Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘bloc quebecois’

Well, the votes are in, and Stephen Harper has his majority government.

1. The right moves further to the right. The Tories, after spending five years walking all over Canadians as a minority, now get to walk all over Canadians even more as a majority. Harper believes – as he should, with these numbers – that he has a mandate from Canada to impose his agenda and move the government rightward. Forget the Shit Harper Did; what about the Shit Harper will do?
   
2. The left moves further to the left. The official opposition is now the NDP, not the Liberals. The same NDP who has campaigned on anti-Israel platforms; who cozies up to the labour unions; who believes that quota systems will provide equality.  The NDP is positioning itself as the de facto Tory alternative, and with nearly three times as many seats as the Liberals, it clearly believes that it is the voice of the left – or the potential leader of any merger or move to unite the progressive parties. Ironically, the jubilant Layton doesn’t seem to grasp that he had more power in fourth place in a Tory minority than he does in second place in a Tory majority.
   
3. The middle disintegrates. The Liberal party is in shambles. They lost over half their seats and most of their star MPs. They lost official opposition status. They will have to regroup and rebuild. And the common sense centre, the great balancing force against polarization, is severely crippled. Moderation is what suffers in this outcome.
   
4. A weaker official opposition. A Harper majority is a scary enough prospect. But now 102 NDP MPs – many of whom are complete political rookies – will be heading to Ottawa to serve as the official opposition. Even seasoned Liberal MPs would have had a hard time keeping the Harpers in check. There’s no way that inexperienced political neophytes from the NDP will be able to pull it off. Harper’s now got a majority with no strong opposition; he can basically do whatever he wants and get away with it.
   
5. Bloc collapses, but sovereignty gets a boost. The big news of the night was the Bloc Quebecois’s collapse from 47 seats to 4 amidst the Quebec “orange crush”, and Duceppe’s defeat and resignation. It should be good news for federalism? Right? Wrong. I’ve never seen so many Quebecers feel disenfranchised and alienated from the rest of Canada. This is going to provide a huge boost to sovereignty. I’m about as staunch a federalist as it gets, but even I have to admit that I see their point. Quebec voted overwhelmingly left-wing progressive NDP; the rest of Canada (except for Newfoundland) voted overwhelmingly Conservative. Is there any point in arguing that we’re not different here in La Belle Province?
   
6. Human rights? What human rights? With as many as four Supreme Court seats opening up to be stacked by Harper-crony Conservatives during this term. Abortion rights, gay marriage, rights of women, rights of minorities, immigrants’ rights… you name it, it’s on their agenda for attack.
7. No more funding for arts and culture. That is, unless the Calgary Stampede is your idea of a cultural event.
8. Technology and innovation? Not on Harper’s watch. With important issues facing our country around telecom consolidation, internet billing and metering, privacy, digital rights management… the only party who didn’t respond to Canadians’ concerns about internet and digital policy is the one now holding a majority in Parliament. Four or five more years for the rest of the world to advance while Canada lags behind? Will we even have an economy when Harper is done with us?
9. Canadians get slapped around; claim we fell down the stairs. We have a government who ignores us at every turn, walks all over us, and breaks the law with impunity. We get a chance to toss it out on its ear. Instead, we go crawling back to it. Domestic abuse on a grand scale, anyone? Basically, we’ve just sent Harper a message that he can get away with anything. And he will.
10. Harper plans to reward his “base”. The Alberta-native social conservative movement has been waiting a long time in minority to get rewarded for its efforts to put Harper in power. All this time, he didn’t revisit socially conservative issues because he didn’t have a mandate and knew that the opposition wouldn’t let him get away with it. Now, all these interest groups want their pound of flesh. Our flesh.

The silver lining is, it’s only 4 or 5 years. The question is, will we recognize Canada after all that time?

What does your party believe? I’d venture a guess that only a small number of Canadians who vote actually bother to read their party’s platforms… or the platforms of the other parties.  Even if we concede that politicians break campaign promises all the time, shouldn’t you know what your party is promising before casting your ballot?

Read the platforms here:

• Liberal Party of Canada
• Conservative Party of Canada
• New Democrat Party of Canada
• Bloc Quebecois (in French)
• Green Party of Canada

Then, when you’re done, check out the candidates in your writing. Read up on their voting records, if they are already MPs. Read their blogs, find their  Facebook pages, check out anything they’ve written or published. Make sure you know who you’re voting to send to Parliament on May 2nd.

An uninformed electorate gets the government that it deserves. So get informed.

The Election Prediction Project is forecasting 125 seats for the Conservatives, 94 for the Liberals, 51 for the Bloc, 36 for the NDP, and 2 for Independent candidates. They’ve been pretty dead-on in past elections, so we’ll see if that trend continues this time.

Voting is our most fundamental right and privilege. Regardless of your politics, make sure to exercise that right today and vote. Remember, if you don’t vote, you can’t complain about the results.

The official results are more or less in: It’s a minority government for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, albeit a shaky one.

The real questions are, what now? Will Harper be able to govern? Will the NDP and the Tories combine for 155, or will they just miss? Will Harper work with Duceppe? How long can this crazy mess possibly last?

The good news:

• The Bloc lost both popular vote and seats in Quebec. They can spin all they want, but this was a big blow to them, and is good news in the leadup to the next provincial election and sovereignty referendum.
• Paul Martin is finished as Liberal leader. The party will now be jolted out of corruption and complacency, and will have to reorganize and revitalize itself in preparation for the future.
• The Tories have a win but not necessarily a mandate. Their small minority will not allow them to do all the scary things that the Liberals accused them of wanting to do (and that they probably didn’t want to do in the first place).
• Svend Robinson was defeated in Vancouver. Whew.

The bad news:

• The Bloc Quebecois lost seats but gained power. They’ll now hold the balance of power in government, and they can exact a steep price to keep Harper’s government alive.
• Minority government or not, Stephen Harper is now the Prime Minister of Canada. He has made a number of promises that I’m extremely uncomfortable with, and I suspect, many Canadians are too. (The silver lining here is that politicians are very good at breaking promises).
• Had the Conservatives lost, Stephen Harper would surely have been forced out and the party might have had a chance to elect a more moderate, centrist leader and move to the left. Instead, Harper will keep his job and the Tories will remain socially conservative. Depending on your take on the situation, this is either good or bad. Regular readers here ought to understand how I feel about that one.
• If you’re gay and planning to get married, you might want to move that date up a bit.

And yes, for posterity’s sake, I’ll say it again: I was wrong in my prediction of no gains for the Tories in Quebec.

The polls are only a few hours from opening. I won’t make any definitive number “predictions”, which, in my opinion, are worth about as much as polls (that is to say, not much) other than to say that I think that the polls are overrated. But I do have a few thoughts on how things are likely to turn out:

• Don’t count out the Liberals just yet: I know all the polls have Harper ahead, but the gap has been narrowing over the past week and the latest polling data is at least 48 hours old. Vote distribution is a matter of interpretation, and the people doing the interpreting are just as guilty of bandwagon-jumping as the next person. Furthermore, what people answer in polls always differs from what they actually do on election day at the ballot box. I’m not saying Harper will lose, I’m just saying it’s not a lock that he’ll win either. If tomorrow ushered in another Martin minority government, I wouldn’t be shocked.
• Predictions of a Tory breakthrough in Quebec are premature: On the same note, I’m simply not convinced of polls that have the Conservatives picking up multiple seats in Quebec. While their support numbers are higher than the Liberals, the Libs’ support is concentrated here in Montreal and the Tory support is spread out all over the province. One Tory seat? Maybe. None, most likely. Certainly not eight or ten. Won’t happen. Not this election.
• The Bloc will likely hold the balance of power: That’s the most likely scenario in a Tory minority government. The Liberals will rarely support the Conservatives, and the NDP almost never. If Harper wants to govern, he’ll need the Bloc. That won’t be good for Canadian unity no matter how they spin it. And if Harper refuses to deal with Duceppe, it will be a very short time until we’re right back at the polls.
• Paul Martin’s dusting off his resume: If the Tories win tomorrow, Paul Martin can kiss his political career goodbye. If nothing else, that would help the Liberals move past the sponsorship scandal and start with a clean slate, so to speak. As for Martin, what do ex-Prime Ministers do nowadays when they’re not testifying at federal enquiries? Anyone heard from Kim Campbell lately?
• There will be a January 24th: Whoever wins the election, life will go on. The sun will rise in the east. Canada probably won’t be all that different from what it is now.
• A little perspective: We can quibble all we want over sponsorship scandals, constitutional reform, healthcare or tax cuts, but remember that whoever wins will be democratically-elected, relatively moderate, and won’t be killing people in torture chambers. Even those of us holding our noses and voting for the “best of the worst” would do well to pause for a moment and appreciate the momentous significance of having the right to vote at all. Because I look around the world and I realize that it’s no small thing.

Vote early, vote often, vote your conscience. Stay tuned for liveblogging of the results tomorrow night.

In a bizarre twist, ADQ leader Mario Dumont spoke out Thursday saying he intends to vote Conservative and urging Quebecers not to vote for the Bloc:

Dumont said the Bloc limits the province’s influence on the national scene and acts more like a millstone around Quebecers’ necks.

He said he would vote Conservative, but only recommended that voters not vote for the Bloc.

This is a truly odd move for a politician whose party has practically defined fence-strattling on the sovereignty issue, but is nonetheless pretty clearly separatist. The ADQ spiked in popularity a few years back, but came down pretty quickly when people in Quebec realized the party’s platform was a lot further to the right than most of them agreed with.

So ideologically I can understand why Dumont might vote Tory. Politically, I’m not quite sure what he’s doing. Viewed in context of the next election, is Dumont perhaps repositioning himself as a federalist? Doubtful. Though he usually answers questions about sovereignty with the convenient answer that he wants to “get past” the issue, Dumont has never been anything but nationalist.

More likely, he’s betting that the provincial Liberals have lost so much support, that if the ADQ wants to win seats in the next provincial election, their real opponents will be the Parti Quebecois. He sees Bloc momentum as leading to PQ momentum, and he wants to position himself as an alternative voice.

At any rate, most people in Quebec are unlikely to listen. Whatever happens in the rest of Canada, Gilles Duceppe has never been more popular in Quebec right now, and the Bloc is positioned to win perhaps 60 seats, maybe even more. Despite recent polls showing the Tories taking a slight lead overall in Quebec over the Liberals, this is unlikely to translate into any Tory seats, as their numbers will put them second in a number of Bloc ridings but the Liberals still have concentrated support in many Montreal ridings (including my own).

So Dumont’s comments will probably have little effect in the short-term. But they’re worth keeping an eye on for how they might affect the political landscape ahead of the next Quebec election.

Wow, I’m amazed… Gilles Duceppe is opting not to seek the PQ leadership and instead, to keep his job as leader of the Bloc Quebecois in Ottawa:

Le chef du Bloc québécois, Gilles Duceppe, a annoncé ce matin à Ottawa qu’il renonçait à se lancer dans la course à la direction du Parti québécois. M. Duceppe ignore donc les appels de ceux qui le voyaient succéder à Bernard Landry.

M. Duceppe croit que c’est à Ottawa qu’il servira le mieux la cause indépendantiste. “La prochaine étape dans la longue marche du mouvement souverainiste, ce sont les élections fédérales. Deux courses au leadership en même temps et une élection, c’est ça qui m’a convaincu de rester ici.”

I must say, I’m astounded. Duceppe would have been a shoo-in for PQ leadership and almost a dead certainty as Quebec’s next premier. He also would have given the sovereignty push a shot in the arm, leading to an increased likelihood of a “yes” win in the next referendum.

Duceppe’s decision may backfire on his popularity among sovereigntists, who saw him as the next Bouchard, the great white hope for nationalism. Now that he’s essentially chosen federal politics over provincial ones, will it be interpreted as sending a message of Canada over Quebec to his supporters?

More to the point, who will be the next PQ leader now? Pauline Marois? The PQ has plenty of hard-liners but very few charismatic or popular leadership candidates that can bridge the gap and bring in the “soft nationalists” needed to win a referendum. And while it’s true that they came within a hair’s breath in 1995 with the buffoonic Parizeau at the helm of the party and Bouchard calling the shots from Ottawa, a repeat seems unlikely. I hope and suspect that Duceppe’s decision will deliver a real blow to sovereignty.

It looks like the NDP will vote with the Liberals for the throne speech, and the Tories and the Bloc will vote against. That would cause a tie – 153 votes for, 153 against. Leaving the fate of the government up to Independent MP Chuck Cadman:

Independent MP Chuck Cadman’s single seat could give a Tory-BQ voting bloc enough votes to overcome a Liberal-NDP partnership. On Tuesday, he told reporters that he is “pretty well neutral” on the issue of bringing down the government at the moment.

No pressure, eh?

Of course, there’s still some horse-trading going on before that point is reached. I sincerely doubt that the government will fall today… if only because any party who causes it to collapse will pay the price dearly in the next election. The Liberals will probably make enough promises to the Conservatives to get them to come on board for the time being.

Still, these alliances are indicative of things to come. It could be a rocky few months.

Gilles Duceppe on June 27: “As I have said from the beginning, we won’t decide sovereignty on the 28th.”

Gilles Duceppe on June 29: “We will carry through with this struggle until we reach the country we need to give ourselves.”

Why does this not surprise me?

The thing is, many of the people who voted for the Bloc were not, in fact, voting for sovereignty. They were trying to teach the Liberals a lesson, angry about the sponsorship scandal and believing that the Bloc could best represent Quebec’s interests in Ottawa. But they would vote “No” in a referendum.

However, the Parti Quebecois has been sitting on the sovereignty issue far too long. Look for them to start talking about it more and more, as Charest and his Liberals lose popularity with each passing day of their term in office. The people don’t want another referendum, but the politicians sure do, and something tells me we’re in a countdown to one that launched on Monday.

I can’t wait. *Groan*.

A new poll suggests that the stage is shifting in Canadian politics. The Liberals are far and away still the most popular party, and are even gaining support. The second-place Canadian Alliance has dropped to 4th place, the formerly marginal Conservatives have jumped to second, and the NDP is up in third place.

The good news is that the Bloc Quebecois is virtually disappearing from the scene in terms of popular support – although it is sure to keep winning several stronghold seats here in Quebec due to the riding system. But with the NDP and the Conservatives virtually neck-and-neck in second place, the prospect of a Liberal government and an NDP opposition are – needless to say – quite disconcerting. Not that I expect that to happen . . . but the trend is an unhappy one.