The detours of an atypical politician

“I don’t like these things,” said François Legault earlier this year. No question for him to highlight his 25 years in politics. That would contradict the image of the CAQ as a young party, a force for change.

However, it is a good excuse to reflect on one’s career. I delved into the archives to read his landmark speeches and interviews.

It is difficult to distinguish a common thread. Mr. Legault is not a typical politician, and even less an ideologue. He defines himself as a pragmatist who refuses the labels “left” and “right”. He is also emotional and impatient. He remained loyal to a handful of close collaborators, but he left behind people who felt betrayed. Both stubborn and capable of recognizing his mistakes, he sticks to a few obsessions while knowing how to read the popular mood to adjust to it, especially when it suits him.

Politics comes to François Legault by accident, and on a silver platter. This contrasts with his beginnings.

He was born into a modest background. His parents were married by Canon Lionel Groulx, his mother’s great-uncle. Francophone lonely in the “West Island”, he quickly understands that the historical gap of his people has not completely been made up.

He became the first in his family to attend university. He also benefits from the stock savings plan and the FTQ Solidarity Fund, which capitalized the Air Transat Group and made him a multimillionaire.

As a rookie minister, he wants to continue this economic interventionism to emancipate Quebecers. Then, in education, something clicked. He understands the link between training and prosperity. And for the young father, it becomes personal.

We see him holding back tears at a press conference during an announcement for students in difficulty. In particular, he launched the Act Early program, a title which would be taken up almost 20 years later by his CAQ government.

In 2001, he wrote his letter of resignation, ready to slam the door if the president of the Treasury Board did not add a billion to the education budget despite the fight against the deficit.

These two themes will always form the basis of his commitment. Another constant is its approach: importing private sector methods to manage social democracy. Unions have always been wary of it for this reason.

Both in Health and Education, he comes up against those who consider this approach “simplistic”. But he never lets go. He returns to the charge in his resignation speech from the Parti Québécois (PQ), in the manifesto creating the Coalition Avenir Québec and in his priorities as Prime Minister.

It is elsewhere that the route sometimes becomes winding.

In 1998, he rallied behind a dream, the country of Quebec. And he belongs to the hurry camp. He wrote the budget for Year I of independence and wanted a referendum early in his first term. But in 2009, the day after the national holiday, he gave up. He deplores the “ambient cynicism” and maintains that the PQ is more part of the problem than the solution.

He no longer believes in independence. Or, at least, he no longer believes in it because he judges that the population has stopped believing in it. A man of action, he has difficulty tolerating this ambiguity.

This impatience recalls his surprise departure from Air Transat. “We’re going nowhere,” he has already justified, without wanting to give all the details.

When he resigned in 2009, Jean Charest saw clearly. We will see Mr. Legault in politics again, he said…

The wait wasn’t long.

In 2011, he returned with a spectacular turnaround. He first promised to put the constitutional question on hold for 10 years to unite the federalists and the separatists. Forced to get wet, he replied that he would vote No in a future – and hypothetical – referendum.

Influenced by the ex-Adequists, he blocked the reform of the Charter of the French Language by Pauline Marois.

The CAQ leader goes even further. He taunts his former PQ colleagues by accusing them of working in “imaginary land”. Bernard Landry called him an “arriviste consumed by ambition”.

When the late historian Frédéric Bastien alleges that the Supreme Court maneuvered with the Trudeau senior government to facilitate the unilateral patriation of the Constitution, Mr. Legault shrugs his shoulders. Lucien Bouchard then judges this indifference “unacceptable”.

In 2014, the arrival of Pierre Karl Péladeau revived the debate on independence. Mr. Legault is caught between the PQ and the PLQ. The following year, he changed tactics. The CAQ swaps its rainbow logo for Quebec blue and proposes a “pact” with the nationalists.

In the by-election in Saint-Jérôme in 2016, the CAQ is banking on tax cuts, but also on the chador. Even the PQ lacks firmness, accuses Mr. Legault.

His interest in this subject is late.

In 2004, in a letter entitled “The courage to change”, he advocated “greater openness to cultural communities”. “We must give them all the place they deserve,” he wrote in this manifesto. It was one of his three priorities, with the country project and the performance of public services.

This episode demonstrates both his opportunism and the evolution of the debate. He feels that this is what the citizens are demanding. And he reacted to criticism from English Canada as if he were still the young activist knocking on doors in the West Island for the PQ. The more Quebec refuses to choose its model, the more it makes it a personal matter.

Its nationalism has mutated into a defensive and often symbolic position. Language, the foundation of the nation, is the best example. He says he downright fears a “Louisianization”. If the threat is existential, its solutions remain moderate.

The Legault style explains part of its success. His words are simple and direct. He is not an “intellectual”, as he said when denying his promise to reform the voting system. But he is a voracious reader and a gifted alumnus – he skipped his tenth and twelfth grades.

This good nature has helped him during the pandemic, as has his ability to recognize his mistakes.

The environment is a good example. This did not interest him in opposition. His conversion was late and gradual. He says he wants to move forward at the pace of the population.

A former collaborator describes him as “hard-headed”. He can spend long periods of time arguing with his inner circle over details of economic policy. And sometimes, two days later, after he has finished thinking, he changes his mind.

Even though he has spent twice as much time in politics as in business, his first profession still influences the second. He relies on a sort of informal committee bringing together a handful of non-elected officials and influential ministers. His party does not have a strong activist culture either: it nominates the candidates itself.

He never seems so happy as when he announces big “deals” with companies, such as in the battery sector. His economic nationalism has found itself a flagship issue, and he risks having finished laying the groundwork for it by the end of his mandate.

As for education and the effectiveness of the State, even if it has always been a priority, he is banging his head against a wall. There are more children and sick people and there is a shortage of staff.

He embarked on perilous reforms to create a Health Agency, which included elements of both centralization and decentralization, and in particular to tighten control over school service centers.

This will occupy him until the end of his mandate. Then there remains the question that no one around them dares to ask. After 25 years in politics, when will he have the impression of having reached the end of what he could do?