When the heart is no longer there

Last May, the general council of Québec solidaire (QS) held in Jonquière ended on a bitter note for many. The rebellion against the “pragmatic” turn that Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois wanted to impose had been broken, but many hearts had also been broken.

The Saguenay Declaration was intended to be the starting point for an “update” of the program which would make QS a true “government party”, which opponents saw rather as its transformation into a party “like the others”.

After the deluge of open letters which preceded the general council, the last few months have been marked by a silence which should be more worrying than reassuring for the future. The worst that could happen to QS is not that the debate resumes, but that it dies down for lack of protagonists. Better agitation than anemia.

We may find that Émilise Lessard-Therrien had an overly romantic vision of political action, but this vision was nevertheless shared by many activists, for whom so-called pragmatism is rather a synonym for opportunism.

In their eyes, the treatment reserved for the former member for Rouyn-Noranda–Témiscamingue during her brief mandate as women’s spokesperson demonstrated that QS was in the process of losing its soul.

The absence of a succession race and the upcoming coronation of the MP for Mercier, Ruba Ghazal, who wants to embody “the unity of the party and the love of Quebec”, perhaps reflect a sort of resignation and a refusal to engage in a game where the dice seem loaded.

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Political activism is a matter of conviction which sometimes does not fit well with strategic considerations which resemble a denial. We have seen in the past where the search for “winning conditions” and “moral assurances” led the Parti Québécois (PQ). When the heart is no longer there…

In the National Assembly, the effectiveness of the parliamentary wing of QS and its leader is undeniable. Specifically, they are criticized for participating in what Amir Khadir described as the “purring of parliamentarism” and for falling into the trap of electoralism.

If at least the voters let themselves be taken in! The latest Pallas Data survey carried out for the Qc125 site and the magazine News will do nothing to appease the activists who themselves believe they have been trapped. This risks rather reinforcing their impression that, far from approaching power, the “party of government” is moving away from it.

Between June and September, voting intentions for QS would have fallen from 16% to 12%, their lowest level recorded since February 2022, and the party would now find itself in fourth place, behind the Conservative Party of Quebec.

Of course, a lot of things can change between now and the next election, but the survey nevertheless contains some fairly worrying data, particularly with regard to the youth vote. For years, in all polls, QS largely dominated the 18-34 age group. According to Pallas Data, the PQ now holds a lead of 13 points (33-20).

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After the catastrophic start of the Legault government’s session, the CAQ should be relieved to see that their party finds itself at the same level (22%) as last June. A bit like the Canadiens’ supporters learned the “good news” that they had lost the new savior of Sainte-Flanelle, Patrik Laine, for a period of three months rather than six.

However, there is no guarantee that the floor has been hit. If a good number of PQ voters who joined the Coalition Avenir Québec in 2018 to get rid of Philippe Couillard’s Liberals have returned home, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon now seems to want to also seduce those who are disappointed at having waited in vain that the Legault government does a “clean-up” of the state apparatus.

The great unknown remains the effect that the election of the next leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) could have and his ability to also recover the voters who deserted him. Dominique Anglade did not succeed, but the resurrection of the PQ and the possibility of a third referendum could make the task easier for his successor.

However, those who moved to the CAQ are not the only ones targeted. During the March 2023 by-election in Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne, many Liberals disappointed with their party clearly abstained from voting, but others undoubtedly contributed to the victory of solidarity-based Guillaume Cliche-Rivard. The PLQ will also seek to repatriate them. The task will be all the easier if the heart is no longer in it.

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