François Legault will ask Quebecers to give him a full majority in the election on October 3 in order to continue to “defend their language and their values”.
According to him, the federal government might think twice before participating in the challenge of the Act respecting the secularism of the Quebec state (the “law 21”) or the Act respecting the official and common language of Quebec. , the French (the “law 96”) before the Supreme Court of Canada if the Coalition avenir Québec wins a decisive electoral victory. But above all, the team of Justin Trudeau would take seriously the idea of transferring additional powers in matters of immigration to the Quebec government.
To date, Ottawa flatly refuses to cede the family reunification program, from which more than a quarter of Quebec immigrants are selected. “Half of these immigrants who are chosen by the federal government do not speak French,” repeated Prime Minister François Legault in the wake of the adoption of Bill 96 on Tuesday afternoon. “We will work, in the next election campaign, to have a strong mandate to negotiate this with Ottawa,” he continued.
Barring an improbable twist, the members of the CAQ will politely ask him during their national convention, this weekend in Drummondville, “to reiterate his request to the federal government to transfer all immigration powers as quickly as possible to the Government of Quebec”, and this, “in order to preserve the vitality of French and the demographic weight of Francophones”.
That said, it will not be the central issue of the election campaign, nuance a member of the close guard of the chief caquiste.
With nearly four months to go before the next Quebec election, the CAQ is credited with 46% of voting intentions, compared to 18% for the Liberal Party of Quebec, 14% for the Conservative Party of Quebec, 13% for Quebec solidaire and 8% for the Parti Québécois, according to the latest Léger–The newspaper–TVA–QUB (May 27, 2022). If the trend continues, the “nationalist” political formation founded more than 10 years ago by François Legault could elect more than 100 deputies to the National Assembly.
Would such support be enough to establish a new balance of power between Quebec and Ottawa? Not so fast, we answer at the office of the Federal Prime Minister. Justin Trudeau is aware of the popularity of François Legault, but three years and four months before the next Canadian election, this does not prevent him from contradicting him from time to time, we mention.
The head of the federal government is no less a Quebecer than François Legault or the so-called “majority of Quebecers” supporting “Bill 21” and “Bill 96” in their current form because his work brings him to live in Rideau Cottage, argues one of his advisers. That said, Justin Trudeau will not call for a vote for one party or another during the Quebec election campaign: paternalism is not his forte, he specifies.
Justin Trudeau has more easily displayed his disagreements with the CAQ government since he comfortably settled into the prime minister’s chair thanks to an agreement with the New Democratic Party ensuring him power until 2025, we note in Quebec.
Does Legault have an ally in Ottawa?
Moreover, the announcement of the Attorney General of Canada, David Lametti, to intervene before the Supreme Court to the disadvantage of the Act respecting the secularism of the Quebec state, made Wednesday morning in the southwest of Montreal, was no coincidence. The adoption of the Act respecting the official and common language of Quebec, French, which had taken place the day before, offered the Trudeau government the opportunity to “reassure the minorities” who no longer know which way to turn in the Quebec of “Law 21” and “Law 96”. He grabbed it.
With his formulas “There is a majority of Quebecers who agree”, ” [C’est] the will of a majority of Quebecers” and “Have a little respect for the majority of Quebecers”, François Legault did not manage to convince the Liberal Party of Canada to back down.
Nor has he persuaded aspiring leaders of the Conservative Party of Canada to stay out of the challenge to the State Secularism Act in the land’s highest court, like ex-leader Erin O ‘Toole promised it during the last election campaign. Pierre Poilievre, Jean Charest and Patrick Brown instead lined up behind David Lametti.
Former Quebec Premier Jean Charest even took advantage of Wednesday night’s Conservative leadership candidates’ debate to specify that, under his leadership, the federal government will intervene in the same way before the Supreme Court if “Bill 96” is meet there one day or another. He had nevertheless assured the press, during a previous stop at the Château Royal, in Laval, two months earlier, that “no, no, there is no question for us of [la] contest”.
No federal political party—except the Bloc Québécois—is now prepared to let Supreme Court judges sift through “Bill 21” and “Bill 96” without saying anything. In the eyes of François Legault, “it doesn’t make sense” since the two laws have the support of a majority of the Quebec population.
On the other hand, the two pieces of legislation have bad press outside Quebec. A Canadian YouTuber accustomed to the Opinion pages of the washington post went so far this week as to describe François Legault as “a xenophobic crackpot more extreme than anything [politicien] in the USA “.
The independence project
PQ MP Véronique Hivon criticized the CAQ government’s “provincialist approach” in the Salon Bleu on Friday, before heading to the Parti Québécois National Council in Boucherville, clinging to the hope that “there is still from 33% to 35% minimum of people who call themselves separatists”.
The PQ leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, will present a new edition of “Finances of a sovereign Quebec”, some fifteen years after the one produced by the former PQ minister François Legault.
After having blown out his 65 candles, François Legault said he “hoped” that “the federal parties will understand that it is up to Quebecers to decide what happens in Quebec”. After nearly four years at the helm of the Quebec state, he “does not think that the solution is to hold a referendum on sovereignty”.