In 2025, will there finally be a real leadership race in the Quebec Liberal Party? Stuck at 4 or 5% support among French speakers, it is divine grace that he must wish for.
Denis Coderre’s obvious intention to try his luck clearly shook many liberals. Worried at the mere thought that he would one day become their leader, insistent calls are multiplying to other potential candidates.
Who knows what this forced fishing will end up catching? The only certainty is that the PLQ will not have the luxury of a brainless coronation beast and even less of an anachronistic fight between narcissistic little roosters.
Brandishing the so-called “scarecrow” of the PQ’s advance and its promise to hold a referendum will not be enough either.
Because if it is true that this party desperately needs visibility, since the catastrophic transition to power of the Couillard-Barrette duo, the Liberals above all need a serious debate of ideas. Yes, yes, ideas.
Because Quebec is doing badly. Future candidates for the Liberal leadership will be wise to worry about this well before rushing to bring out their old No mothball posters.
This is why the Liberals would also be wise to broaden their fishing beyond the eternally familiar lake of the business community.
Failure
However, for the moment, apart from Denis Coderre, the only names circulating more seriously all come from it.
We are talking more and more about Karl Blackburn, president and CEO of the Conseil du patronat and Charles Milliard, president of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of Quebec.
Two good communicators, they would surely make good candidates. They both have great track records in their industry. It’s undeniable. Karl Blackburn is a pure product of the liberal inner circle and an excellent organizer.
The problem is that the times of corporate governments are changing. It changes because they failed in the, let’s call it, more societal department.
We are in fact now – and for a long time – in a situation of multiple social crises.
Multiple seizures
Without denying its political DNA or taking itself for an absurd clone of Quebec Solidarity, will the PLQ nevertheless be able to find a leader capable not only of counting, but at the same time of breaking away from the archaic paths of “everything at the same time?” ‘economy”?
It’s not the job that he would miss. Largely due to government inaction, we are in the midst of a housing and homelessness crisis.
The mental health crisis is also unprecedented. And what about the endemic crisis at the DPJ? Of an expensive but broken public health network? Of an increasingly unequal school network? Of an increasingly precarious French language?
Without forgetting the glaring lack of home support and services on a human scale for thousands of more vulnerable Quebecers, of whom we will perhaps be part sooner than we think.
What will the Liberal leadership candidates say? In addition to salivating over this or that business “sector”, what concrete proposals will they offer to right the broken liner of political and social solidarity in Quebec?
Unless, of course, no one, in the PLQ or elsewhere, still dares to believe in the very possibility of one day succeeding in doing so…