Paul St-Pierre Plamondon’s assertion that a referendum will be held in the event of victory for the Parti Québécois (PQ) in the 2026 election illustrates very well in my opinion the concept of sociologist Max Weber in his work The scholar and the politician according to which any activity oriented according to ethics can be subordinated to two totally different and irreducibly opposed maxims. It can be oriented according to the ethics of responsibility or according to the ethics of conviction.
When the consequences of an act done out of pure conviction are unfortunate, the supporter of this ethic will attribute responsibility to others, while the supporter of the ethics of responsibility will consider that he cannot offload the consequences of his own onto others. action.
The supporter of the ethics of conviction will only feel responsible for the need to watch over the flame of pure doctrine so that it does not go out. His actions can only have this one end: to perpetually rekindle the flame of his conviction. The ethics of responsibility is a position based on the conviction that choices must be made, but with a compass which is that of good despite everything against evil.
We cannot doubt the deep convictions of Paul St-Pierre Plamondon in favor of the independence of Quebec. He asserts loud and clear at all times his convictions on the country’s project and does not hide behind an electoral discourse, since he has been leader of the PQ. His beliefs are shared by 35% of the electorate, according to the Léger/Québecor poll published on June 4, an insufficient percentage to achieve the independence of Quebec. What would happen if the independence option was rejected in a third referendum? What would be the consequences for Quebec?
We can imagine that the consequences would be disastrous for Quebec, if we refer to what happened after the result of the 1980 referendum. Indeed, the negotiations which followed between Ottawa and the provinces ended with the repatriation of the Constitution and the exclusion of Quebec which did not sign it. Quebec has been weakened while independence aims to strengthen it, a result contrary to the desired objective. René Lévesque fulfilled his promise to hold a referendum if the Parti Québécois came to power in the 1976 election.
Fifteen years later, Jacques Parizeau took the same path by promising, during the 1994 electoral campaign, to hold a referendum if the PQ was elected to government. However, he committed to holding it at the start of the PQ’s mandate, unlike the first referendum which was held at the end of René Lévesque’s mandate. Noting that the necessary support was not there, he delayed its holding until the fall rather than the spring of 1995. We know the close result, which resulted in a second refusal in fifteen years.
Perhaps if René Lévesque and Jacques Parizeau had known Weber’s concept of the two ethics, they would have spared this setback for Quebec and this humiliation for all those who voted in favor of the governance of the Parti Québécois, but refused him their confidence to achieve the independence of Quebec!
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has a strong ethic of conviction and he wants the Quebec independence project to succeed with his compatriots. I have no doubt that when the time comes, he will also be able to demonstrate a great ethic of responsibility by avoiding a strategic error, which would have serious consequences, by locking himself into holding a third referendum at all costs.
Politics is the art of convincing. If we want the Quebec people to vote for their independence, it is essential to convince them that this is the best solution so that the Quebec nation can finally hold 100% of its decision-making powers.