(Ottawa) Canada is heading straight towards a “tragedy”: the decline of the Liberal Party could well lead to a “Quexit” within three to five years, warns Gerald Butts, former eminence grise of Justin Trudeau in Ottawa.
The former political strategist sounds the alarm in an opinion letter published Friday on the magazine’s website The Walrus.
“All the elements of a tragedy are in place,” writes Gerald Butts in this English text.
“The resurgence of sovereignist sentiment could be fueled by the discourse that “Canada is broken”. The populist forces that led to Brexit […] abound in the country and allow our strategic adversaries to take advantage of them,” argues the former principal secretary to the Prime Minister.
In his analysis entitled Quebec’s secession crisis is coming, and Canada is not readyhe identifies a trio of factors that would contribute to the breakdown of the country: the negativity of political discourse, foreign interference and climate issues.
Unsurprisingly, Gerald Butts attributes responsibility for the vitriolic messages circulating across the country to Pierre Poilievre. He also draws a parallel between the Conservative argument that “Canada is broken” to the Brexit camp’s slogan, “Britain broken” (Broken Britain).
Foreign state actors could also be tempted to sow discord, he believes. Without going so far as to say that Russia would deploy an arsenal to interfere in the debate, he argues that times have changed since the last referendum campaign, in 1995.
“This does not mean that Quebecers would be duped and convinced to vote “yes” by obscure foreign forces,” because the Kremlin’s tactics are “significantly more sophisticated than that,” but “malicious foreign actors” are masters in the art of misinforming to polarize, he argues.
Finally, the former tactician judges that in this era of climate change, the gap between a Quebec powered by hydroelectric energy and provinces producing fossil fuels becomes even more compelling for the independence camp.
“It is easy to imagine the “yes” camp campaigning with a modern version of the famous “master [sic] at home” in Quebec,” says Gerald Butts. In light of the reactions gleaned from “several federalist friends in Quebec”, this would be a “persuasive argument”.
The referendum which could occur “within three to five years”, he fears, would be so different from the popular consultations of 1980 and 1995 that we would have to start thinking of it as a “Quexit” rather than as “ another Canadian identity crisis.”
Because “as is the case with many things these days, the past is probably no guarantee of the future,” prophesies Gerald Butts, who met Justin Trudeau during his university studies at McGill University.
The Bloc, official opposition?
If an election were held today, Pierre Poilievre and his troops would win an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons. In fact, if the polls materialize, the conservatives would obtain a “historic” majority, writes specialist Philippe J. Fournier in The Walrus.
However, the Conservatives are unable to win in Quebec, where the Bloc Québécois is leading the polls, ahead of the Liberals. So much so that it is “increasingly plausible” that the Bloc’s harvest of seats exceeds 45 for the first time since 2008, projects the polling specialist.
If necessary, the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party would compete for official opposition status in Ottawa. The independence party achieved the feat in 1993, winning 54 of the 75 Quebec seats, thus paving the way for the holding of the 1995 referendum.