I feel very ill at hearing the Liberal tenors stepping up to make people feel guilty for talking about the odors of corruption under the reign of Jean Charest.
Posted yesterday at 9:00 a.m.
Looks like they borrowed the method used by China to discredit anyone who dared to ask questions about the origin of the virus and the veil of suspicion surrounding the start of this pandemic. After the accusations of Sinophobia unsheathed by the Beijing regime, here comes Jean Charest’s media rehabilitation campaign against a backdrop of guilt. No, but to hear them, Quebecers should almost feel guilty for highlighting the scandals that mark this period so as not to harm the knight who is so much courted today.
No matter how hard we try to keep this layer of dust on the ground, it will continue to rise, because nothing has been swept away, except under the carpet. It is a pity that Dominique Anglade and the majority of the members of his caucus are unfairly hurt by the rebound of this story which is not theirs. Unfortunately, between staying away from this saga and collapsing under the pressure of the liberal tenors, his position seems to waver.
The first step to initiating real change, a psychologist would say, is to recognize that there is a problem. Unfortunately, we never hear of the Liberals of the Charest era acknowledging the slightest share of responsibility – direct or indirect – in the scandals that accompanied their reign. However, and with all due respect to all those people who wash whiter than white in the media, it is not because we are not found guilty of something that we are totally innocent. The disastrous history of UPAC is there to remind us of the many gray areas in these stories. Indeed, if there is one impression that emerges from this great masquerade that Robert Lafrenière presented to us as a serious hunt for criminals, it is that the sabotage, incompetence and other maneuvers orchestrated by the lawyers have caused all the big Pisces.
Faced with this great comedy that has cost a lot of money, it is difficult to move on, even more so when you have the deep feeling of having been wronged.
Yes, I repeat: Mr. Charest has not been found guilty of anything. But one cannot prevent a people who have been generously cheated under his rule from outrageously expressing their bitterness at their legacy. So, singing his praises today by talking about a political beast, an ideal candidate, an invincible debater or a team guy will not be able to bury the pots and pans that mark his history. You obviously guess that I am not talking here only about the concerts of red squares that accompanied his last mandate.
Let’s take a short, anything but exhaustive overview of this very recent past. When we think back to that time, we see the scandals that wrongly led the English-Canadian magazine Maclean’s to declare Quebec as the “most corrupt province in Canada”. In its list of exhibits, the magazine named, among others, the Bastarache commission on the appointment of judges; sticks in awarding contracts in the construction industry; the traffic of places and daycare permits; the Tony Tomassi affair; the additional $75,000 in “salary” paid discreetly by the PLQ to Jean Charest and the federal sponsorship scandal, the center of gravity of which was with Quebec Liberals.
There is also the unbearable putrefaction unearthed in the Charbonneau commission; the Voyageur Island fiasco; the political and financial scandal surrounding the privatization of Mont Orford; the scandal of the SIQ (Société immobilière du Québec); the $100,000 ministers controversy; the dubious ties that united Jean Charest to Marc-Yvan Côté and Marc Bibeau; the search of the headquarters of the PLQ by the UPAC during the reign of Couillard; the Mâchurer investigation which is said to be still active and all the other stories recorded in PLQ inc.this book published by the investigation office of the Quebecor group with a photo of Jean Charest on the cover page.
Despite all these disturbing adventures, which are far from being the only ones, no politician or major organizer of the Liberal Party of the Charest era has been found guilty of anything. So, even if Mr. Charest is legally white as snow and, therefore, has the right to represent himself in politics, this big cloud will always hover over his head. If his friends are active in stifling the words of his detractors in the Quebec media, the very right-wing conservatives in the West who support Pierre Poilievre will probably be very happy to show him more ostensibly this past if he decides to run for their party leadership. Not only will they stir up that murky water they thought was settled, but there’s also a good chance they’ll coat it in falsehoods to make it resonate even louder. This is the very principle of Trumpism, which is beginning to take hold in an uninhibited way in this political landscape.
The arrival of Jean Charest portends another problem. Let’s say he takes the plunge and becomes leader of the Conservative Party. We will then have three Quebecers at the head of the three parties most represented in federal politics. Prime Minister Trudeau in power, and Jean Charest and Yves-François Blanchet as leaders of the first two opposition groups. Yes, no offense to those who believe otherwise, in the rest of Canada, many people think that Justin is there to satisfy the whims of his native Quebec. In fact, in the big world of Quebec bashing followers, we believe and often express the idea that Quebec is a pivotal nation that imposes its will on Canadian politics. The simple need to speak French to become Prime Minister of Canada disturbs these people.
So imagine when the West, a certain movement of which openly displays its separatist ambitions, finds itself before a House of Commons with three leaders from Quebec.
How will the many supporters of Poilievre react when they see that their horse has been taken off the track by an initiative from Quebec? This situation will accentuate the already gigantic divide that separates the western oil provinces from the rest of Canada. How will these people react who live with the feeling that Justin Trudeau’s third term is not legitimate and who have joined the initial demand of the truckers to transform it into a political project? These demonstrations, which have gone around the world, owe much to the feeling of injustice experienced by a certain right in the West faced with the inability of the conservatives to regain power. Convinced that Canada’s electoral system, which does not necessarily crown the winner of the popular vote, discriminates against them, they view Trudeau as a usurper of power and seek undemocratic ways to unseat him. Unless a separation of the Conservative Party into two factions simplifies cohabitation, this very right-wing movement will not do favors to Jean Charest, who was once a Liberal Prime Minister, if he embarked on a leadership race. .
I know I’m repeating myself with this quote again, but remember that 48 hours before his re-election, Justin Trudeau sent us this premonitory and terrifying missive: “I haven’t even nearly finished doing all the great things that I intend to continue to accomplish with the Canadians…” If the only hope of breaking this enchantment is to replace him with Charest, we can say that cynicism has a bright future ahead of it in Canada.