Less than 24 hours into Quebec’s 40th general election campaign, the ballot question is already boiling down to a clear choix de société, born of the student strikes: Big Liberal government labouring under the smell of corruption, or bigger Parti Québécois government catering to the lawlessness of “the street.”
The Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) finds itself pinched in between, sitting at 21% in the latest Leger Marketing poll, in which the PQ holds a narrow advantage at 33% to the Liberals’ 31%. Only 16% of Quebecers see the CAQ’s François Legault as the best choice for premier, while Premier Jean Charest can take solace in being the choice of 23%, to Pauline Marois’ 21%.
Of course, the big winner is… nobody: 31% of respondents did not know who to name or refused to answer.
The same poll found that only 9% of Quebecers see sovereignty as the main issue in this campaign. Nevertheless, both Ms. Marois and Mr. Charest are doing all they can to resurrect the separatist bogeyman. Tuesday night, and again at his campaign launch, Mr. Charest accused Ms. Marois of planning to use a victory on Sept. 4 as a springboard to another referendum. For her part, Ms. Marois couldn’t even resist politicizing the Olympic Games, commenting that “In an independent Quebec we could continue to win our medals.”
Insert loud groans here — and not just at the tastelessness of the PQ leader’s statement. The question is, why revisit this issue when the Quebec public is clearly on a different track? Answer: because it’s familiar, it’s easy, and it serves both the Liberals’ and the PQ’s purposes, polarizing the vote along traditional federalist-separatist lines and scaring voters off the CAQ. It also makes for a tedious conversation, one which has been done to death over the past 50 years and which has prevented Quebecers from debating the important issues, such as the size of the state and the respective roles of the private and public sector in that state.


Apart from the Quebec people, the other big loser here if separatism roars back to life is the federal Conservative Party. Launching her campaign on Wednesday, Ms. Marois made it clear she has the Prime Minister in her sights: “Quebec needs to stand up against Stephen Harper’s government attacks against our economic interests and our values. Canada has become a risk for Quebec. We will eventually have to choose between remaining a province of Canada or become a country.”
The last foe Mr. Harper wants to face is a militant PQ government, throwing a wrench into his plans with incessant demands for more powers. Ottawa wants to show the world Canada is open for business, not stuck debating its very existence. The PM is also promoting a western agenda, including [selling] the Northern Gateway pipeline, and knows Alberta voters have as much appetite for placating Quebec as they do for Thomas Mulcair’s rants about Dutch disease.
But a revival of the old separatist debate would help one political institution that desperately needs a boost: the federal Liberal Party. National unity was its bread and butter issue for almost half a century. Should it return to the national agenda, Liberal support could grow, but more outside Quebec than within it. That would leave the province in the hands of the NDP, creating a situation where the Tories could slip from majority status — or from power entirely.
It remains to be seen whether self-serving party leaders can change the channel back to the nationalist debate. But if they do, they should know that their actions will have implications far beyond Quebec.
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National Post
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