To have influence on the Trudeau government, the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh, had to sign a support agreement until 2025. The leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, Éric Duhaime, does much better: to have influence. influence on the Legault government, it is enough for it to exist.
Posted April 3
The co-head of Quebec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, said this week that this proves a shift to the right that would currently occur in Quebec, which would also, it must be said, be all to his partisan advantage.
But this shift, if it exists, is mainly caused by the CAQ government’s fear of losing the seats of some of its three ministers and six deputies in Quebec.
Times are changing and the CAQ, which four years ago was the most right-wing party on the Quebec political scene, is being overtaken on this ground by the new Conservative Party. And, whatever they say, it seems to terrorize a lot of people at the CAQ.
The monthly survey of the firm Angus Reid, published Thursday, illustrates the phenomenon. The CAQ, which had the votes of 50% of the decided voters – therefore without distribution of the undecided – two years ago, has only 33% left. The Conservative Party of Quebec, which did not exist two years ago, would be at 19% of the decided, at the same level as the PLQ. Québec solidaire is stable at 16% and the PQ only points to 9%.
Two-thirds of voters who say they voted for the CAQ in 2018 would do so again. But 24% told pollsters they might vote Conservative. For a party like the CAQ, which has never seen its rating drop significantly since the start of its mandate, this is a wake-up call. And there are others.
When we ask if the current government is doing a good job, there are more satisfied than dissatisfied with the management of the pandemic, the economy, unemployment and the deficit. But for all the other functions of the state, there are more dissatisfied voters than satisfied voters. It includes education, health care and poverty. And on the issues of care for the elderly and affordable housing, dissatisfaction is up to 72%.
This poll shows that voters see many shortcomings in the management of the CAQ government. But that does not explain why the CAQ government sees the Conservative leader in his soup and seems to have decided to match him on the ground of right-wing populism.
It must be said that Mr. Duhaime has mastered the art of being the pebble in the CAQ’s shoe. When he asks for either a referendum or a moratorium (he did both…) on the tramway project in Quebec, he is targeting exactly the clientele who would be ready to abandon the CAQ. All targeted to the greater Quebec City region, where the Conservatives have the best chance of winning seats and where several radio stations are their faithful relays.
This also demonstrates a change in tactics on the part of Éric Duhaime, who, until now, had been largely content to surf on dissatisfaction with health measures, which suggested that his support would necessarily go down as and as these measures are phased out. It’s not happening.
The threat is therefore real for the CAQ, but what is surprising is the way in which it responds to it. While saying with satisfaction that it has nothing to fear because it occupies the centre, the CAQ, these days, is above all outbidding the Conservatives.
When he came to power, the Legault government had caused a surprise with a first budget that some had even described as social democratic. It was the best way to show that, contrary to what some might believe, the CAQ was not going to dismantle the state and that the “Quebec model” suited it rather well.
But when we listen to ministers attacking projects like the Quebec tramway today, the CAQ underlines in broad strokes how much the environment remains its blind spot and it contributes to this shift to the right.
Already the Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, stated without laughing, this week, that the third link was a project that would prevent urban sprawl – we still have to do it! –, we should not, moreover, kill the first structuring project of public transport that the city of Quebec has known.
Bidding with Éric Duhaime is a dangerous game. Because in politics, when voters have a choice between the original and the copy, they will often choose the first option.