Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘sovereignty’

I’m taking these results with a big shakerful of salt: A new CROP poll finds that a majority of Quebecers – 63% – are proud to be Canadian, and that 71% feel the sovereignty debate is a thing of the past:

In another sign that Quebecers are rejecting decades of political debate surrounding the Quebec sovereignty issue, the poll found that respondents were reluctant to identify themselves with traditional ideological brands. Only 19 per cent identified themselves as sovereignists, 20 per cent as federalists, 17 per cent as nationalists and eight per cent as autonomists.

The biggest portion of respondents – 37 per cent – did not identify themselves with any of those categories.

Which raises the question of terminology and phrasing. I’m not convinced that the national identity debate is dead; I think it’s just going through a re-branding. Words like “nationalism” and “sovereignty” are turning off the current generation – in both languages. But the sharp divide still remains, possibly reinforced by the Harper government’s massive lack of popularity here in Quebec.

Another thing going on here might be a sense of security. Quebecers, thanks to two generations of protections, now feel like their identity is less threatened than ever before. At the same time, they’re extending beyond borders. The struggles of today are more global and less local in scope, and the nationalism debate is going to naturally seem outdated to a bilingual francophone from HoMa who is organizing a G8 protest and campaigning for human rights in North Africa.

The point is, I don’t think that Quebecers feel more Canadian than they do in the past. I think they’re just less interested in talking constitutional debate.

Still, this is the first cautionary piece of good news that we’ve seen on the federalist side in ages. I’d like to see some reinforcing polling numbers over time, but it could mean good news in terms of how the next provincial election debate will be shaped. Especially if Francois Legault keeps beating the “beyond sovereignty” drum and forcing the other parties to talk about something else. Like, maybe healthcare, or infrastructure, or the economy, or issues of real concern to Quebecers of all political stripes.

One can hope, anyway.

The sudden defection of four high-profile Parti Quebecois MNAs, including Louise Beaudoin, has everyone asking questions, and has Pauline Marois scrambling to defend her leadership of a party that can only be characterized as being in the midst of a full-scale crisis.

And everyone is asking, what the hell happened? How could a party that had a commanding lead in the polls, whose leader won a 93% confidence vote less than two months ago, and who most pundits predicted had a virtual lock on winning the next provincial election, be self-destructing like this?

The ostensible catalyst – a vote on a private member’s bill that would have guaranteed naming rights for a new arena in a bid to attract an NHL team back to Quebec City – was merely the trigger; the ingredients of this turmoil have been marinating much longer than that. That vote has been shelved now anyway, though it’s entirely beside the point.

So what happened in a mere two months?

Well, the NDP happened, for one thing. The media wanted to claim that the Layton sweep of Quebec – and the Bloc Quebecois self-destruction that accompanied it – meant that Quebecers had moved past sovereignty, and were embracing their role as part of a united Canada. Bloggers claimed that sovereignty is dead in Quebec.

Those of us who live here know different. We know that the NDP win here, coupled with the Tory win just about everywhere else, actually led to an increase in support for sovereignty in the aftermath of an election that made us feel more alienated from the rest of Canada than ever.

And the defecting MNAs from the PQ know it too. They see the tide turning, and they’re getting impatient. They’re pushing for a sea change. No more “winning conditions”, no more of Marois’s strategy – so eagerly backed just two short months ago – of putting referendum timing on the back burner and concentrating on winning elections and on governing. They don’t want to govern a province; they want a country. And they feel like fifteen years since the squeaker referendum of 1995 is fifteen years too many.

This position is being made clear by Jean-Martin Aussant, the fourth PQ member to defect and the most openly blunt about his reasons:

“I’m here to work on sovereignty. And I don’t think she’s the one Quebecers will want to follow, at a very high rate, towards sovereignty,” Aussant told a news conference.

“That’s a very cruel statement. It’s a hard one to say. It’s probably a hard one to hear, from them, but that’s what I think.”

And now former Premier Bernard Landry is speaking out, too:

Landry says the PQ has become too complacent and its members, who want a more strident pursuit of the party’s raison d’etre, are now pushing back.

“There are other things (causing this),” Landry told Radio-Canada on Tuesday. He said the pursuit of power should take a back seat to principles — like the quest for independence.

Such a move would represent a strategic shift for a party which, for more than 15 years, has placed its emphasis on governing or winning government — and has simply expressed its hope to hold a vote on independence eventually, whenever the conditions are right.

“Rene Levesque did not found this party to govern the province of Quebec,” Landry said Tuesday. “The obsession should be public service — not taking power. It’s better to take power later — but to take it with dignity.”

The Pequistes who are dialing up the sovereignty-now talk aren’t doing so off the cuff. They’re seeing the same things we are; hearing the same conversations, feeling the same winds in the air. They’re seeing how Stephen Harper in power and Jack Layton in opposition is making many Quebec soft nationalists re-evaluate just how Canadian they feel after all. And they feel like it’s time to strike while the iron is hot.

On the surface, the self-destruction of one sovereignty party and the turmoil of the other would be good news for federalism. Under the surface, it’s anything but.

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?

Oh, this is just brilliant:

A former Harper cabinet minister’s politically radical idea that Quebec be required — by law — to hold an independence referendum every 15 years is being swiftly mocked.

Michael Fortier, the Tories’ one-time public-works minister, argued Thursday that mandatory referendums would actually help Quebec move beyond its eternal unity debates.

Referendums brought Canada to the brink of rupture in 1980 and 1995 but, Fortier says, mandatory plebiscites would at least ensure 14 years of peace between votes.

His idea was emphatically ridiculed by the Prime Minister’s Office and Quebec’s federalist politicians Thursday.

But is it such a dumb idea? Really, what Fortier was calling for was to have designated periods, spaced far apart, for the national unity question to be discussed, and for everyone to shut up about the sovereignty debate the rest of the time.

There’s just one problem with that theory: We don’t need any more referendums in order to shut up about sovereignty. We just need to stop talking about it. Which, need I point out, we pretty much already have been… until Fortier opened his big mouth.

While most eyes look westward to Vancouver, back at home, Quebec is in a tizzy over former PQ leader Lucien Bouchard’s public comments against his old party, accusing them of narrow-mindedness and saying that sovereignty is no longer achievable:

M. Bouchard est persuadé qu’il ne verra pas un autre référendum sur la souveraineté de son vivant. L’ancien chef péquiste est toujours souverainiste, mais la souveraineté est devenue une question hypothétique; elle n’est donc pas une solution aux problèmes du Québec.

Bouchard also blasted the PQ for intolerance towards religious minorities, claiming that they were fishing for votes among former ADQ supporters and that the debate around reasonable accommodation was really nothing more than thinly-disguised racism.

Predictably, Bouchard’s comments have caused a stir. Gilles Duceppe is playing spin doctor. Jean Charest is cozying up to his former rival and colleague. And Pauline Marois reacted to Bouchard’s racism charges by opposing a Liberal plan to allow Jewish schools to teach on Sundays. Way to prove Bouchard’s point for him nicely, there, Pauline.

Even in the worst divisive moments of the lead-up to the 1995 referendum, Bouchard still commanded respect among federalists, in a way that the bumbling buffoonery of the Jacques Parizeau set never did. I can’t and won’t ever agree with Lucien Bouchard on his politics. However, since leaving political life, he has shown that he isn’t afraid to speak the unpopular truths, whether it was speaking out for Israel at the 2003 Yom Ha’atzmaut rally (to a staunchly federalist crowd, no less), or calling for a “Québec lucide” in 2005. It’s ironic, perhaps, that the man responsible for bringing Canada to the brink of breakup has somehow emerged as something of a voice of conscience of the sovereignty movement.

With the PQ in opposition and sovereignty off the radar of most Quebecers, Bouchard’s comments may actually have an opposite effect, stirring the pot and re-igniting a dormant debate. And he’s shrewd enough that you have to wonder if that was his intent. Although, I’m more inclined to believe that he meant what he said, and that he’s calling for some soul-searching in a movement where intolerance has always been one of the dirty little secrets. When Bouchard speaks, people still listen, though what difference it will make is anyone’s guess.

The election that wasn’t supposed to matter, everyone said. A snoozer. A mere footnote in the headlines. Most people in Quebec slept through it. But surprisingly, it may end up mattering more than people think. Here are a few reasons why:

• A slim Liberal majority: Much slimmer than anyone, including Charest, was predicting. He’ll have to work hard to win his votes in the National Assembly. Any resignations, by-elections or MP absences could be costly.More importantly, the Liberals had been predicted to win seventy-something seats, not the sixty-six they ended up with. So this is a disappointment for Charest, who, even though he got his majority, has to contend with the fact that he dropped in support over the last few days of the campaign. Most of the people voting Liberal did it holding their noses, anyway; Charest’s not particularly loved, he’s just seen as the best-of-the-worst right now. Majority or not, Charest will have to tread very carefully.

• Marois’s bait-and-switch: I’m referring to the S-word, of course. Sovereignty. A word that was scarcely mentioned by the PQ during the campaign, but was the main theme of Marois’s speech last night.Most of the people who voted PQ yesterday do not necessarily want Quebec to separate. I’d venture to say, most of them don’t want it. They voted PQ because they were disillusioned Adequistes, or because they don’t like Charest, or because they felt that the PQ should be in opposition again, or for a variety of reasons.But Marois is neatly implying that, with 51 seats won, she now has a mandate to work towards sovereignty. And it’s hard to argue with her rhetoric, because, after all, downplaying the S-word during a campaign isn’t the same as disavowing it. Marois’s argument is that the PQ has always had sovereignty as its raison d’être (true) and that people voting for them are doing so knowing that, so they’re justified in their claim that the PQ’s rise in fortune during this election implies a rise in support for sovereignty.Of course, Stephen Harper helped her here a lot, by voluntarily demonizing himself as Monsieur anti-Quebec last week. Harper’s rhetoric not only helped the PQ jump in the polls and capture more seats than predicted; it also gave the PQ an excuse to start beating the sovereigntist drums again.And what better time to do so than during an opposition period? Marois knows she has about three or four years, at least, to hammer sovereignty at every turn. And as long as Harper is in office federally, she’ll have lots of help. No wonder her speech last night sounded more like a victory speech than Charest’s did.

• Back to the future: The 2007 election was hailed as a landmark, “breakthrough” election for Quebec. The ADQ won official opposition status, the PQ was seen as increasingly irrelevant, and we were finally going to get a “normal”, left-right political spectrum where we were talking about actual issues, you know, like education and healthcare and silly things like that. Single-issue voting along strictly federalist-separatist lines? Nah, we were past that. We were evolved.So much for that.The rightist ADQ, which was so fond of fence-sitting on the nationalist question while insisting that Quebecois were past it, has disintegrated in this election. Seems we’re not past it after all. Now, we’re back to a two-party, Liberal-PQ, federalist-sovereigntist divide. Never mind that most of those voting PQ were not voting for separation; it’s the spin that will matter now, and the spin doctors are hard at work convincing everyone that this is exactly what it means. And so, we regress into old patterns, and the issues can be damned.

• Voter apathy: As predicted, the election had the worst turnout in Quebec’s history with only 57% of people in the province bothering to cast a vote. That would mean that there were more people who stayed home (43%) than people who voted for the winning party (42% of those who voted). Again, it’s not too surprising; people are fed up with elections, felt this one was superfluous and unnecessary; were distracted by the goings-on in Ottawa; were just too cold to go to the polling stations. Whatever. But it means that all the political leaders are going to have to do some serious thinking about how to get the public engaged in politics again. Conventional wisdom holds that lower voter turnouts are better for the Liberals, and higher turnouts favour the PQ, which doesn’t say much for Charest’s claim of a strong governing mandate. Apathy is always bad for democracy.

• The rise of Québec Solidaire: Amir Khadir’s election in Mercier means that the far-left QS now has representation in the National Assembly. So we’ve gone from right-middle-left to left-lefter-leftest. Kind of like a university campus political spectrum, really. And so appropriate for Quebec. For those who think it’s just a blip, remember that the ADQ also started with only one MNA – Mario Dumont. Will the Québec Solidaire be the next third party to rise and fall? Stay tuned.

• The federal implications: And this one’s the biggie. Quebec’s election will matter not only to Quebecers, but to all Canadians. With Ottawa in crisis, yesterday’s election may have a big impact on how things shake out over the next few weeks until Parliament resumes in January. The unity question is suddenly an issue again (thanks a whole lot, Stephen) and that’s going to influence how people view the Liberal leadership question, the coalition question, and the potential results of a possible federal election, should the government fall. It’s something that all the federal leaders are thinking about very carefully.

So, the election may end up mattering a great deal. Those of you who were among the 43% of eligible Quebec voters who stayed home yesterday might want to reflect on that.

And here’s why, in a nutshell:

A whopping 70 per cent of Quebecers are opposed to the $950 million in tax cuts announced in last week’s provincial budget.

“One to look at it is that we’re the only people in North America not to want a tax cut,” he said in a follow-up interview.

[ . . . ]

A significant part of the explanation for opposition to the tax cut is the fact that 42 per cent of Quebecers of taxpaying age already don’t pay any income tax and stand to benefit from increased public-service spending at zero cost to themselves.

The standard answer in Quebec to any economic woes goes something like “tax the rich, the anglos and the corporations more”. And when that doesn’t work? The standard fall-back, right out of a South Park movie: Blame Canada.

But with more people living off the system than paying into it, Quebec’s economy is on the brink of collapse unless something is done. And when Canada can no longer be blamed, what then?

So by now everyone pretty much knows that today’s provincial election has resulted in a minority Liberal government.

Final results: 48 seats for the Liberals, 41 for the ADQ, and 36 for the PQ.

There’s no doubt that Mario Dumont’s ADQ is the big winner tonight, going from 5 seats to a whopping 41, and capturing the balance of power. Charest’s Liberals were reduced to minority status, and Charest himself only narrowly won his own seat. As for Boisclair’s PQ, after widely being expected to achieve sweeping victory only a few months ago, they were just plain embarrassed. Boisclair’s days in provincial politics are surely numbered – most likely in the single-digits.

Then again, in the popular vote, the Liberals lost 13 percentage points, compared to the PQ who only lost 5. Arguably, it’s the Liberals who lost out in terms of mandate – if not in terms of seats. A lot of people in “safe” Liberal ridings were casting protest votes this time around, which may have accounted for this seeming discrepancy.

And my own riding? As expected, Liberal incumbent Lawrence Bergman sailed to victory with over 84% of the vote, but second place went not to one of the other major parties but to the Greens, with just over 6.5%. Not much of a contest here, but I voted anyway, ever the dutiful citizen. I still maintain that if you don’t vote, you can’t bitch about it later.

What will this mean for Quebec? In the immediate term, it means no referendum, anyway. It also means that the Liberals have lost their mandate to govern. The ADQ is going to get a lot more of a say in how things are run in the province. And we’re probably looking at another election in about 18 months. And the PQ may be down right now, but don’t count them out; under new leadership, they could still come back to threaten for victory the next time around. Let’s just hope that support for sovereignty continues to ebb in the interim, because I’d kinda like my country to stay together for a while.

All in all, though, a minority government might not be the worst thing in the world. It’s not as though the Liberals were doing a whole lot with their hands untied, before.

Cause you’d never know it, just living day to day.

Sure, the media is making an effort to report something – anything – about the campaign trail.

But that deafening silence out there? That’s the sound of seven million Quebecers not caring.

Almost nobody’s talking about the election at the water cooler, over brunch, at the nail salon or the dry cleaner’s. There’s a remarkable lack of debate. People are spending more time discussing Paris Hilton’s driving habits than Andre Boisclair’s – erm – other habits. If an alien landed here from outer space, he’d be hard-pressed to learn that there was an election at all.

Not to mention a complete lack of care or concern about the S-word. Sovereignty, that is. Ask around and this issue that has inflamed passions here for decades will generally be met by a shrug. And I don’t think it’s because people are any less committed to their positions. Rather, I think it’s because the sovereigntists are uninspired and unencouraged, the federalists aren’t feeling too threatened, and the rest are just ready to move on.

I’ll vote on election day. Until then, I’m perfectly content with this snoozer of a campaign. It’s not as though a loud campaign would raise any interesting issues, so as long as the same bunch of yahoo politicians keep talking about the same bunch of ridiculous non-issues, I’m plenty happy to let them do it at a whisper.

Looks like we’re going to be heading to the polls on March 26th, as Charest has apparently decided to play the timing card for all it is worth and take advantage of a bump in the polls for the Liberals against a PQ that – under André Boisclair – seems to have lost its way.

Nevertheless, this won’t be an easy campaign for Charest to win. The Liberals start every campaign with a built-in handicap due to riding distribution, and Charest has never been exactly loved as a premier; his temporary popularity surge is mainly due to the unpopularity of rival Boisclair. Of course, this also means that Boisclair has the lead in the expectations game for the moment, since Charest has a reputation as a strong campaigner, and expectations pretty much couldn’t be any lower for Bosiclair right now if he were a slug.

If Charest wins a second term, Boisclair is sure to be replaced. Under new leadership, the PQ will surely regroup and rebuild, using a likely Federal election in the next year or so to help increase support for sovereignty and lay the groundwork for a decisive election victory in five years followed by a snap referendum. Of course, that’s a long way away, which makes it highly unpredictable.

On the other hand, if Boisclair wins, it will likely be with a weak finish and a murky mandate for sovereignty. Under those circumstances, he may not even call a referendum. Even if he takes a chance and calls one, in today’s political climate, it’s highly unlikely to pass. Ironically, a PQ victory may actually help give another blow to Quebec nationalism, which might be the best-case scenario.

(On the other hand, we’d have André Boisclair as our premier).

Too many ifs at this point. But the gloves are about to come off, so stay tuned for the body blows and the knockout punches. It’s game time.