Do you want to understand the nature of the PLQ’s current difficulties?
Yes, I know, the last Léger poll gave 14% of voting intentions to the PLQ.
Yes, I know, only Denis Coderre and a man named Frédéric Beauchemin say they are interested in directing it.
But these facts are consequences and not causes of his setbacks.
Regrets?
To understand the extent of the problem, you have to read the fascinating interview given to The Press by Philippe Couillard, last liberal prime minister, ousted from power in 2018 after obtaining the worst score in the history of the PLQ (24.8%).
After such a scathing defeat, perhaps a start of self-criticism? Swallow a good spoonful of modesty? Pantoute.
All the problems of the PLQ are in the answers given in this interview.
His indifference to the national question?
“I have always defended the interests of Quebec and led the fights with the federal government when it was necessary to do so.”
- Listen to Joseph Facal’s column via QUB :
What fights?
His indifference to the decline of French?
“There is a problem with the way we measure the famous decline of French. It’s a bit like choosing the indicator that ensures we show a decline.”
False, archfalse.
ALL indicators, ALL (mother tongue, language spoken at home, therefore transmitted to children, working language, knowledge of the language, college and university registrations, etc.), ALL, without exception, show a decline French and progress in English in Quebec and, obviously, in Canada.
“This is not a reason to erect walls and reduce welcome,” says Philippe Couillard.
He approves of the half a million people that Ottawa wants to bring in EVERY year, a policy deemed disastrous by the economists of all Canadian banks for its impacts on housing, public finances, schools, hospitals?
“There is the dream of cultural homogeneity in all nationalist movements; it is the nostalgia of the bygone era which will not return and we pretend that it could return, as if Quebecers were all descendants of the settlers of New France.”
And Maka Kotto, a sovereignist? And me, a sovereignist too?
“The historic prime minister that I admire the most is Adélard Godbout,” he says.
More than Jean Lesage? More than René Lévesque? More revealing than that, impossible.
Misunderstood
Does he regret “not having sufficiently detached himself from the Charest years, weighed down by the Charbonneau commission on corruption and collusion? The time when Liberal ministers had to collect $100,000 in donations?
“These are practices that were widespread in all parties.”
Fake. The PQ was not perfect, but its ministers were not required to raise a minimum of $100,000.
In short, he was right about everything and played misunderstood.
The result is the field of ruins that is the PLQ today.