To say that the race for the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party is off to a bad start would be an understatement. In fact, the PLQ has almost got it all wrong since election night, when it seemed to be delighted with the result when it was the last to realize that it was no more than a shadow of the party that was formerly that of Jean Lesage and Robert Bourassa.
Since October 3, we have been faced with a series of bad decisions, one leading to the next, which means that a decisive leadership race for the future of the PLQ looks very bad.
First, after obtaining the worst result in the history of his party, it was obvious that Dominique Anglade had to leave, but not necessarily in the days following the elections.
Knowing that there was no deputy in the caucus who had the profile of an interim leader – an “elder statesman” à la Jean-Marc Fournier or Pierre Arcand, who knows the party well, but who does not has no leadership ambition – it would have been possible to ask Mme Anglade to remain in office until the election of his successor. This is what other political parties have done successfully in similar circumstances.
But this resulted in another inexplicable and disastrous decision: to allow the interim leader to run for permanent leadership.
Even if the interim leader is expected to leave at some point before the start of the actual leadership race, it is obvious that all his decisions will be judged not on their value, but as a way to increase, or not , his chances of winning the permanent position.
It can cast doubt on the integrity of the leadership race itself or, at a minimum, convince worthy candidates that it is not worth taking a chance on under the circumstances.
It is particularly unfair for the person who has been appointed interim leader, Marc Tanguay, since he finds himself from the first moment managing a crisis for which he is not responsible, but which, if it does not have a satisfactory outcome for everyone else, becomes a failure in his first leadership test.
In fact, Mr. Tanguay found himself in a weak position that could be exploited by intriguers. The dispute between the deputies Marie-Claude Nichols and Frantz Benjamin for the position of third vice-president of the National Assembly would never have deserved so much attention at any other time.
Here is a position that is a real sinecure, which comes especially with an additional allowance of $35,546. It is necessary to preside over the Assembly, especially at the end of the day – when it is essentially a question of allocating speaking time – but this makes it possible to avoid the tedious work of the parliamentary committees. And that comes with a guaranteed invitation to formal receptions.
What’s most disturbing about this little feud is the message it sends. The very first debate of this mandate in the PLQ concerns a rather ceremonial function, and especially for the indemnity that comes with it.
Voters have a right to wonder if that is all that matters to these MPs. What happened to the notion of “serving instead of being served”? After that, one will wonder why so many voters have become cynical.
Not to mention the damage this does to the image of their party, not to mention that of their interim leader, Mr. Tanguay, who finds himself in the difficult position of not having been able to resolve the first “crisis” of his tenure as leader, although it is obvious that this is more a matter of vanity than a matter of substance.
But all this quarrel hides the worst decision of this beginning of the leadership race, which is to save a real debate of ideas on the place that the PLQ should occupy on the Quebec political scene.
The party has just experienced the worst defeat in its history. It found itself third in the votes cast and owes its official opposition status only to its English-speaking electorate concentrated in the ridings on the west of the island of Montreal.
But for the PLQ, no “season of ideas”, no policy conference, not even a symposium. Already, the interim leader has decreed that the PLQ defends values “which are eternal”.
The book that sums up all these eternal values has already been written. This is the brochure on liberal values that former leader Claude Ryan wrote at the request of Jean Charest shortly after becoming leader of the PLQ in 1998.
That was a quarter of a century ago. Since then, the PLQ has slowly but surely lost its bearings and, above all, a large part of its electorate. Even if it claims that its values are eternal, the PLQ cannot ignore that it still has a long way to go to restore bridges with the French-speaking majority. A simple change of leader would not be enough.