“And, are you going to run for politics one day? »
This is a question, dear reader, that I am often asked as a public figure with a point of view on public issues. After all, I have several journalist colleagues who have made the leap into politics, from Bernard Drainville to Pierre Duchesne via Mathieu Lacombe and Martine Biron.
My answer is always the same: “Never.” »
I had offers, of course. I don’t even give them time to finish their sentence, it’s always “No” before they even get to the question mark.
I have few talents in life if we exclude a talent for no worse questions, chicken broth and column falls that defend themselves. I definitely don’t have a green thumb.
At the edge of my living room, there is a plant that looks at me sadly, it is at the end of its life. By my very great fault. I haven’t watered it since summer. At one point, I noticed it, between the living room and the kitchen, sprawled and yellowed: I had forgotten to water it since July.
She will die soon.
You see me coming, eh…
Being a deputy, with very rare exceptions, means agreeing to play the role of a green plant. The term is not nice, but it fits perfectly. It’s the light of the party that keeps you alive. And this occasional splash of water that is the announcement of a subsidy to renovate the arena in a village in your riding.
In short, MPs are like green plants: I end up no longer noticing them. Hey, this week, I learned the identity of two deputies. These are the caquistes Luc Provençal and Éric Girard. I’m not talking about Eric Girard the minister. I am talking about his namesake, member of Parliament for Lac-Saint-Jean.
Still, I had never heard of these two deputies, who are surely well known at the annual gala of the Knights of Columbus in Beauceville and Alma. This is not abnormal, it is what a ruling party expects from its deputies: anonymous joviality.
I correct myself: this expectation does not only exist in a ruling party. Even in the Liberal Party, Marwah Rizqy bothers her colleagues because she attracts too much light for the green and silent plants that make up the rest of the official opposition…
There are of course exceptions, MPs who manage to have an impact beyond the issues of their constituency1. But it is rare.
MPs Girard and Provençal, therefore. This week, they did something totally atypical for green plants: they fought back. They protested. They showed their teeth!
Regarding the absurd idea of the Minister of Finance (the other Eric Girard) to spend 5 to 7 million for the arrival of the Los Angeles Kings in Quebec, MM. Provençal and Girard expressed their dissatisfaction publicly.
I quote Mr. Provençal: “It’s against my values. »
I quote Mr. Girard: “It is against the values of the citizens of Lac-Saint-Jean and I am part of Lac-Saint-Jean as a citizen. »
Three other deputies, Marie-Hélène Tardif, Yannick Gagnon and Youri Chassin, also expressed their dissatisfaction, in milder terms.
I was happy to see MPs relaying popular discontent within their party and saying it publicly. Finally a little diversity in the CAQ flora.
It didn’t last!
Thursday, the Liberal Party set a trap for the CAQ. He presented a motion asking the government to withdraw the subsidy to attract the Kings to Quebec…
Well, ladies and gentlemen, all CAQ deputies present in the National Assembly voted against the resolution suggesting the government to torpedo this public assistance!
Even Luc Provençal and Éric Girard, these two deputies who invoked “values” to say how bad they thought of this subsidy!
What happened between their public outings against the subsidy and their vote against withdrawing the subsidy? I do not know. As I told you, I don’t have a green thumb, I don’t know what can happen in the soul and consciousness of a green plant.
Which brings me to Catherine Dorion.
I read the book by the former solidarity MP who caused so much discussion. At least 27 of my eminent colleagues from the French-Canadian commentariat commented on it, most often negatively and very often to say that the former MP for Taschereau was making a big show of herself and that this greatly denigrated “the “institution” of Parliament.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Former solidarity MP Catherine Dorion
Very well, it is debatable and I have read criticisms which were legitimate.
I would just like to say two things.
One, to speak like Mme Dorion, an artist: her role as deputy was bad casting. It was written in the sky that she would be unhappy in this role. Being an MP requires a conformism that does not suit her.
As Jonathan Livernois, author of the formidable biography of the deputy-poet Gérald Godin, told me, of which Mme Dorion claims: “I think that Mme Dorion likes THE politics, not there policy. Godin loved politics. »
Two, Mme Dorion certainly had his faults, but I still find that the pitiful submission of the modern MP to the party line in all circumstances is a democratic danger infinitely greater and more pernicious than the old MP’s cotton wool.
It’s funny that it doesn’t get as much attention.