the wrongs caused to Quebec by the evil Conservatives, under the approving eye of Mr. Legault, who will be able to add another line to his list of the benefits of federalism.
In the euphoria of the Davie induction celebrations, Mr. Trudeau took benevolence so far as to suggest that Ottawa could help fund the third link, now that there is talk of a streetcar passing through the tunnel. Music to the ears of Mr. Legault.
Regardless of when the next federal election takes place, a glance at the most recent seat projections from the Canada338 site is enough to understand that Quebec occupies a central place in the calculations of the Liberal strategists.
In all regions of the country, the Conservative Party is progressing at the expense of the Liberal Party, except in Quebec, where it would simply retain the 10 seats which seem to constitute a sort of ceiling, from one election to the next. To retain power, the Liberals should therefore compensate Quebec for the losses anticipated in the rest of the country.
The resurrection of the Davie shipyard and a possible agreement on the third link can only please voters in the greater Quebec City region, where the bulk of Conservative support is concentrated. The main opponent of the Liberal Party in Quebec, however, remains the Bloc Québécois, which, according to Canada338, could wrest three ridings from it.
During the last federal election, Mr. Legault did not favor the Bloc as openly as in 2019, but we understood very well that he saw it as a preferable choice to the Liberal Party. In the House of Commons, the Bloc MPs are undeniably very useful to the CAQ government, whose positions they vigorously support.
The Bloc nonetheless remains the sister party of the Parti Québécois, which should have disappeared on October 3, but which is experiencing a resurgence and, one never knows, could finally become another option for voters disappointed with Coalition avenir Quebec.
Unless an unfortunate judgment on secularism comes to a premature end to their idyll, Justin does everything to put François in a better mood during the next election. The latter may well have discovered all the beauty of federalism, but all the same one should not ask for the impossible; a benevolent neutrality will suffice.