When François Legault called Éric Duhaime a “Trump lookalike” in 2022, the latter really didn’t take it.
“Insult is the weapon of the weak, the comparison is completely ridiculous,” he railed.
Duhaime could use this maxim to describe the way in which his friend Pierre Poilievre treated the chief magistrates of Montreal and Quebec on Thursday: “Incompetent.”
You have to be weak to attack like that indeed. It’s about applying the Trump technique: designating – a bit like children in a schoolyard – a political opponent, and making him a “bad guy”, a “bad”.
Saying that the housing crisis is the sole responsibility of mayors is a convenient shortcut, a way to ignite your social networks, to galvanize your base. Not to propose a solution to a problem.
Actual problem
Because there is obviously a problem. Of course, everything is not going well in the world of housing starts, which have declined in Quebec and Montreal. (After record years in Quebec in 2021 and 2022 all the same. NB: “start of construction” excludes building conversions.)
Federalism – which can be a good formula – is at issue here, in its Canadian version. Often, it gives rise to disputes over jurisdiction: Quebec castigates Ottawa for invading its areas of jurisdiction: health, education, etc. The federal government dreams of Quebec renouncing its international relations, claiming that they exceed its jurisdiction.
But for other issues such as the environment, gun control AND housing, we are witnessing “quarrels over incompetence” (the expression is from the constitutionalist Patrick Taillon). There is always one level of government to criticize another for not acting, or for acting badly. “We sent the money to Quebec, which does nothing.” “We transferred sums to Montreal, which is not building anything.”
Poilievre starts one of these fruitless quarrels when he is not even in power. By ignoring many other causes: the constitution (it is Quebec which receives the housing sums); inflation; rising interest rates; the abandonment, by the federal government, for decades, of the housing sector.
Americanization
We will say that the Conservative leader succeeds in sparking a debate. But he pollutes it with his Trumpian simplism. In doing so, it Americanizes our political debates, exacerbates polarization, and promotes binary oppositions.
We would like to hear from Quebec Conservative MPs about this dispute. Gérard Deltell, for example, who still bitterly regrets his insult to Jean Charest in 2010 (“godfather of the liberal family”!). Does he like the Poilievre style? In any case, this is not the way we are used to solving social problems in our country.
Besides, what a transmutation of conservatism! Those who wore this label in Canada, in the past, tried to resist the Americanization of our Dominion. Conservatism pleaded, against the American revolutionaries, gradual evolution, continuity, moderation, attachment to British North America. Today, being a Poilievre conservative seems to mean importing here, even aping, some of the worst traits of the Republican movements. In particular the insult as a rhetorical technique.