Prime Minister François Legault is angry. For several weeks, we have felt that his authority is being challenged, departures have taken place, others seem to be in preparation and the projects that are closest to his heart are in difficulty. Three reasons for the same anger and their consequences.
Pierre Fitzgibbon’s departure was widely expected, but it didn’t go smoothly. The lame excuse that rumors about his departure date would “be a distraction” while he wanted to defend his energy bill never held water.
It took an article on the Radio-Canada website, by my colleague Émilie Dubreuil1only to learn at the very end of the text that there was another, much more serious reason.
“There were issues that bothered me in the direction the party was taking, discomforts that I expressed to the Council of Ministers, and I believe that is why François Legault and his entourage decided that I had to leave,” said the resigning minister.
We will note the resemblance with the reasons given by MP Youri Chassin.
The party’s orientations cause discomfort among some who no longer fully recognize the CAQ that they joined.
Like any prime minister, François Legault wants to maintain the unity of his caucus and his party. Some have more tolerance or patience than others, but everyone has a limit. Everything indicates that Messrs. Fitzgibbon and Chassin had reached the limits of their prime minister.
But when departures begin in the second half of a government’s second term, it often reveals team fatigue and a weakening of the Prime Minister’s leadership.
The second element of this anger is old to the point of having become a deep resentment. François Legault has never had any common ground with Justin Trudeau. Which is why their fundamental disagreements on immigration, among other things, have ended up poisoning their relationship.
To the point where, this week, Mr. Legault asked the Parti Québécois to “have the courage” to ask the Bloc Québécois to support a motion of censure by the Conservatives that would plunge the country into a general election.
The reason for this vote would be the Trudeau government’s refusal to admit that Quebec is doing more than its share in welcoming refugees and that it should obtain a more equitable redistribution of asylum seekers between the provinces.
But politically, one cannot ignore the cause and effect relationship. Everyone understands that with a 20-point lead in the polls for the Conservatives, this vote of no confidence would almost inevitably lead to a victory for Pierre Poilievre.
In Quebec, all the polls indicate that the Conservatives are struggling to get more than 20% of the vote. And the idea of Mr. Poilievre becoming Prime Minister is far from arousing enthusiasm.
Yet that is what Mr. Legault said he wanted this week. Believing he would score political points against his opponents in the Bloc and the Parti Québécois, he actually wanted federal elections and therefore the victory of a Poilievre government.
Yet Mr. Legault should know that he is venturing onto slippery ground. He tried it in 2021 by asking Quebecers to vote for Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives. At the end of the election, they only obtained the ten seats they already held in the Quebec City region and the Trudeau government was still re-elected, albeit in a minority.
It is difficult to explain how the Prime Minister could have thought that his request would have such different results today.
The third element is the precarious situation of the Northvolt project. What was supposed to be the largest private investment in the history of Quebec is very likely to turn into a nightmare for a government that has invested a lot in it, both financially and politically.
But all the news we’ve heard in the last few weeks has been bad in this case. Northvolt’s lenders have even just called on a New York investment bank to evaluate their options.
The company has huge cash flow problems and its employees’ expenses are being cut to the bone. A factory project has been abandoned in Sweden. Even if the project in Quebec remains a possibility, when we see that the company is abandoning projects in its own country, and that the Swedish government does not plan to help it financially, we can legitimately wonder if Quebec is still in the running.
After putting so many eggs in Northvolt’s basket, it is certain that abandoning the project or even a long delay could cause a lot of anger. Towards the CAQ government.
1. Read the article by Émilie Dubreuil on the Radio-Canada website
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