Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘gilles duceppe’

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.

The PQ leadership race is shaping up to be interesting. Pauline Marois has already announced her candidacy and Francois Legault is expected to follow. But if Gilles Duceppe throws his hat into the ring, he’s almost certain to sweep the contest.

Unfortunately, the PQ old guard is determined to take the party down the old familiar road again:

Outgoing party vice-president Marie Malavoy warned that the leadership candidates must embrace the party program adopted yesterday, one that was largely influenced by Mr. Landry.

The program, which calls for a referendum on sovereignty “as soon as possible” should the PQ form the next government, reflected Mr. Landry’s approach. Party hard-liners failed in their bid to adopt a more radical program, and say they will now use the leadership race to influence candidates to ensure that whoever becomes party leader will be committed to governing Quebec as though it were a country, with the determination to achieve Quebec independence.

If this is indeed the “old guard’s last stand”, we can expect a full guns blazing sovereignty campaign to kick off right about now. The next election may be a couple of years away, but that just gives the PQ more time to rally support for separation. And with the federalist camp in shambles, it’s gonna be a *long* few years.

Update: Right on cue, Duceppe now says he’s considering running for the job. This is all for show; he wouldn’t have announced that if he hadn’t decided to run. Prepare for Premier Duceppe by 2008. *Sigh*…

I guess the PQ is already gearing up for the next provincial election, as party leader Bernard Landry announced he will resign, paving the way for a new – and more charismatic – leader to be elected:

Landry made the surprise announcement after getting a 76.2 percent confidence vote from party members at the Parti Quebecois’ convention in Quebec City, capital of the mainly French-speaking province of 7.4 million.

“It breaks my heart to tell you this, but I’m doing it in the national interest,” Landry said, according to a report by CBC television. “I’m sorry to do this.”

Landry said previously that if he got more than 76 percent in the leadership review vote he would remain at the helm, but the 68-year-old politician has faced criticism from within the party since losing the 2003 provincial election.

Who’s surprised? Not me. Landry was never going to be party leader in the next election campaign, and this timing gives the PQ a chance to bring in somebody new before election frenzy hits.

My bet for new party leader? Gilles Duceppe. After all, he’s the most popular politician in Quebec right now, and the leadership of the Bloc is really nothing but a launching pad for provincial leadership, as established by Lucien Bouchard’s precedent.

It was already pretty much guaranteed that the PQ would win the next election, with the Liberals’ numbers somewhere down around the temperature in centigrade on a mid-January day in Montreal. But with Landry as premier, it was doubtful that the separatists could win a referendum. If Duceppe takes the helm, however, that changes the whole ball game. And unless the federalist camp starts gearing up for a fight soon, there’s a frighteningly realistic possibility that we could lose.

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*.

According to a CBC poll, us Canadians don’t know much about our government.

Some interesting results of this poll: While only 84% of us could name our Prime Minister, 97% correctly named the President of the United States. And 17% of Quebecers thought that Gilles Duceppe was the leader of the opposition.

Yes, these are the people who decided tonight’s election. Sometimes I read these results and get very scared.

One last thought on the election before I go to sleep: It’s still close. Many ridings were won with squeakers, and others are still undecided. With recounts, the results may still change enough to make a difference.

At the moment, the NDP and Liberals are combining for 157 seats. Remember that 155 is needed for a majority. That’s a close enough number that any recounts, slim losses, or bolting of MPs may put the notion of a Liberal-NDP coalition in danger. Or at least one can only hope…

If Layton gets his way, his popular vote will translate into a lot more seats next time around. But I can’t imagine any of the other parties approving proportional representation. It’s not in their best interests.

And of course, if Duceppe has his way, then Quebec won’t be in Canada in time for the next federal election. And to think that in 8 ridings, the Conservatives stole enough Liberal votes to elect Bloc MPs. *Sigh*.

Update: The combined Liberal-NDP total is now down to 155 predicted seats. However it ends up, it’s going to be close.

7:30pm: It’s gonna be a long night. Despite the TV networks’ rush to predict the result first, I doubt anyone will know anything certain for quite some time.

I will update the table above intermittently when candidates are declared elected, but I assume most people will be watching the coverage live. Instead, I’ll post some comments as I go along.

8:15pm: So far, the results for the Liberals aren’t looking nearly as grim as most of the media had been predicting.

They just announced that Scott Brison managed to win his riding – as a Liberal. Very interesting. Unlike a lot of people, I don’t view switching parties as a sign of being a “traitor”, but more as a sign of wanting to stay true to one’s ideals. Some people accused Brison of opportunism, but I think he just found that his values fit better with the Liberal party. Apparently, most voters in his riding agreed.

On the other hand, John Herron, who also switched from the Tories to the Libs, lost to the Conservative candidate in his riding. Win some, lose some.

8:50pm: Bad news for the Conservatives all over Eastern Canada, as they are down in seats and way down in popular vote. The Liberals have done what they needed to do in that part of the country, at any rate. There won’t be much more news until results start to come in from Quebec, Ontario, and Central Canada.

9:10pm: The first Bloc Quebecois MP has been elected, in Gaspésie/Îles-de-la-Madeleine. A sign of things to come in Quebec as a whole? Probably.

9:25pm: Local Conservative Party headquarters in Montreal are in a friggin’ Cage au Sports! That’s hysterical!!!

9:30pm: Polls are now closed in most of the country. Results should start to come in pretty quickly now.

9:45pm: Everyone’s talking about Layton versus Mills in the hotly-contested riding of Toronto-Danforth. But the big story that hasn’t been reported there is that the Conservative Party candidate, a guy with the odd-sounding name of Loftus Cuddy, is the brother of Blue Rodeo’s lead singer Jim Cuddy. (Blue Rodeo’s concert on Saturday at Bourbon Street North was awesome, by the way).

10:05pm: CTV just predicted a Liberal win, though they’re not saying yet whether it will be a majority or a minority.

Remember folks, you heard it here first.

10:15pm: With only 2 out of 205 polls reporting, my riding of NDG-Lachine has been declared a win for incumbent Liberal Marlene Jennings. No surprises there. I knew when I voted for her that it wouldn’t be much of a race.

10:30pm: The media networks are all projecting a Liberal minority now. As happy as I am that the Liberals will be taking it, my relief is tempered by the fact that the NDP might get enough seats to combine with the Liberals for a majority, thus giving the NDP all kinds of undeserved power in government and swinging policies to the far left. I’m crossing my fingers that they’re wrong.

10:45pm: David Pratt, the Liberal minister of defence, was defeated in his riding. Some big-name Liberals are falling to the Tories, but it won’t be enough for Harper’s team to take the reins. The Liberals are still way ahead.

10:50pm: At the moment, using elected and leading totals, it’s looking like Liberals + NDP will combine for enough seats for a majority. Goddammit! This is bad, bad news for Canada.

11:00pm: L. Ian MacDonald is talking about a “Lib-Lab” coalition, and Jack Layton dusting off his shopping list. With the NDP holding the balance of power, this is probably one of the worst-case scenarios that could have emerged. The Liberals had a golden opportunity to move rightward, towards the middle, under Paul Martin. Instead, thanks to the Bloc sweep in Quebec, the party will be forced to move leftward.

11:15pm: It’s all over now but the fat lady singing.

Gilles Duceppe just gave his triumphant victory speech after his sweep in Quebec, and – surprise surprise – is suddenly talking about sovereignty again nonstop (after swearing that this vote was not about separation). I don’t know why this stuff even bothers me anymore, it’s so expected. Still, this is bad news for Quebec.

In the rest of the country, it’s pretty much understood that Paul Martin will govern with Jack Layton’s help. The NDP agenda will be front-and-center, and we can kiss Martin’s fiscally-responsible policies, like debt reduction, goodbye.

The good news is the Liberals won. The bad news is, well, everything else. Unfortunately, I predicted this.

I find myself agreeing with both Paul Wells and Antonia Zerbisias (both via Damian Penny).

First, Paul Wells reacts to the debate:

What a bunch of braying jackasses. What a pathetic embarrassment, the lot of them.

And, believe it or not, uber-nitwit Antonia Zerbisias makes an actual good point (yes, it’s rare):

If there was a winner in this conflagration, it was probably Duceppe, who not only acquitted himself well in English but did so with more animation than he did in his native French.

Sad, I agree.

I was flying home from Toronto today but I caught snatches of the debate on the radio, and the end on television.

Two thoughts were running through my head for most of the debate: That it was actually kind of funny, and would be even funnier if not for the sad fact that these are the leaders of our country, and that it’s even sadder that Duceppe actually seems to be winning.

Harper seemed like he was already looking ahead to the prospect of a minority government, soft-pedalling his debates with Layton and especially Duceppe. Martin, for his part, looked like a tomato about to burst. Layton was just plain creepy with his fake smile that he wore the entire time. And is it just me or do you find it sad that Duceppe’s English is better than Martin’s French?

If I have to award points – and admittedly it’s tough – I’d give them to the following candidates:

To Paul Martin, for being the only candidate not to suck up to Gilles Duceppe.

To Stephen Harper, for being soft-spoken while everyone else was yelling like little children.

To Jack Layton, for actually managing to wear that smile for the entire time.

To Gilles Duceppe, for managing to use the words “fiscal imbalance” a record number of times in a two-hour period.

And last but not least, to the moderator, for staying awake.

The French election debate was a bit too boring to hold my interest for more than a few minutes.

Predictably, Paul Martin came under attack, as did Stephen Harper. Also not too surprisingly, most of the commentary seems to agree that Gilles Duceppe scored the most points, and Bloc voters are unlikely to swing back to the Liberals on the basis of this debate. If Harper thought he was going to win any seats in Quebec, he also probably blew his chance tonight.

But in general, the debate was scripted, rehearsed, and had few surprises.

Tremblay versus Trent was much more interesting. Who knew Peter Trent could (sort of) speak French?