On this white cold Sunday, let’s take a second to celebrate a Quebec trait that we tend to forget, like a fish forgets that it lives in water. I am talking about the almost generalized rejection of political violence in our snowy latitudes.
I look at what is happening in the United States, which is experiencing a clear and distinct return to political violence. There, the Republican Party accommodates the idea of violence as a political tool1 and refuses to condemn those within it who advocate it.
Among the Republicans, the discourse that turns adversaries into enemies has become normal: they are the majority to consider the Democrats as enemies2. Don’t be surprised to see election ads where Republicans metaphorically assassinate Democrats. In the words of a former adviser to George W. Bush: Both parties suffer from political violence, but only one celebrates it3…
This trivialization of the use of political violence in the Republican family wonderfully explains the trivialization by Republican elected officials of the political violence that characterized the failed coup of January 2021 perpetrated by Republican supporters.4.
In Canada, as in Quebec, roughly speaking, political parties resist again and again this disturbing and detestable temptation of political violence, explicit or tacit. We should rejoice.
But the support of Conservative Party stars – like Pierre Poilievre – for the Ottawa protesters, despite their leaders’ stated intention to overthrow the elected government, remains staggering to this day.5.
A Quebec example of this rejection of political violence: Conservative leader Éric Duhaime was strongly condemned at the start of the last campaign when he sarcastically noted that he did not need bodyguards for the campaign because the people were on his side…
Mr. Duhaime wasted days of campaigning explaining these words which trivialized the multiple threats made to politicians in recent years… In addition to opening the door to unpleasant questions about his judgment.
The past week has given another example of our rejection of political violence. The CF Montreal soccer club announced (on the sly) that it was appointing Sandro Grande as head of its reserve club, having Mr. Grande say (in a vague way) in the press release that he regretted mistakes of past judgments (he said he was saddened in 2012 that the Metropolis terrorist did not kill Pauline Marois).
The backlash was instantaneous as soon as the PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon recalled the remarks made by Mr. Grande in 2012. One of the first political figures to step up to the plate was Marwah Rizqy, a member of the Liberal Party of Quebec. That Mme Rizqy sounded the charge of liberal indignation is not insignificant: historically, the PQ has not had a fiercer adversary than the PLQ.
But that didn’t stop M.me Rizqy to quickly show the red card to sanction Joey Saputo’s club. The other parties also reacted negatively and harshly, in condemnations that came from the heart and that were purely a matter of human decency, without calculation.
In Quebec, does this rejection of political violence – even tacit – come from the trauma of the October crisis? From those of the Oka crisis? May be.
But the net result is that here, the violent discourse that simmers on the margins of society finds almost no political relay. It’s not nothing. In the United States, a whole spectrum of groups that espouse violence have political connections, sometimes at the highest level of the state.6. These relays validate the craziest, often violent ideas. These ideas are thereby legitimized, via a deleterious feedback loop.
Ultimately, this rejection of violence by the political class protects us all, by confining it to the margins.
I have said before of our MPs that they are never more beautiful than when they rise above the partisan fray (I know that is a state of grace that is not possible full time ) and in the CF Montreal-Sandro Grande saga, the political class got an A+.
M. GRANDE – The case is settled: CF Montreal lacked antennas in Quebec society by knowingly choosing a coach who one day wished for the assassination of Pauline Marois.
But beyond the club – which should have a public relations department that sees beyond the next game – there is the question of the responsibility of Sandro Grande himself.
No one believes him when he claims he was hacked, to explain his 2012 post celebrating the Metropolis attack. Strangely, however, he had once assumed responsibility for another hypercontemptuous message for Quebec sovereignists, even taking steps to repair it.
But about the message on Mme Marois? Nothing, not a word, radio silence.
I may be naive, but had he done it as a responsible adult, in another time and in a sincere way, perhaps this week’s announcement would have turned out differently for Mr. Grande.
Mme MAROIS — The former Prime Minister spaces out her public interventions, which gives her more impact when she does. She commented on the Grande affair with her trademark sense of balance.
Pauline Marois was only in power for 18 months from 2012 to 2014, in a minority mandate that was shattered when the Liberals shouted – again and again – referendumuuuuuuum…
But every time she “goes out” I watch M gome Marois: poised, calm, above the fray. She was all that again, last week. With time and with hindsight, we measure it: she was in politics for the right reasons. CPEs, deconfessionalization of school boards, all that…
The English have a term for those elected elders who become wise old men, an informal club that takes no applications for membership: elder statesmen. Mme Marois is something like a elder stateswoman.
When she speaks, I listen.
This is less the case when Jean Charest speaks, let’s say.