If the trend of recent months continues, the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) would swallow up the Parti Québécois (PQ) and could win nearly 100 seats out of 125 in the National Assembly. In 2018, with only 37.4% of support, she had obtained 76.
Posted at 1:00 p.m.
Nearly 100 seats for the CAQ! Maybe… but do we really need it? Of a government whose results are so insignificant apart from some candy on the identity level?
Why would the CAQ deserve a hundred seats in the Quebec Parliament, tell me? Is it permissible to think that it does not even deserve to be in the majority?
The Legault government was busy managing the pandemic, it is said. Who would have done better? Let’s be honest. Remember that Quebec is the Canadian province where there have been the most deaths from COVID-19 per 100,000 inhabitants. Hard to imagine worse.
Instead of appealing to a concert of experts more sensitive to the human and economic consequences of confinements and business closures, François Legault not only encouraged fear, denunciation and exclusion, he acted as an extinguisher of the necessary against -powers in a democracy and a parliament that respect each other.
Is the popular success of François Legault the combination, within it, of themes relating to nationalism and the economy? A geriatric nationalism and a subsidized economy would be fairer. And if the economy is essentially based on the public sector, then yes! What a performance! Swelled the ranks of the public service and private the “private” of a labor force already becoming scarce. That, it is successful, my faith!
In my opinion, however, its popular success rests on the fact that François Legault is a “media-junkie”. With the complicity of his networks of influence, he benefited from a virtual monopoly in terms of media visibility in a context where fear ruled our world.
Emerging from the multiple waves of the pandemic, the autocratic style1 of François Legault and the cult of the leader’s personality are retrograde modes of governance. The unanimity observed in recent years is unhealthy. The sacralization of such centralized governance, encrusted monopolies and stagnant bureaucracy is over. In health, for example, the succession of revised and corrected organizational charts have not improved anything. The injection of new billions for several years either.
So here we are. The demographic shock is hitting hard. The labor shortage is stifling the momentum of our businesses. The maintenance deficit for our infrastructures has doubled in seven years, going from 15 to 30 billion2. Our health and education systems are being neglected as are our lakes, rivers and forests.
What do the parties offer us? The CAQ wants to be the architect of Quebec’s economy and its leader dreams of new electric dams, the PQ promises a referendum in a first mandate, the Liberal Party of Quebec tries to sell its relevance, Quebec solidaire imposes neither more nor less ecotopia, and the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ) attacks divisive governance and proposes alternative ways to guarantee and deliver public services to citizens.
And then, can we come back to earth and stop fooling the electorate? No. Quebec will not save the planet. Sustainable degrowth is utopian and far from being a humanist project.
The battle surrounding the reduction of greenhouse gases, as presented, is unrealistic. And no, there is nothing “daring” in the brutality of the supposed energy transition plans which will introduce a large number of punitive and restrictive policies for the most vulnerable citizens.
Can we remember that Quebec is only responsible for about 0.18% of global emissions? In 2019, it was estimated that it only took 11 days for China to cancel all of Quebec’s 30-year GHG reduction targets3. It’s definitely worse today.
And then, if we want to manage with polls, let’s go cheerfully. The adhesion of Quebecers to the ideas of the PCQ is stronger than one might think. On the addition of private health, on the exploitation of our natural resources, and on the lowering of the tax burden. As for the tramway and the Québec-Lévis tunnel as proposed by the government, a majority of the region’s citizens consider these projects to be too risky and a shameless waste.
It is rare that Quebecers do not grant a second term to a government. That is.
But why would Quebecers continue to be victims of waiting and the closure of essential services by a State lacking in imagination?
Why wouldn’t they afford what already exists in other social democratic societies? The PCQ’s offer offers them exactly that: a guarantee of getting their money’s worth and of being able to at least hope that if there is a CAQ government, the PCQ will be there to hound it, refocus on its essential missions, encourage private health management, and developing Quebec’s natural resources. That would already be it.