Hard pressed in the polls, Justin Trudeau is bringing out the oldest strategy of all: he will try to buy votes with our own money.
His problem is that federal responsibilities go ten thousand feet over the head of the ordinary voter.
We don’t win elections by doing more and better with the Canadian army, issuing passports or embassies abroad.
- Listen to the interview with Frédéric Boily, full professor at the Campus Saint-Jean of the University of Alberta and specialist in Canadian politics and the conservative movement, conducted by Yasmine Abdelfadel via QUB :
Intrusions
What really gets votes is what affects people’s daily lives: money in their pockets, a roof over their heads, food in their bellies.
But this problem is no longer a problem if Ottawa decides that the sharing of responsibilities between the central government and the provinces no longer holds.
And that’s exactly what Trudeau is doing with his initiatives announced in recent days: meals for children, tenants’ rights, dental care, etc.
All this normally falls under the jurisdiction of the provinces, but Trudeau knows perfectly well that ordinary people do not care about constitutional responsibilities and only want what is concrete and immediate.
In political science, a federal regime is a system of sharing powers between a central government and regional governments, based on coordination between independent entities in their respective fields, and in which each has the fiscal means to assume their roles.
It has been a long time since the Canadian system has been authentically federal.
Those in favor of maintaining Quebec in Canada should be called “Canadianists” and no longer “federalists”.
This new burst of spending by Trudeau comes at a time when the federal debt is already at a stratospheric level.
This same voter who we hope to seduce with candy generally does not see that this federal debt is also theirs, and that they will pay it when Ottawa has to cut its services.
Many believed and still believe that Quebec’s membership in Canada protects us.
Sorry, but if we have eyes to see, Canada no longer protects us, it threatens us.
Say that and there will still be those who will rehash the old litanies.
What, do you really think that Quebec sovereignty would solve all our problems?
I would like to be shown the person who really supports this.
What, leave Canada when we see the state of our health system?
Health systems are crumbling everywhere in the West, and the gradual reduction in the share of the bill paid by Ottawa explains part of our difficulties.
And if independence were a reward for people without problems, how many countries would there be in the world?
Third way?
It is ironic that this new offensive from Ottawa comes when the Quebec government claims not only to be able to protect its autonomy, but also to be capable of making gains in today’s Canada.
It was the promise of this third way that the CAQ claimed to embody.
What do we do now, Mr. Legault?