Looking at how the CAQ activists behaved during their congress (their refusal to ask the slightest embarrassing question to François Legault or to make the slightest reproach to the government), a cult line from the film The Godfather came to my mind.
“Never say what you think in front of strangers.”
This is the sentence that Don Vito throws at his son Sonny after the latter had implied that he disagreed with his father during a meeting with the drug trafficker Solozzo.
You should never show the slightest sign of dissent in front of strangers.
Or, as Michael told his brother Fredo, “Never take sides against the family in public.”
Principle that the CAQ activists have respected to the letter.
“BE A MAN!”
Another line from Coppola’s film that comes to mind when I watch Pierre Fitzgibbon and Simon Jolin-Barrette give jobs to friends: “It’s not personal, it’s only business.”
Contrary to what you think, we didn’t choose these individuals because they were friends, noooo. We chose them because they were the best.
It was a professional decision!
Third replica of Godfather which applies to the CAQ clan: “What did I do to make you treat me so disrespectfully?”
This is the phrase that Vito Corleone throws at the undertaker Bonasera when the latter comes to ask him for a favor after having refused to speak to him for years.
But it could also be what François Legault said to Justin Trudeau after he refused to give him more powers over immigration.
Do you remember what Don Vito says to singer Johnny Fontaine when he bawls in his office?
“Is that what you’ve become? A young Hollywood premier who cries like a woman? Act like a man!”
Well, that’s what Legault could have said to Bernard Drainville after he shed crocodile tears talking about the death of the third link…
You are no longer a populist commentator, Bernard! You are a minister!
A little restraint!
LIFE AND DEATH OF THE CAQ
At the end of Godfather 2Michael is alone, the family is dispersed, the Corleone clan is weakened, attacked from all sides…
Is this what awaits the CAQ? Will the party take a nosedive the day its founder lifts the markers?
This is what many observers think.
The dream of the “third way” will die a beautiful death, the federalists will go to the PLQ, and the sovereignists will return to the fold, to the PQ…
Far be it from me to compare the CAQ to the mafia, but a party is a clan, an organization, a family.
And despite the bloodshed and the setting in which the story unfolds, The Godfather remains the best family film ever made.
Who is the Michael of the CAQ?
Will Legault be able to make an offer to Trudeau that he cannot refuse?