It's good to see Quebec's third provincial party, Action démocratique du Québec, taking a stab, however tentative, at courting the anglo vote. To that end party leader Gérard Deltell has taken on a new special adviser for Montreal and the Englishspeaking community in the person of Montreal West city councillor Dino Mazzone.
Mind you, it took Mazzone to approach Deltell instead of vice-versa, which would have demonstrated more initiative on the leader's part, but at least it's a start toward what could develop into something interesting. Certainly the anglophone community could do with a viable voting alternative. The Parti Québécois offers no attraction, while the Liberals regard anglophones as a captive voting bloc that they hardly have to bother courting. But if it hopes to get anywhere on the West Island or other anglo enclaves, the ADQ has a lot of catching up to do.
Unlike the PQ, the ADQ has not been overtly hostile to anglophone community aspirations, but it has for the most part been tonedeaf to anglo concerns. Under former leader Mario Dumont it backed the PQ's misbegotten Montreal Island municipal merger scheme. It has campaigned for the elimination of school boards, the anglophone community's only elective representative bodies. When the reasonable-accommodation debate arose, the ADQ was the party most closely allied with the intolerant elements famously typified by the Hérouxville town council's manifesto on proper immigrant behaviour.
While it would be helpful for the party's prospects, winning over the anglo vote, or at least a significant portion thereof, won't be enough to bring it within hailing distance of power. For that it will have to capture the greater part of the francophone vote, which is what decides elections in Quebec. And to have any hope of achieving that, it would appear the ADQ will have to strike an accommodation with François Legault and his nascent Coalition for the future of Quebec.
This would probably require the dissolution of the ADQ and the formation of a new party. It would also require a statesmanlike sacrifice from Deltell to let Legault take the lead of the new entity. But then the hard fact is that polls show Legault has the profile to possibly lead a breakthrough over the Liberals and PQ while Deltell on his own has next to no hope of doing so.
It is a long shot, and given the complexities involved there is relatively little time remaining to organize such a venture before the next election. But if the ADQ and its leader truly have at heart Quebec's best interests - including those of the anglophone community - they will do what it takes to stop the PQ from taking power with its agenda of imposing even more repressive language laws and fomenting a constitutional crisis.