At the heart of the changes that Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois is calling for at Québec solidaire, there is an observation to be made: Quebecers are not looking for a party that wants to “go beyond capitalism,” as the manifesto launched in 2009 said. by Amir Khadir and Françoise David.
There is no real movement to “get Quebec out of capitalism” as we said at QS in the early days. On the other hand, in current Quebec politics, there is an increasingly important space for a progressive party.
This type of party no longer exists in Quebec. The Coalition Avenir Québec never wanted to be and has never been a progressive party. For a long time now, the Liberal Party of Quebec has been nothing more than a shadow of the party that brought about the Quiet Revolution. And the Parti Québécois – which was for a long time the most progressive party in Quebec – only talks about identity, language and referendum at all costs.
That leaves a lot of ground for a party that would like to be progressive and pragmatic and that would have concrete solutions to provide to the problems experienced daily by its fellow citizens.
René Lévesque’s first mandate was undoubtedly the most progressive and reforming in our history, with a series of concrete reforms which still shape Quebec today: law 101, public automobile insurance plan, agricultural zoning, financing of political parties, law on occupational health and safety, anti-scab law, law on youth protection, end of private hunting and fishing clubs and I forget a few…
All this in a single mandate and while preparing a referendum on sovereignty. So governments can, whenever they want, walk and chew gum at the same time.
Currently, Québec solidaire has a political program which began to be established in 2006 and which is today compiled in a document of around a hundred pages which provides for dozens and dozens of measures ranging from guaranteed minimum income to recognition official Quebec sign language. As for the party’s last electoral platform, it clearly identified problems such as housing and health, but was very thin on concrete solutions. Furthermore, regarding its internal procedures, Québec solidaire is infinitely cumbersome and not only because of the presence of two theoretically equal spokespersons.
A system that worked well in the first years of QS after the merger of Amir Khadir’s Union of Progressive Forces and Françoise David’s Citizen Option, but which today causes more problems than it does. resolves.
There has always been one of the two spokespersons who was “more equal than the other”, if only because our institutions provide for a single prime minister and a single leader in the televised debate which is the highlight of the election campaign.
Political parties must conform to institutions and they can only change them if they take power, that goes without saying. So, if a party nevertheless creates structures that do not take institutions into account, it will only have itself to blame.
That said, the current crisis at Québec solidaire has a very personal aspect. The departure of Émilise Lessard-Therrien rekindles the debate on the leadership of Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
He is said to be surrounded by close guards who only seek to protect him and never question him. She is criticized for not listening, which leads to “the fear of not being heard, recognized, understood”, as Ms.me Lessard-Therrien in his resignation letter. Criticisms that resemble those of former MP Catherine Dorion in her book published a few months ago.
This is why the party’s National Council in Saguenay at the end of the month will be decisive. Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois will play big. When a leader demands major changes from his party, there is always a possibility that he will lose his bet.
Especially in more ideological parties, we don’t necessarily like leaders who want to shake up habits with words like “pragmatic” or “professionalize”. Talk to Thomas Mulcair who was ousted from the leadership of the NDP after achieving the second largest election result in its history.
But it is clear that the party would not be going through such a crisis if it was at 20 or 25% in the polls and could look forward to the next elections with great hope. But at 14%, down four points since the previous month, it is clear that the party is having more and more difficulty reaching its electorate.
QS is not in a crisis of growth, it must manage its first crisis of decline. Which is always complicated for a chef, however charismatic he may be.
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