The return of 2e mandate is today for the Legault government.
And history teaches that second terms are often hellish. Ambitions and promises come up against shifting conjectures.
In the case of the CAQ government, inflation, even expected to decline soon, will have had time to seal the many infrastructure projects launched by it.
A recession (even if it is predicted without significant job losses) could cut into the revenues of the State, which would need it to “rebuild” the health and education systems which are cracking everywhere.
At the same time, negotiations with public sector employees (hungry for catch-up and anti-inflation wage increases) are likely to lead to serious confrontations.
Legacy
The second mandates are also historically arduous since each political decision making dissatisfied arrives at a point where all the dissatisfied complain in chorus.
According to what reported The duty in recent days, François Legault wants to stay the course on his major projects, not to scatter. At his giant caucus, he would have said: “We let the polls do their thing. We leave it to the press review”.
Quite a turnaround from an opinion poll addict. And who “was exhausted trying to convince such a columnist or such a journalist”, according to one of his former advisers from the early 2000s, the historian Éric Bédard. (Review Disadvantagefall 2022.)
The second mandates are also those where the political leader sees the end of his career on the horizon, saying to himself “it’s time or never to work on my legacy”.
A sort of “biological clock” even more significant for a character like François Legault, who defines himself as a man of “results”.
Of “action”?
In this context, the government’s new shift in French is incomprehensible.
Time is running out, the heart and soul of Quebec’s identity is crumbling, and he is off again in consultation. As in the heyday of the Larose Commission (2000-2001), these “States General on the situation and future of the French language in Quebec” launched by a Lucien Bouchard who wanted to save time; exercise which did not yield much.
Consult: this will be the main objective of the Action Group for the Future of the French Language (GAALF), launched on Friday by the new Minister of the French Language Jean-François Roberge.
An action group… that won’t act. Who will consult; will carry out “awareness” campaigns! While this same government, not even a year ago, gave birth with difficulty to an ambitious reform of Law 101. And after much consultation. The government barely talks about it. Will he apply it?
The initiator of this law, Simon Jolin-Barrette, Minister of Justice, was not invited to join GAALF; but Pascale Déry, Minister of Higher Education, former spokesperson who defended Michael Rousseau, this CEO of Air Canada allegedly too busy to learn French during his 14 years living in Quebec, she, yes.
It doesn’t bode well.