Dominique Anglade’s problem may be due to his way of doing politics, but it also comes from further than his reign. This descent into hell of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) was initiated by Jean Charest, carried out by Philippe Couillard and completed by Dominique.
Posted yesterday at 11:00 a.m.
To tell my story, I will leave aside the indelible flavors of the Charest era on the PLQ and start from the convincing victory of Couillard over the troops of M.me Marois in 2014. The Parti Québécois campaign was going well until a powerful fighter who we did not see arriving arrived in the arena and raised his fist who wanted to make a country. This event pushed voters who did not want to hear about a referendum into the arms of Dr. Couillard. He easily won the victory, to the delight of Dominique Anglade who had left the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) for the PLQ. In question, a discomfort with certain identity positions of Legault.
It was at the time when the mere mention of the word “referendum” was enough to give power to the PLQ.
After these elections, another narrative about the factors that contributed to the victory began to circulate. Many Liberals let themselves be convinced that it was Couillard’s fight against Bernard Drainville’s charter that was rewarded by the voters. However, any attentive observer of politics knows that it was the fist of Pierre Karl Péladeau that derailed the campaign of the Parti Québécois (PQ), because before this coup, 59% of Francophones were in favor of the charter .
Certain of having won by fighting the “dark side” of the PQ force, Couillard decided to play the card of openness and of being a priest defender of Canadian multiculturalism to the fullest during his mandate. He worked above all to squeeze Legault into the camp of those fueled by the embers of intolerance. A strategy that even led the kind and respectable Carlos Leitão to dare to compare the CAQ’s project to the identity nationalisms of the extreme right found in Europe. Objective ? Send Legault into the club of infréquentables where the PQ was already flagellating itself after its aborted project for a charter of Quebec values. However, by always looking on the same side when it came time to talk about intolerance and a lack of openness, Couillard ended up wearing down the bond of trust with the French-speaking vote.
Feeling personally targeted by his insinuations, many French-speaking Quebecers began to find themselves ugly in his eyes, because no one likes to be looked down upon.
Many came to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that the only way to be seen as acceptable in his multicultural vision was to give up who they are to allow others to exist without any compromise. A feeling reinforced by the fact that the doctor did not take the time to remind you that mutual integration is a process that requires a two-way flow of interest and effort to meet. In short, that the other who arrives also had his share of work in the encounter!
In my opinion, this is where the breaking point between the PLQ and the French-speaking vote should be located, a little more than in the unpopular austerity policies. The first salvoes of this divorce were sent to Couillard’s troops in the October 2017 by-election in Louis-Hébert with the landslide victory of Geneviève Guilbault. A powerful message that the liberal strategists had deciphered well. The proof, after this defeat, Couillard hastily abandoned the project of a commission on systemic racism in which he had firmly committed himself. A volte-face which will be decried by the social partners who cried out for electoral betrayal. But the damage was already done and the rest of this crisis of confidence was written in Legault’s landslide victory in 2018 which left the PLQ very bruised.
Its rejection by Francophones was so frank that Dominique Anglade, who would become its new leader, decided to inject a dose of nationalism and interculturalism into its political discourse. It was the only way to rebuild the bridges. A settling towards the identity file which will not be well seen by the anglophone and allophone electoral base of the PLQ. In the west of the island of Montreal, the Soviet vote for the PLQ comes, without compromise, with the multiculturalist option whose defense must remain sacred and immutable. So, seeing Dominique speak of identity, language and anglicization, part of this electorate won over to the liberals fell away. When Dominique ends up realizing that she will never be able to compete with Legault on the identity file and that, despite all her attempts at seduction, the rejection of the PLQ remains unprecedented among Francophones, she decides somewhat belatedly to return to the DNA of the PLQ that are the economy and the sanctity of Canadian multiculturalism. Unfortunately for the chef, with a certain anglophone and allophone vote, the damage was already done.
Dominique therefore went on an electoral campaign stuck on all sides. The field of the economy was now occupied by a solid team from the CAQ.
That of defending the rights of the anglophone and allophone minority was disputed by Duhaime and Nadeau-Dubois. She tried to take ownership of the environmental file, but Québec solidaire and the PQ had already got their hands on it. For the defense of the francophone identity, it is difficult to go further than what the CAQ and the PQ were doing. In short, as in a game of electoral musical chairs, the PLQ did not find a place to lay its buttocks in the last election. Unless there is a dramatic reversal, this unfortunate position is here to stay.
So, if I were this brilliant girl that is Dominique Anglade, I would leave now, because there is more merit in leaving the ship than in letting yourself be thrown overboard.
A bit like it happens Double occupation, Dominique’s elimination supper is already underway, hidden from her gaze and that of her allies. In other words, believing that the elimination of Marie-Claude Nichols was going to pass as a letter in the post, she risks finding her photo in the envelope of the deliberation. “You have to know, at all costs, to keep all your dignity and despite what it costs us, to leave without looking back. So said Charles Aznavour.