Yesterday two polls seem to indicate that the jury of public opinion has rendered its verdict: A majority of Quebecers refuse to believe the premier on the crucial issue of his government's integrity and his own.
An Angus Reid-La Presse poll shows that 60 per cent of respondents, including two thirds of francophones, believe former justice minister Marc Bellemare, who accused Jean Charest of turning a blind eye to what he called "influence peddling" in the appointment of judges by some Liberal fundraisers. A Léger Marketing-Journal de Montréal poll put it at 64 per cent.
According to Angus Reid, Liberal Party support has free-fallen to 23 per cent. Among francophones, the Parti Québécois is now at 47 per cent, leaving Liberals at 17 per cent - only four points more than Action démocratique.
In the "best-premier" category, only 15 per cent pick Jean Charest. Fifty-nine per cent believe Bellemare when he says that the premier participated in influence-peddling. Translation: A majority of Quebecers don't trust their own premier anymore.
But the most spectacular finding is that 74 per cent say it's time to change the government. Yesterday, Pauline Marois refused to dare the government to call an election, but this poll indicates that this is what most Quebecers want.
This is what matters: These numbers have actually been a year in the making. Bellemare's allegations served only as the proverbial straw that broke the voters' backs.
So these numbers are the price the premier is paying for his stubborn refusal to set up a full public and independent commission of inquiry into the allegations of corruption, collusion, and cost-overruns in construction contracts as well as the industry's alleged proximity and generosity to the Charest government.
And other allegations have been piling about daycare-centre permits allotted to generous Liberal donors, overflowing Liberal Party coffers, and now, possible influence-peddling in the naming of judges.
For some, the question becomes: Will Jean Charest survive politically? He always has, right? But the real question is this: Will the Liberal Party, with or without him, be able to recover in time for the next election?
Some think it can because it did so in 2007 when it won the election despite racking up dissatisfaction rates of more than 65 and 70 per cent between 2004 and 2006.
But that was then and this is now. In 2007, Charest had the immense fortune of facing André Boisclair - a PQ leader who quickly became unpopular, even among Péquistes. Even with that serious advantage, the Liberals ended up with a minority government.
Had the PQ been headed by a more credible leader, it's quite possible that the Liberals would have been ousted.
But the big difference today is that after a year of troubling allegations, the dominant perception among most voters, founded or not, is that this government is corrupt. Whereas during its first term, what made it unpopular was its image of arrogance, fuelled by its refusal to consult as it tried to "re-engineer the state" and by its rush into unpopular decisions such a privatizing Mont Orford and offering full subsidies to Jewish day schools.
In a democracy, there's a huge difference between mere arrogance and perceived corruption. You can recover from the former if you retreat far enough, but perceived corruption is seldom forgiven by voters.
Even Charest's announcement of an inquiry won't help him, because the inquiry will look solely into the judicial nomination process, not the more contentious issue of Liberal Party financing.
As for Charest's decision to sue Bellemare for $700,000, that's not the wisest choice either, given that more than 60 per cent of Quebecers believe Bellemare, not the premier.
It all comes down to this: As the premier keeps saying no to a full-fledged public inquiry on the three Cs - corruption, collusion, and construction - while suing his own former justice minister, chances are this will only reinforce the impression among voters, even Liberals, that the premier is hiding something.
More worrisome is how this saga is contaminating voters' perception of the whole political class. According to Angus Reid, a huge 80 per cent said that this kind of alleged influence-peddling could occur in any party that's in power. That hurts politics, politicians, and democracy itself.
But that's usually what happens when, rightly or wrongly, the word "corruption" gets top billing on the political scene for more than a year and a premier keeps making the mistake of thinking that it would all go away with time.