The successive announcement of Caroline St-Hilaire and Bernard Drainville as CAQ candidates in the next election caused a stir, to say the least. Accusations of treachery and opportunism immediately arose, as if this transition to the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) was inexplicable and rationally unjustifiable. However, a considerable part, if not the majority, of former PQ voters made the same choice, and there is an explanation behind this dynamic that many refuse to hear.
More than 25 years after the last referendum, Quebec politics is now organized around a new dominant divide, an “identity schism” that is today more polarizing than the constitutional question. Since 2007, our most emotional debates have concerned secularism, immigration and language more than Quebec’s place in Canada. The separatists obviously have the right to be saddened by this, but they would be wrong to snub this real appetite of Quebecers for the affirmation of our identity, the protection of which remains the historical motivation for making Quebec a country.
However, the fact is that before 2018, the Liberals managed to stay in power by waving the referendum scarecrow and then actively harming the defense of Quebec’s identity, both by their dogmatic increase in immigration thresholds and by their inaction on language and secularism. Under Philippe Couillard, then under Dominique Anglade, the Liberals radicalized considerably, swapping the minimalist nationalism of the Bourassa era for a conquering multiculturalism allergic to any intervention by the Quebec state in terms of identity.
To break the impasse, many sovereignists have therefore agreed to ally themselves with nationalists of good will, who believe in the need to protect Quebec’s identity without being in favor of independence. On identity issues, there is certainly greater ideological proximity between ex-PQ members and ex-Liberal nationalists than between PQ sovereignists and those in solidarity. Need we remind you that Québec solidaire (QS) wants nothing to do with a lowering of immigration thresholds or any ban on the wearing of religious symbols and that its activists are furious that the party supported Bill 96?
Thus, the “CAQ bet” has the merit of having pushed the Liberals out of power, while giving birth to a law on secularism, a strengthening of Law 101 and a lowering of immigration thresholds, which Quebec nationalists have been calling for for years. We can very well believe that this does not go far enough, but the fact remains that these three measures are among the most important gains of the national movement since 1995.
Whatever may be said, the election of the CAQ allowed Quebec to get out of the identity dead end in which it had been vegetating for too long by putting the question of the future of the Quebec nation at the heart of the political game. Moreover, the substantial support of the population for the government puts on the defensive those parties which thought they could govern by ignoring (or despising) the need for affirmation of Quebecers. Thus, whether or not we agree with their choice, we will understand former elected sovereignists to try the CAQ bet, as a continuation of their commitment to Quebec in a new political context.