By ERIC DUHAIME - Do you wonder why Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party is unable to build a base in Quebec? Well, take a look at what happened on Monday night in Quebec’s byelections in the riding of Kamouraska-Temiscouata.
Quebec’s Liberal Premier, Jean Charest, heads the most unpopular government in the province since polls existed. His government is tainted by scandals and allegations of corruption that would make Brian Mulroney’s former government look like altar boys.
In a desperate attempt to keep the riding, Quebec Liberals have spent the last month being ... Liberals!
They tried to buy votes with taxpayers’ money by giving Bombardier a $1.3-billion contract without taking tenders. As a result, 500 new Montreal subway wagons will be built in La Pocatiere, in the heart of the riding.
Despite these shenanigans, the Liberals lost the byelection.
The Parti Quebecois (PQ) won with 37%, followed by Liberals at 36% and the Action democratique du Quebec (ADQ) at 23%.
The local Conservative MP, Bernard Genereux, gave his public endorsement to the Liberal candidate in that byelection, France Dionne, a former Liberal MNA from 1985 to 1997 who resigned to run as a federal Liberal candidate in 1997.
So why does a federal Conservative support a Liberal?
The ADQ is the only right of centre party in Quebec. Charest’s Liberals have been spending the last few months, if not years, attacking the Conservative government in Ottawa on almost every single issue.
They have held their Ottawa-bashing sessions more often than the old PQ governments.
But none of that matters.
Unfortunately, Genereux is not alone. At every opportunity, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon is always ready to commend and support the Charest government. And the list could go on.
Even if their grassroots are the same as the ADQ, it seems the Quebec Conservative elite is an establishment of old Mulroney-Progressive Conservative-Charest-lovers.
And that’s how Stephen Harper’s party alienates its potential base of principled “small-c” conservative Adequistes. It’s that simple.
That Genereux lacks judgment and conviction is one thing. That his party didn’t protect him from himself and think of its long-term well-being is more questionable.
The only excuse these Quebec Conservative-Liberals will use when pushed to their last entrenchments is they want to side with the federalists and stop the separatists.
Sounds like Belinda Stronach when she crossed the floor a few years ago to become a Liberal minister — a poor excuse for short-term opportunism.
The old constitutional fight between the Yes and the No camp is being phased out in Quebec, and being replaced by a debate between the right and the left.
Instead of taking advantage and contributing to this switch, Harper’s team in Quebec prefers being in bed with Jean Charest.
Fortunately, Bernard Genereux is likely to lose his seat in the next general election — one of the only 10 seats Conservatives hold in Quebec — because a huge chunk of the 23% of truly “small-c” conservatives will stay home, spoil their ballots or vote for another candidate since they simply cannot hold their nose and vote for an un-conservative Conservative.
— Duhaime is a freelance writer