Accustomed to walking on water, François Legault suddenly has the bottom of his pants wet.
By depriving the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) of the riding of Jean-Talon, voters in the Quebec region have sent a very clear warning to the Prime Minister, who has faced more headwinds since the start of his second mandate.
François Legault had nevertheless brought out the heavy artillery to win the vote. He himself went door to door to convince voters to support him in this election, which seemed like a test of confidence in the government.
However, the CAQ failed the test. And not just a little.
The Parti Québécois (PQ) won a decisive victory in this former liberal castle which, even if it does not have sovereignty in its blood, was convinced by the stature of the PQ candidate Pascal Paradis and by the performance of its leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
The PQ obtained twice as many votes as the CAQ. His victory is all the clearer as we have not seen such a high participation rate for a complementary election (more than 55%) for around fifteen years.
From the start, things looked bad for the CAQ.
If the complementary election was called in Jean-Talon, it is because CAQ MP Joëlle Boutin, who had not been offered a ministerial post, left barely six months after the general elections. But when you get elected, it is first and foremost to represent citizens. Abandoning them so cavalierly is enough to make them cynical. Instead of “voting on the right side”, they judged that they would be better served by an opposition MP.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
François Legault, Premier of Quebec
From the start of the race, things got worse. While the CAQ tried to discredit the PQ candidate, he managed to turn the situation to his advantage. At the heart of the standoff, the following question: during the last elections, did the CAQ already know that it would renege on its flagship promise to build a third link between Quebec and Lévis?
Who’s telling the truth? Who lied? The voters of Jean-Talon decided on Monday. In any case, such an about-face, whether premeditated or not, always leaves a bitter taste among voters, who feel like they have been duped.
But beyond the broken promise of the third link, the results of the election in Jean-Talon give the measure of the discontent of Quebecers with the CAQ, throughout the province.
Inadvertently, Deputy Prime Minister Geneviève Guilbault herself listed everything that is wrong in Quebec last Friday in the National Assembly, scoring in her own goal.
Impatient with a question about the voting method, another broken promise from the CAQ, she explained that it did not concern citizens that much. That people who call their MP do so to say that they have no daycare space, no family doctor, that their school is difficult, that there is “traffic” on the road and that Grocery shopping is expensive.
To this list, we could add that seniors are unable to obtain a place in CHSLD, that the Department of Youth Protection is more overwhelmed than ever, that the justice system is facing a wall… Ah yes, and the failures in the IT transition of the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) do not bode well for the transformation that awaits the health network.
However, we cannot say that the government has remained silent in the face of these issues.
The problem is that the major reforms announced in education and health, however desirable they may be, still give the impression that the CAQ is shaking up structures instead of offering concrete responses to everyday needs.
Also, the CAQ was very generous towards taxpayers, compared to other provinces, by mailing three series of pandemic checks, which were added to tax cuts, school tax reductions and support enhancements for children and elders.
Except that taxpayers lose sight of this helping hand when they see the prices of food… and housing, a major crisis whose extent the CAQ did not seem to measure until very recently.
The complementary election is a call to order that the CAQ must take seriously, even if the loss is less bitter since it was not a CAQ stronghold – and even if the CAQ can console itself since it retains 89 elected officials, or 71% of the deputation.
In short, the CAQ is floundering, but it is far from sinking.
But the soul-searching promised by the Prime Minister must involve more transparency regarding the third link and better access to services for citizens.
The position of The Press
Jean-Talon’s voters sent a message of discontent to the government that goes well beyond their constituency. Regaining the trust of Quebecers will require greater transparency in the third link episode, but also better access to quality public services.