Do you know Party 51?
Don’t worry if it doesn’t.
He garnered only 689 votes in the last election, in a heated battle with the Marxist-Leninist Party of Quebec.
Parti 51, therefore, is a political party – picturesque as one might wish – which proposes this rather comical idea that Quebec leaves Canada… not for independence, but to join the United States.
Let’s not deprive them of the merit of originality.
Parti 51, for the 51st American state, Quebec. The American dream !
According to the latest news, we are still far from it.
If we took their fantasy for reality, Quebec as the 51st American state, we would probably be one of the most democratic American states.
Political fiction of course, but the poll published yesterday in The newspaper proves it well.
He tells us that Quebec is the Canadian province where Joe Biden would be the most popular, and where Trump would be less so. Eighty percent of Quebecers prefer Joe Biden to Donald Trump, who only garners 12% of support.
Elsewhere in Canada, the picture is more nuanced: Biden is certainly more popular, but there are pockets more conducive to Trumpism, especially in the West and among the Conservatives.
Example, in the Prairies, Trump would collect 28% of the votes. In Alberta, 27%.
Among the conservatives, Trump would obtain 41% support, against 48% for Biden.
This reveals quite well the difference between Canadian and Quebec conservatism.
Western Canadian conservatism
In Canada, the anger of the West, federated by the conservatives and historically by the social creditists and the reformists, can easily transpose itself to American anger.
Communicating vessels exist, both political and media.
These angers, they are first populist and cultural.
The cleavage of elite versus people is a powerful fuel in Canada. We of the West, producing oil and making the country richer, abandoned by the progressive “Laurentian elite” – of Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. It is the deep feeling that is expressed there.
It is not for nothing that they criticize “liberal media” like the CBC, organize “freedom convoys” and are wary of institutions like the Bank of Canada.
Cultural conservatism is more tied to religious and moral values. A “culture war” is being waged there, which is very similar to that waged by the Americans.
No Quebec roots
These two conservatisms, shared by some English Canadians and Americans, are totally misunderstood in Quebec.
It is foreign to our political culture – which often does not digest the violence and excess that result from it.
Quebec conservatism is elsewhere, more focused on protecting our identity, our culture.
This is why in 2015, Stephen Harper was mistaken when he said, to woo Quebec on June 24, that “conservative values are Quebec values”.
It also explains why Trump is so unpopular in Quebec.
And is more popular with Conservatives in the Prairies and Alberta. It certainly strikes a chord.
The parallels between Pierre Poilievre and Trump are certainly unfair. But Poilievre still embodies this populist conservatism, with a libertarian flavor.
This is at the heart of his political approach.
However, this is also one of the reasons for its current Quebec Waterloo.
What he embodies simply has no resonance in Quebec.
Would you rather have Joe Biden or Donald Trump as President of the United States?
|Total | QC | Atlantic | Ontario | MB/SK | Alberta | British Columbia
- Joe Biden | 69% | 80% | 70% | 64% | 54% | 58% | 77%
- donald trump | 19% | 12% | 15% | 21% | 28% | 27% | 17%
- I don’t know | 12% | 8% | 15% | 15% | 18% | 14% | 7%