Justin Trudeau now wants Ottawa to take care of tenants’ rights, feeding the children and your teeth.
I have seen intrusions into Quebec’s areas of jurisdiction in more than 40 years of political engagement, but these are among the most brazen.
If The Press deplores it, that says it all.
Unacceptable
These latest interferences do not even obey any major political vision, which would not make them more acceptable.
They are petty partisan politics at their most cynical and petty.
Justin Trudeau is desperate for votes. In wonderful Canada, more and more people are hungry and afraid of losing their homes.
He wants to take advantage of it. This is the immoral politics of a brazen person.
He will bank on the fact that he has more money than the provinces, especially since he lives on credit, and will postpone the terrible bill as far as possible.
Only the next election matters to him.
He’s banking on the fact that a hungry, worried person doesn’t care who helps him.
He is banking on the fact that the majority of people understand nothing about constitutional issues, as if that makes them any less crucial.
As an old friend reminded me, as soon as Ottawa takes charge of an area, ultimate power passes into the hands of a Parliament where Quebecers will be increasingly in the minority.
When a people cedes the keys to their future to another, they are playing dice with their survival.
In these circumstances, who has the historical – yes, historical – responsibility to stand up and say: NO?
Quite simply, to the Prime Minister of Quebec, the first of ours, the only head of government of a French-speaking nation in North America.
It is his solemn duty. What is it used for otherwise?
The Prime Minister of Quebec instead preferred to comment on TikTok about his latest gastronomic discovery in a nice African restaurant in Montreal.
NO! NO! NO!
Let him eat because he has to, but let him behave with the seriousness that the circumstances require!!
Standing!
All of his predecessors as Prime Minister of Quebec – except the sad Charest-Couillard tandem – stood up to oppose Ottawa, to defend our jurisdictions.
They did it even when they thought that Quebec’s place was in Canada.
Duplessis, Lesage, Johnson senior, Lévesque after 1980, Bourassa, all. None have given up fighting.
They often lost, but they at least tried.
When Lucien Bouchard understood that there would be no revenge match after the 1995 defeat, he allowed the adoption of Law 99 to reaffirm the fundamental rights of Quebec.
François Legault has the solemn responsibility to urgently reunite his loved ones, examine all his options and react vigorously.
The time is no longer for empty little sentences, for little tantrums with no end in sight. The situation is serious.
It is his duty to History. He owes it to his people. He owes it to us.