For François Legault and his government, the end-of-year broadcasts have forgiven them nothing. Zero mercy. Zero redemption. A little more and they would be wiped off the slate.
Of Bye going through the end of year reviewsInfoman and the radio special See you next yearwe can safely say that the CAQ will have taken a nasty beating.
In this, they were the perfect reflection of the polls. The same people who, since last spring, have shown an abrupt drop in the popularity of the CAQ and the Prime Minister in favor of the clearly rising popularity of the PQ and its leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
The arrows that were thrown there were part of the spirit of the times of a French-speaking public opinion disenchanted until now with the “strong” second mandate of the Caquists.
In fact, we cheerfully made fun of François Legault being too emotional and disoriented. We laughed at his improvised decisions since his sudden abandonment of the 3e link and the defeat of the CAQ in Jean-Talon at the hands of the PQ.
Bernard Drainville, Minister of Education, was not left out. At Byea sketch worthy of the Cynics era ironically depicted him as a “great actor” to whom real actors sought advice on how to actually play so fake…
Implacable
Éric Caire, Minister of Cybersecurity, but above all the unrepentant Gaston Lagaffe of the government and father of the bitter failure of the new SAAQclic site, also had a cold.
See you next year paid for a relentless sketch showing Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of the Economy, joyfully manipulating a puppet bearing the image of the new president of Hydro-Québec, Michael Sabia.
In short, if we have been complaining for several years about the absence of more political humor in the end-of-year reviews, 2023 will have been an exception.
For François Legault and his troops, the laughter must have tended towards dark yellow. As a lesson in humility, from surveys to end-of-year reviews, it’s frankly difficult to be more scathing.
It remains to be seen whether the lesson will bear fruit or not. The next few months, inevitably, will tell.
Public policies
Tuesday, at a press conference to present his “catch-up plan” following the strikes in public schools, Bernard Drainville’s tone was already becoming more serious and less histrionic.
In interview at Midi Infoasked about the Byethe minister did not hide his reaction: “It reduces the ego to a modest size”…
As his colleagues and the Prime Minister show up, voters will also be able to see if the lesson in humility has been well received or if nature will return at a gallop.
The lesson in humility will certainly be measured by the general tone of the government. Will he still be too sure of himself or not? Between now and the 2026 elections, it will be measured above all by its public policies.
If the CAQ persists with mega-reforms of health and education structures while refusing to tackle the multiplication of “speeds” of services which, instead of reducing social inequalities, reinforce them, it will unfortunately have missed the boat.
And what about a dramatic housing crisis in the face of which inaction is the watchword of a Housing Minister incapable of understanding the reality of tenants?
But if, by some miracle, the CAQ were to see the urgency of acting against the housing crisis while re-establishing the public health and education networks as the essential vectors of social justice that they once were, it would is that the lesson in humility will have really borne fruit.