In 2008, when his minority government faced the risk of losing a vote of confidence on its economic statement, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper raised the specter of a coalition government between the Liberals, the New Democrats and the Bloc to make swing public opinion in his favor. The idea of seeing “separatists” holding the balance of power in the House of Commons had frightened many Canadians outside Quebec. Especially since a partnership between the Bloc and the Liberal Party of Canada — whose leader at the time was Stéphane Dion, the father of the clarity law — seemed unnatural.
“It’s incredible to see the party of Laurier and Trudeau applaud the leader of the Bloc,” Mr. Harper declared in the House after Gilles Duceppe spoke in favor of a coalition between the three opposition parties to defeat the Conservative government. Newly elected MP for Papineau, Justin Trudeau was not the least bit shaken by the idea of seeing his archfederalist father’s party rely on the sovereignists to take power. “This is the best agreement that anyone has obtained over the years while working with the Bloc in the House,” he explained at the time.
Alas! The PLC-NDP-Bloc coalition never saw the light of day due to the decision of Governor General Michaëlle Jean to prorogue the parliamentary session which had barely begun, at the request of Mr. Harper. The latter was trying to gain time to prepare a rather… liberal budget in view of the economic storm which was then knocking at our doors. Disappointed, Mr. Dion immediately resigned instead of waiting for the result of a Liberal leadership race which was to take place a few months later. The coalition project was dead on the spot.
The story of this failed coalition becomes more relevant in light of the accusation launched this week by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre that Justin Trudeau spoke with Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet to discuss an agreement to keep the Liberals in power until 2025. As the agreement of support and trust between the PLC and the NDP shows signs of weakening, the Liberals are now turning to the Bloc to avoid calling an election precipitated.
NDP MPs supported a Conservative motion this week to extend the suspension of the federal carbon tax to all forms of residential heating, not just oil, as the Liberals had proposed. The Bloc joined forces with the Liberals to vote against the motion. The Trudeau government was thus “saved by the separatists”, in the words of Mr. Poilievre, who called on the Prime Minister to “reveal, in the interest of transparency, all the conditions of this new costly agreement” between the Block and PLC.
MM. Both Trudeau and Blanchet have denied entering into such a pact. However, the Bloc is in no greater hurry to call an election than the Liberals. Even if the sovereignist party remains in the lead in voting intentions in Quebec, it cannot take its support for granted. Quebec voters, more than their peers elsewhere in the country, are used to waiting until the last days of federal campaigns to make a final choice. The Conservatives lead comfortably in the polls across the country, except in Quebec. In a scenario where the Conservatives seem assured in advance of a victory, would Quebecers jump on the wave or would they try to stop it as they did in 2011 by massively supporting the NDP at the expense of the Bloc?
If, under Mr. Harper, the Conservatives had never managed to make a significant breakthrough in La Belle Province, Mr. Poilievre does not seem to have abandoned the desire to do much better than his predecessor in Quebec. And it is above all by targeting the Bloc that he intends to achieve this. “The Bloc is expensive” has become the Conservative leader’s new leitmotif. His emphasis on cost of living issues is paying off elsewhere in Canada. Will this also be the case in Quebec?
Even if the federal carbon tax does not apply to Quebec, which participates with California in a carbon exchange, the Bloc’s refusal to suspend this tax for other forms of residential heating leaves Mr. Blanchet’s party vulnerable to conservative attacks that it puts its environmentalist “ideology” ahead of the pecuniary interests of ordinary households. Could Quebecers find the price of the Bloc too high?
Based in Montreal, Konrad Yakabuski is a columnist at Globe and Mail.