Mario Dumont has never been one to take the easy path. When he was promised a brilliant political future, he slammed the door on the Young Liberals to form a new party. His media career also began 15 years ago this year, in difficult conditions on the defunct V channel, which suffered from a glaring lack of resources. Here he is finally at ease as the headliner of Quebecor. But as if he couldn’t help it, he has just said yes to a dizzying challenge: hosting the morning show on the new 99.5 FM, which will be rubbing shoulders with the already well-oiled 98.5 FM machine starting Monday.
“At my age, this is probably the last big challenge of this magnitude that I will take on,” warns the 54-year-old former politician.
Even though he is not an early riser by nature, his clock is now set to dawn. Starting at 6 a.m., Mario Dumont will be on the air on Qub, where he previously hosted in the late afternoon. Quebecor radio, previously digital, is now rebroadcast during the day on the 99.5 FM frequency following an agreement reached in recent weeks with the owners of the antenna. A real upheaval in the very rigid world of talk radio in Montreal, where the hegemony of 98.5 FM had never really been threatened.
To take on Patrick Lagacé, who has just succeeded Paul Arcand, Mario Dumont seemed to be the obvious candidate. At 98.5 FM, some must be kicking themselves for not having managed to convince him to join the station. The former leader of the Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ) also confides that he was approached “informally” by well-placed people at Cogeco, who were planning for the post-Arcand era and who saw him as the ideal person to take the helm of the comeback show.
“If I had accepted, I would have lost TV. And I love the LCN machine too much for that. Let’s just say it would have cost them dearly to convince me,” jokes Mario Dumont, who worked on Paul Arcand’s show from 2010 to 2018.
Workaholic
Despite his new demanding role as morning host, he insisted on keeping his daily show on LCN in the late morning. He will also continue to write three columns per week in The Montreal Journalin addition to appearing on the early evening newscast on TVA. A hectic work pace, to say the least, which, he assures us, does not prevent him from taking the time to learn in depth about the issues he comments on. He says that the time he takes each evening to walk his dogs is beneficial for forming his opinions.
“Yes, it’s true that I’m happy when I go on vacation. But honestly, I don’t feel like I work that much. For me, working is my grandfather who had a dairy farm. It’s true that he never stopped, winter or summer! On weekends, I’m at my cottage. I’m stretched out on my big Adirondack chair, reading, with a glass of wine in my hand. Compared to my grandfather, I’m a big fat guy,” says the man who comes from a line of farmers in the Lower St. Lawrence.
It must be said that his schedule was considerably busier when he was in active politics. Mario Dumont, who was only 24 when he was elected MP, is not nostalgic for the sacrifices required by life as a party leader. All those trips back and forth. All that time spent away from his loved ones. The man who recently became a grandfather for the first time feels like he has given. Been there, done that ” he answers immediately, when asked if he has given up on his dream of becoming prime minister.
Mario Dumont came very close to power in the 2007 election, after which he became leader of the official opposition. He says he gave up on his ambitions during the last week of the following difficult campaign, in 2008, when his party went from 41 to 7 MPs. “I had the best debate and the poll needle hadn’t even moved. At one point, I couldn’t do anything anymore. I really felt like I had gone all the way,” he recalls with a certain detachment, even if he still describes that moment as one of the most difficult of his life.
Political orphan
The door has been closed for any return since then. Nothing to make him want to dive back in: the current issues don’t galvanize him more than that. The political scene in Quebec is not the most exciting at the moment, when we have known the effervescence of the thorny constitutional debates that preceded and followed the 1995 referendum.
“ “It’s very quiet at the moment. There are no glaring issues. There’s nothing that requires us to call the fire department,” illustrates the man who was one of the three leaders of the Yes campaign, with Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard.
What’s more, Mario Dumont feels rather orphaned in the current political landscape. Sure, the ADQ was swallowed up by the CAQ, but the former standard-bearer of the Quebec right never considered François Legault’s party to be his political family. “For me, the CAQ has never been the continuation of the ADQ. It’s François Legault’s party. It’s something else. Yes, it’s a party that is nationalist, that is sometimes centre-right, but it remains a very spendthrift party that has had an $11 billion deficit,” says the host, who also has reservations about Éric Duhaime’s Conservative Party.
Does he see an heir in his former advisor? Upon hearing the question, Mario Dumont can’t help but laugh. “Éric Duhaime has excellent ideas. But I didn’t like that his movement was formed around the pandemic, with people who are often very frustrated, who reject science,” he then specifies.
Left-wing journalists
Mario Dumont is enjoying the media too much today to leave it. Being one of the star hosts of Quebec’s largest media empire gives him, he believes, an influence that is “probably as great” as the one he had as leader of an opposition party.
Going through the looking glass also gave him another perspective on media work. “When you’re in politics, you often imagine conspiracies. You think that journalists consciously decide to cover one story rather than another. But when you work on TV every day, you realize that there’s a lot more chance involved than you think,” Mario Dumont acknowledged.
Let’s not be mistaken, however. Mario Dumont remains critical of the journalistic fauna, to whom he largely blames the ADQ’s rout in 2008. “Journalists are all left-wing, we must not be under any illusions. As soon as a party is a little bit centre-right, it struggles. Fortunately, I think there is a little more balance today, even at Radio-Canada. The panels of former politicians have ensured that we now hear voices that were completely absent, before, from the public space. Let’s say that their Leaning Tower of Pisa leans a little less than before,” he illustrates, with a wry smile.
Definitely, the new morning man of 99.5 FM has lost none of his legendary sense of formula that made him a formidable politician. He would probably be even more so today, if he changed his mind and decided to return to his first love.