The day after its budget, the Legault government is still looking for its compass. The liberals are going into occupational therapy mode. Strange, but true.
The Quebec Liberal Party is once again going on a consultation tour. According to The Press“the political commission chaired by former senator André Pratte launches an offensive to clarify the political positions defended by the liberals”.
The PLQ will therefore create four working groups, whose themes will be economic development, education, improvement of public services and the affirmation of Quebec within Canada. A little more and it looks like a copy and paste of the CAQ roadmap…
The real question is why this umpteenth intensive brainstorming session? First of all to occupy his own troops.
It must be said that the Quebec Liberal Party is still without a big name on the horizon for its possible leadership race. Except for Denis Coderre, of course.
However, bad luck for him and the Liberals, obviously many of them do not want him as their future leader.
Political corset
Hence the political corset that these same four working groups will knit very, very tight for him. Just in case he still wins the chieftaincy.
In terms of ideas, the final report which will cap the said work will in effect tie the hands of the next leader behind his back. Which, for a party without a leader and in the middle of crossing the desert, is an extremely perilous exercise.
This political corset will also aim, among other things, to try to discourage this same Denis Coderre from continuing to support the use of the derogation clause by the CAQ for its law on state secularism.
This position of Denis Coderre is roundly rejected by the PLQ itself. Which is not a detail.
If its next leader had to approve this use of the notwithstanding clause, the PLQ would even risk losing part of its English-speaking and allophone electorate who, surely, would shun it in the 2026 elections.
Not the wisest choice
Another reason explaining this new occupational therapy session is the barely 7% of support remaining for the PLQ among French speakers.
Twiddling your thumbs while waiting for a Messiah could risk making them melt even more.
The fact remains that the PLQ’s choice to postpone its leadership race until 2025, only one year before the elections, was not the wisest.
To let a party in tatters exist for so long without a permanent leader leaves its troops lost in the political space.
Instead of making it a visible actor again, this long period of waiting reduces the PLQ to the unenviable status of spectator of the political scene.
Forced to helplessly witness the two-way struggle which, for the moment, is taking shape between the CAQ of François Legault and the Parti Québécois of Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
And the more time passes, the less the PLQ will find its place there. Unless, of course, by some miracle, he manages to find a new boss or a new major boss.