Our ideal party | The Press

Ah, if voting were child’s play! If your ballot papers were like those toy books that allow you to interchange the heads, bodies and legs of different characters to compose the one you really like.

What piece would you keep from each of the five parties to form your ideal party?

The question is a bit whimsical, we grant you. But not that much.

In a context where the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) could obtain a supermajority of seats with a minority of votes, thanks to the division of the opposition vote, François Legault would benefit from adopting the best ideas of the other parties to advance the Quebec, as he mentioned this week.

It would show respect to the voters. It would be demonstrating haughtiness by placing oneself above partisanship.

In this campaign, The Press did not take a position in favor of a particular political party. We haven’t done this since the newspaper started to stand on its own in 2018. But our editorial team remains a privileged observer of the political scene. Last week, we organized meetings with the leaders of the five main parties, from which we drew five editorials¹.

By way of synthesis, we therefore present to you each of the pieces that we would keep from the five parties, as in a game that would allow us to build a tailor-made party. Our ideal party… in spare parts.

Give honour where honour is due. Let’s start with the CAQ, whose economic team we are drafting – the best equipped to deal with the recession that rumbles on the horizon – and the Minister of Health Christian Dubé, who has shown what wood he is warming up during the pandemic. , in particular with the Clic Santé vaccination platform and its dashboards to measure performance. Will he be the one who will manage to straighten out the health network after so many failures? We would like to see it in action…

From Québec solidaire (QS), we support the green plan, without hesitation. The fight against climate change is the greatest challenge on the planet. For 30 years, Quebec has reduced its CO emissions₂ by a miniscule 3%. It needs a push. And quick. QS is not trying to make us believe that we will get there by just swapping our gasoline cars for electric cars. His plan – verified by experts – relies on public transport to replace the solo car and on a bonus-malus (taxes for energy-intensive vehicles and subsidies for greener vehicles). This is the way to go.

For its part, the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) seems to us to be in the best position to defend the fundamental values ​​of inclusion and diversity that its leader Dominique Anglade fully embodies, by virtue of her Haitian origins. It’s when she talks about this issue that we really feel her vibrate, that we understand why she left the CAQ, why she has politics at heart. Immigration is an asset for Quebec, not a threat. The ideas presented by the PLQ to improve the settlement of newcomers in the regions would certainly promote their integration in Quebec.

Starting from the bottom of the barrel, the Parti Québécois (PQ) had nothing to lose, not even aspiring to form the official opposition. Results ? A genuine campaign of ideas, without blows below the belt and without purely electoral sweets, like all the checks and tax cuts promised by the other parties. Cheer ! Paul St-Pierre Plamondon deserves to enter the National Assembly. His presence would enrich the political debate, as we saw during the campaign which brought him to light. We would like to continue to hear him advocate for a major shift towards home care. This is the best way to take good care of our seniors, without collapsing under the costs caused by the aging of the population.

As for the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ), its mere presence in this election campaign has proven that a reform of our voting system is essential. With five parties in the running, the distortions of our electoral system will be more stark than ever. How to justify that parties like the PQ or the PCQ, to which the polls give approximately 15% of voting intentions, could obtain only one, two or three deputies… or even none? In a purely proportional system, they would have almost twenty. And the party in the lead would be forced to compromise, precisely by picking up the best ideas from the opposing parties.

Even if Mr. Legault closed the door to a reform of the voting system — a serious error, in our opinion — nothing prevents him from reaching out to the other parties. Transpartisan work is possible, as we have seen in the files of medical aid in dying and violence against women. And this collaboration brings out the best in the National Assembly.

1. Read the five editorials from our editorial tables: