Changing the image of a product, a team or a political party is always a risky bet. Ask those who have thought of the “new Coke” or who have changed the “branding” of the Montreal soccer team. We will not know until later if Dominique Anglade’s bet will be a winner, but we can already say that it is risky.
In fact, the turn to the left and to the ecology proposed by Mme Anglade looks a lot like the one carried out by the Liberal Party of Canada under Justin Trudeau, when it left the hyper-center of the political spectrum to move more to the left, but above all more to the green.
In Quebec, when Justin Trudeau was chosen Liberal leader, the PLC was at its lowest with just seven MPs, the worst result in its history. After the orange wave, there was not much left of the big red machine that won almost all the seats of Pierre Trudeau’s time.
In the 2015 election, helped by an electorate who had seen enough Stephen Harper and his Conservative government, the Liberals won 40 seats in Quebec with 35% of the vote. Four years later, he obtained 34% and 35 deputies. And, last September, the Liberals kept their 35 seats with 33.6% of the vote.
As we can see, it is therefore a relatively stable vote around 35% of the vote, which, in a four-party fight – as in the Quebec elections, moreover – may be enough to be the first political party in the world. Quebec.
Better yet, the federal Liberals won and kept seats elsewhere than in the greater Montreal area. In Quebec, Estrie, Gaspésie, Mauricie and Outaouais. If, in the next elections, Dominique Anglade succeeded in doing as well, we would undoubtedly speak of a miracle.
But it still shows that there is a market for a governing party that is more to the left and greener. Except that during all the Charest years, it was enough to be a federalist and accuse the Parti Quebecois of wanting to hold a new referendum to be assured of an easy re-election. The PLQ at the time ceased to be a party of ideas. He was much more of a fundraising machine with the little odor of corruption that often sets in under such circumstances.
Even more serious obstacle: M’s opponentme Anglade is François Legault’s CAQ, which still enjoys great popularity and which seems to be heading towards easy re-election. But few people in the PLQ believe that it is possible to win the elections which will take place in 10 months. The real goal – even if we say the opposite – is to achieve an honorable result that would put them in a good position for the next time.
So where would the market be for the new and greener PLQ? In fact, we would have to eat away at support in the center and on the left. In the center, that means to the CAQ because there is still dissatisfaction among the electorate. Not everyone in Quebec thinks that $ 10 billion for a tunnel between Lévis and Quebec is a good idea. And, even less, an ecological idea.
Likewise, there is dissatisfaction with the small authoritarian side that sometimes characterizes the Caquista government, whether it is the maintenance of the state of emergency or a certain intransigence in relations with State employees.
There are also gains to be made on the left. There are voters who voted for Québec solidaire but who do not think that this party is credible and can form the government. For those, a more left and greener PLQ might be an attractive alternative.
But these gains are marginal. And we may well want to find some similarities with federal policy, Quebec policy rarely copies examples from outside the Outaouais.
Especially since the green platform of Mme Anglade still looks like a sketch. The nationalization of hydrogen does not have the same resonance, nor the nationalist side of that of electricity. And hydrogen will only ever be a niche market which may pay off, but which will remain limited.
Mainly, Mme Anglade has not managed to say what means it would take to improve Quebec’s balance sheet on greenhouse gases, except to recall old classics such as better insulating buildings or setting a limit for the sale of gasoline vehicles, a an issue on which markets are more advanced than policies.
Still, there is a market for his ideas. And very few people believed that it would work for Justin Trudeau and we saw the result, even when François Legault said to vote blue.