Should Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois leave? No, say the activists I spoke to. This week, I spent many hours on the phone with solidarity workers. None wanted him to leave. And yet, the future of the co-spokesperson remains threatened.
“He’s our best player. We would like to keep him, but he must learn to listen…”
However, Mr. Nadeau-Dubois instead chose to play double or nothing. He passes the buck back to the activists. He asks them to support his “Saguenay declaration”, which proposes to refocus the party and simplify its proposals to win over less left-wing regions and voters.
What will happen if delegates reject the heart of the text at the National Council this weekend? It maintains a vagueness that is disturbing.
“I agree with a lot of everything that is written in the document,” admits a former candidate. And yet, I am angry. I want a co-spokesperson who mobilizes us. Not blackmail. »
“The Saguenay declaration should not be a vote of confidence! wonders another former candidate. By bringing the issue back to himself, he makes the problem worse. »
Forget the terms “pragmatic”, “dreamer”, “realistic”, “cloud digger” and the other usual clichés. The crisis shaking the party is more subtle and profound.
Mr. Nadeau-Dubois wants to move his party out of eternal opposition and bring it closer to power. Several activists are skeptical. They fear that the co-spokesperson will distance the party from its members and bring it closer to the parliamentary wing.
The tension is not new.
It started after the 2022 campaign. Québec solidaire (QS) had the biggest budget and the best team in its history. The party gained one MP, but lost 15,000 votes. His deputation had almost twice as many men as women. And in 83% of rural districts, his support has declined.
It was the first act of the crisis.
The second was the publication of Catherine Dorion’s essay, which criticizes GND and its entourage. The polarizing author likes rebellious postures. The conflict was personalized. But basically, the criticisms of Mme Dorion were shared by several good faith activists.
The third act took place in April with the resignation of Émilise Lessard-Therrien, barely five months after her election as female co-spokesperson. Other women imitated her shortly after by slamming the door of the party.
According to these dissatisfied people, QS is “professionalizing” and personalizing itself around its male co-spokesperson. And slowly loses his soul.
Communications are leader-centric. Its image is clean and smooth. “But the leaders who are popular at the moment are those who are perceived as being more authentic,” recalls a former advisor.
Substantive debates are quickly resolved behind the scenes. An activist gives the example of Facebook. Last year, the CAQ and PQ boycotted advertising on this social network. Surprise, the solidarity did not follow. “If we are not even capable of standing up to a multinational like the others, what are we good for? »
This position had not been submitted for debate to members. Mme Lessard-Therrien had expressed his dissent. She had to rally.
Such compromises are normal in a party. But Québec solidaire was supposed to be a decentralized formation and beholden to its members. And feminist too.
The new co-spokesperson never had the desired visibility. This is partly normal. She lived in Témiscamingue and she was not an MP. His opponent Ruba Ghazal had also highlighted this risk during the race. In deficit, QS lacked the money to add employees. Unelected, she did not have the right to benefit from the parliamentary resources to which Manon Massé and GND had access.
However, that doesn’t explain everything. The arrival of Mme Lessard-Therrien was a rare chance to break into the region. However, when RDI organized a debate on immigration, it was Mr. Nadeau-Dubois who was sent.
Internally, this image was circulating…
IMAGE PROVIDED
A meme based on a scene from the American show The Office. It says “The company asks you to find the difference between this image and this one. — It’s the same image. »
In an interview with the First Channel, Mme Lessard-Therrien admitted that the 2022 campaign had been bad. The press officer assigned to him – who also works with GND – criticized him for having made demobilizing remarks. However, it was obvious, already stated by other deputies.
It is true that the co-spokeswoman gave up very quickly. The party didn’t have time to come up with their new plan to help him.
But that doesn’t change anything about the problem that existed before his departure, and which continues.
Two days after the resignation of Mr.me Lessard-Therrien, GND took back the initiative. He shifted the focus to another question: how to transform QS into a “party of government”?
This reflection had been in progress for several months. After the electoral disappointment, QS began a tour of the regions.
However, one would have expected the diagnosis to be presented to the members. But Mr. Nadeau-Dubois immediately moves on to solutions with his “Saguenay declaration”. It aims to simplify and refocus, at least a little, the party’s offer. Details would come soon. According to the proposed schedule, the program will be rewritten in the fall of 2025, and the platform for the next campaign will be adopted in the spring of 2026.
Activists feel rushed. “We would have liked him to present his vision during the race for spokesperson last fall. He talks about it afterwards, in a tone close to an ultimatum…”
A passageway is emerging despite everything. In Saguenay, amendments will be presented to take more time. This compromise could rally the discontented without rejecting Mr. Nadeau-Dubois’ vision.
Because going forward, the co-spokesperson will have good arguments to put forward.
The shift desired by the co-spokesperson occurs on two levels. He wants a platform that can bring him to power. And he also wants to be able to apply it.
On the first aspect, the debate promises to be endless.
A QS clan defends left-wing populism. He claims to belong to the people. Why doesn’t he win? Because the media and economic elites alienate it, and because the popular movement has not been set in motion. We must sow hope and revolt everywhere.
Another camp notes, on the contrary, that voters clearly distrust QS. With them, pedagogy will not be enough. We must accept certain ideological compromises. Better to be in power and implement 70% of your program than to praise it 100% in opposition. This resembles Christine Labrie’s spokesperson campaign, which admitted that QS’s environmental commitments had created a “repulsion” effect.
But how far to go to reach voters?
“If we look too much like an imitation of the PQ, it’s risky. People will prefer the original version,” fears a long-time QS activist.
Those further to the left do not want to lose the only vehicle that disseminates their ideas. But there is another meaning to be given to “pragmatism”.
When a party is about to take power, it forms a transition committee. He decides which commitments to carry out, how and in what order. QS has never done this exercise. For example, we do not know who would negotiate a nationalization, at what price, with what timetable and with what consequences on the rest of the economy.
In this sense, Mr. Nadeau-Dubois’ “pragmatism” does not amount to sacrificing his ideals. It is a method of converting them into an applicable government program.
This approach is compatible with a transformative vision of society. Housing is a good example. Reforms, such as a rent register, would have a limited impact. The left prefers a comprehensive plan that addresses the problem at the root, by attacking real estate speculation and developing another non-profit model. And it is precisely because the change is major that it requires a concrete, quantified and applicable plan.
But the debate has taken a worrying turn for QS in recent weeks.
“The Saguenay declaration talks about bringing together, but above all I see clans emerging around me. And I don’t even know what clan I’m in anymore myself…” says another former candidate who, like several other activists, cannot make the trip to Jonquière.
Which brings us back to where we started. Even if the tension is high, it could also quickly drop. Provided that a listening signal is given.