Easy puns on the color blue (my title, for example) hit the networks after the announcement of the abandonment of Blue Spaces by the Legault government .
There is something. The blue is truly the blue in Quebec. “After the Blue Basket, it’s the turn of the Blue Spaces to go by the wayside,” joked my colleague reporter Marc-André Gagnon to launch his news text.
Double abandonment with strong symbolism, especially in this period where reports tend to demonstrate that the blue identity, that of the “Kebs”, is the object of contempt among the young multicultural generations.
(I know, “the expression “have the bruises” is a literal translation of to have the blues», confirms the Termium Plus website. Except that more and more, the #mononc101 that I am prefers ancient literal translations like this to the unbearable mode of continual insertion, into everyday Quebecers, of English expressions.)
- Listen to the political meeting between Antoine Robitaille and Benoît Dutrizac via QUB :
Good ideas
The idea of Blue Spaces was not bad in itself. A chain of museums; one per administrative region, housed in a heritage building. This would, of course, duplicate certain networks of existing institutions. But to highlight local artifacts throughout the territory, in our digital age where (mainly) American memory and history overwhelm everything, would undoubtedly have constituted a significant counterbalance.
The Blue Basket: we all remember the burst of national solidarity in which the project appeared. In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, we discovered the need to increase our food and commercial autonomy, or even our autonomy altogether. We had to stick together. Buy local. Help each other. The initial impulse was good.
Archive photo Stevens LeBlanc
Blue Pride
The CAQ often links the theme of “pride” to the famous color. When he presented the concept of Blue Spaces in 2021, Mr. Legault said: “I want that when we set foot there, [on] feel proud.”
Since his shift in 2015, where he abandoned the multicolored logo of his third way and converted to autonomist nationalism, the CAQ leader has focused heavily on blue. In May 2017, when the PQ “du Plateau” dreamed of allying with QS, it maintained that this would bring the other PQ, from “the old Union nationale”, back to the CAQ. “There is going to be a red-blue fight, but the blues, now, it will be the CAQ,” he thundered.
Several minds without nuance will conclude that Legault, through his failures, will have paradoxically undermined and tainted all blue pride.
They will be careful to point out that the construction, initiated by the CAQ, of “Belles écoles” and Seniors’ homes, where the use of “Quebec blue” is systematic, could well, in a few years, arouse a certain pride.
All is not lost, perhaps. But the CAQ should understand that with its type of governance that is too often impulsive, thoughtless, centered on announcements of major, poorly planned projects, it puts the “blue” at risk. The third blue route seems to suffer from the same faults as the third link! And Quebec is losing confidence and pride.