While he had promised more discipline in his decisions and those of his government, the stubborn fly of improvisation seems to have bitten François Legault again. It’s like losing your Latin.
• Read also: Political donations: the CAQ renounces popular financing
In reaction to the controversy surrounding CAQ deputies “inviting” mayors to fundraising cocktails by promising them to meet a minister, the Prime Minister refused a wise and effective solution.
Or that of PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon: no longer invite ministers to CAQ fundraising cocktails. And the case would be closed.
Well no. Thursday morning, Mr. Legault decreed that the CAQ, until further notice, would instead renounce all private funding from citizens. What we call popular financing.
To try to trap the opposition parties, he even ordered them to also “get by” with only state funding while the CAQ already receives the lion’s share.
With the opposition parties refusing a trap as big as a dinosaur from the Jurassic Park, Jarnac’s coup ended in a slap in the face.
The announcement, above all, is thoughtless. The diversionary tactic is actually as transparent as a sheet of Saran Wrap. It looks like the Prime Minister did not receive the compass he asked for from Santa Claus.
A major consensus is broken
Since the poorly planned abandonment of the third link last spring, the government has indeed made risky decisions. The list is widely known. The latter is the same water.
This is all the more incongruous since the very day before the Prime Minister’s announcement, Brigitte Legault, the very experienced general director of the CAQ, said she was rightly proud of the existing balance between public and popular funding of the parties. policies.
On the show Midi Info,Mme Legault said this: “I think we are extremely privileged in Quebec to have this kind of system, which is extremely well balanced.” So.
This statement is crucial because it is factual. In doing so, she shines the spotlight on what is really problematic in the Prime Minister’s announcement.
Either by withdrawing the CAQ from popular funding, the Prime Minister is breaking the consensus firmly established on the subject in Quebec in the wake of the Charbonneau commission.
This consensus being that political financing must not only be rigorously regulated and limited by law, but that it must be based on the same balance that Brigitte Legault speaks of between popular and public financing.
On a subject as vital to democratic health as the source of the money that parties need to function, this consensus was not insignificant.
Political error
This is why breaking it for the pleasure of trying to crash the opposition parties and bury a controversy is a significant political error. The price to pay for this passing strategy is far too high.
Meanwhile, fundamentally, public services, including the health network, continue to deteriorate in Quebec. And what about the housing crisis, the proportions of which are more alarming than ever?
If the CAQ wants to win back its support returned to the PQ, diversion from its difficulties by breaking a major consensus on one of the main cogs of democratic life in Quebec, seriously misses the boat.
Falling polls or not, the recovery of public services and the housing crisis should instead deserve the full attention of the government. Acute strategy, much less.
The best recipe, however, is not rocket science: governing for the common good. Point. This great classic succeeds every time.