A bit of background on Mario Beaulieu

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, September 7, 2012 at 1:13 PM - 0 Comments

Lawyer Stephane Handfield, left, speaks to reporters at a press conference in Montreal Monday, Feb., 2, 2009 with Mario Beaulieu, President of the Societe Saint-Jean-Bapiste de Montreal, centre, and Bloc Quebecois MP Thierry St-Cyr. Handfield, a francophone lawyer. (Graham Hughes/CP)

So Mario Beaulieu, president of Montreal’s Société-Saint-Jean-Baptiste, is peeved at how during the election, “Anglophone media in Quebec and Canada multiplied accusations of xenophobia and all sorts of other slanderous insinuations towards sovereignists and defenders of French.” Let’s put aside the tar-brush generalization of “Anglophone media”—we aren’t all the same, Mario—and the fact that he didn’t cite a single example of Anglo media’s supposed overindulgences in his letter. Rather, let’s have a look at the recent past of the organization that is making these accusations.

In 2006, the SSJB hosted Fleurdelix et Les Affreux Galois, a band with ties to the “Rock identitaire français” movement. Two of its members, Jonathan Stack and Simon Cadieux, are former members of a band called Trouble Makers, which was on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of known white power rock bands.

Fleurdelix et Les Affreux Galois played the SSJB’s headquarters on Sherbrooke Street at the behest of François Gendron, then the SSJB’s youth wing president. Gendron has longtime ties with noted Front de Libération du Quebec member and convicted murderer Raymond Villeneuve.

In the crowd that sweaty night was Cédric Tremblay, guilty in 2003 of spray-painting racist graffiti on Baie D’Urfé’s city hall, as well as Daniel Laverdière, who in 2003 was sentenced to four years for stabbing a man in what the court said was a racially motivated attack.

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PQ in a nutshell: Even in victory, drama and threat of demise

By Martin Patriquin - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 4:31 PM - 0 Comments

Before a crazy man ruined a momentous night, Pauline Marois took the stage and delivered what should have been a rousing victory speech.

Becoming the first female Premier of Quebec is a feat made even more impressive when one considers just how close she was to political oblivion not nine months ago. Despite receiving a 93 per cent vote of confidence in 2011, Marois came close to being a victim of a putsch orchestrated by members of her own party earlier this year. That’s the Parti Québécois in a nutshell: even in victory there is drama and the very real spectre of self-immolation.

And so it was with Marois’s post-election spiel speech night.

Robbed of the ability to make the kind of fiery ode to sovereignty that PQ leaders are all too good at—she herself delivered one from the exact same spot just nights before—Marois was instead as tentative as her hold on power. She spoke early on about the importance of the uniting the world’s French-speaking nations, a decidedly opaque first reference to Quebec sovereignty. She faced a chorus of boos when she thanked Jean Charest; like John McCain in 2008, she couldn’t control her own supporters when daring to speak well of the enemy.

When she finally mentioned sovereignty, it was almost as an afterthought teaser to the crowd—one about as predictable as James Brown shimmying back to the stage and throwing off his cape.

“We want a country, and we’re going to have it!” she said.

Today, 44 years after the Parti Québécois’s founding, it’s less a promise than something out of Waiting For Godot. She quite sensibly spoke of compromise with the Liberals and the Coalition Avenir Québec. What went unsaid, of course, but what is an enduring truth about the PQ, is how it and many péquistes themselves are purpose-built to be uncompromising. Marois knows this all too well, having been victim of its institutional stubbornness as recently as January.

“The second the PQ gets away from sovereignty, they have a fight,” former péquiste MNA Jean-Martin Aussant told me a couple of weeks ago. It is going to be a fraught few months for Marois, forced as she is to do battle on two fronts: with her political opponents across the aisle and her allies within her own party.

Montrealers eager to distance Metropolis shooting from political debate

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 12:19 PM - 0 Comments

Parti Quebecois Leader Pauline Marois is whisked off stage as she delivered her victory speech in Tuesday, Que. September 4, 2012. (Paul Chiasson/CP)

Last week I attended the Parti Québécois’s last big rally of the campaign. It was at the Metropolis nightclub on Ste Catherine St. A familiar venue. It’s a big old music hall with a capacity of about 2,200 and superb sightlines, so politicans of all stripes like to rent it when they think they can fill it, but mostly it’s one of the city’s most popular entertainment venues. The last two shows I saw there were Jean Leloup and a Men Without Hats reunion. It’s a second home for a lot of Montrealers younger than me.

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Shooting during PQ victory speech leaves one dead

By The Canadian Press - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 4:29 AM - 0 Comments

Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois on stage before the shooting. (Paul Chiasson/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Reaction to the shooting in Quebec

MONTREAL – A celebration of the Parti Quebecois’ return to power was shattered Tuesday — first by a political disappointment, then by a stunning tragedy.

The party won a minority government with a weaker-than-desired result, of 54 seats won out of 125, that could severely limit its ability to pursue its independence agenda.

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Developing: Two injured, one arrested during Marois victory speech

By Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 12:18 AM - 0 Comments

Update: The Montreal Police have said in a tweet that two people have been injured and one person arrested.

MONTREAL – An election victory by the Parti Québécois was marred by a security incident as premier-in-waiting Pauline Marois was delivering her victory speech Tuesday.

Guards whisked the leader off the stage as handlers informed the partisan crowd there had been an explosive noise and they needed to clear the auditorium.

Television images showed a man being wrestled to the ground by police outside. There was a fire in back of the building where the PQ faithful were assembled.

Dressed in a housecoat, the man shouted out a few phrases to the media as he was dragged into a police car.

It was the latest, strangest development on an already less-than-joyous night for the PQ.

The party celebrated a return to power after nine years in opposition but its parade was dampened by a weaker-than-desired result that could severely limit its ability to pursue its independence agenda.

The party has never governed with a minority in its history and, therefore, has never faced the need to table a referendum question, an inaugural speech, or any other confidence measure with the support of parties that oppose its core values.

Its score in the popular vote was lower than any time it has governed. The PQ took about 32 per cent of votes. That was just one percentage point more than the governing Liberals, who staved off the electoral annihilation many had predicted. The new Coalition party had 27 per cent.

The defeat was so narrow that even after having served three terms, sustained numerous scandals, and having lost his own seat Tuesday, it was unclear whether outgoing premier Jean Charest would actually resign as Liberal leader.

In a fiery speech, Charest paid tribute to his Liberal party’s core values, such as belonging to Canada, and he predicted it would continue to thrive. The suddenly seatless political veteran gave no inkling of his future plans and repeatedly referred to “us” and “we” Liberals keeping the minority government in check.

Tuesday’s news was greeted with perhaps the greatest sigh of relief, ever, to follow any of the five elections the PQ has now won in its history. In an early reaction from federal politicians, Liberal Leader Bob Rae bluntly described the result on Twitter as: “Quebec voters reject separatist project.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was more conciliatory but the message was similar. In a statement he congratulated the PQ’s Pauline Marois on her election win — then delivered a pointed barb aimed at the independence project.

“We don’t believe Quebecers want to reopen the old constitutional quarrels of the past,” Harper said in his first public comments after five weeks of silence on the Quebec election.

“Our government will remain focused on jobs, economic growth and good economic management. We believe economic issues and jobs are also the priority of Quebecers. In that sense, we will continue working with the Government of Quebec on those common objectives.”

Harper also thanked Charest for his “leadership and devotion to Quebecers.”

Charest’s status remains a major wildcard. Having lost his riding of Sherbrooke for the first time in nine federal and provincial elections, it’s unknown whether he will stay on to lead his party, or how his party would vote in the legislature without a leader there.

The PQ won or was leading in about 55 ridings in Tuesday’s election, shy of the 63 needed for a majority in the 125-seat legislature. Quebec solidaire won two seats.

Charest’s Liberals had a far better-than-expected result and were leading or elected in about 49 ridings, holding onto official Opposition status. The newly formed Coalition party had a disappointing night, winning or leading in about 19 ridings.

Among party leaders, Marois was easily elected in her riding and was set to become the fifth female provincial or territorial premier. The Coalition’s Francois Legault held a narrow lead, and Quebec solidaire’s two co-leaders, Amir Khadir and Francoise David, were elected.

While predictions of the Liberals’ electoral wipeout did not come true the party is not out of the woods yet: in addition to being potentially leaderless, the inner workings of its fundraising will be exposed to public scrutiny in an ongoing public inquiry.

Several factors could also resurrect the independence program.

It appeared unlikely, although not impossible, that the final seat numbers would ultimately leave another pro-independence party, the smaller and more left-wing Quebec solidaire, with the balance of power. It was also unclear whether the PQ might try to poach a few floor-crossers to get a majority.

There was a surge in voter turnout from 2008 levels.

A PQ win in the seat count terminates the reign of Charest, the resolutely pro-Canada premier who made the transition from national politics in 1998 when the federalist forces in the province were leaderless and fearful of another sovereignty referendum.

Charest’s Liberals had won the popular vote in every provincial campaign he led and, since 2003, had held power with three straight election victories. They came close to winning the popular vote again, bolstered by their strength in anglophone areas.

The Charest years saw his government occasionally clash with Ottawa over policies related to criminal justice, the environment and health transfers but those skirmishes had generally been brief and sporadic.

The party that won the most seats Tuesday was the one that was consistently pushed him to take a harder line against Ottawa, and that frequently accused him of sacrificing Quebec’s interests for fear of creating a schism with Canada.

The PQ would have no such qualms about schisms. The idea of confrontation with Ottawa is a central theme built into its platform.

The party plans to either demand or create new provincial powers, including a “Quebec citizenship.” To get that document, future immigrants would have to prove they speak French, and the document would be a requirement to run for public office.

The party would also demand a transfer of powers from Ottawa that touch on domestic and international affairs. Targets include employment insurance, copyright policy and foreign-assistance funding.

Throughout the campaign the PQ has warned that should the Supreme Court get in the way of any new language laws, or should Ottawa say no to any request, it has a backup plan: using each defeat as kindling to stoke the embers of the independence movement.

But it may ultimately be the national assembly of Quebec that thwarts many of its plans, given the vote results.

In any case, support for independence hasn’t traditionally reached its highest peaks because of actions by a PQ government — but because of outside events.

Two examples are the early 1990s, when an attempt to get Quebec constitutionally recognized as a “distinct society” failed, and in 2004 at the height of the sponsorship scandal.

A recent survey suggested the PQ had its work cut out for it with respect to its raison d’etre. The CROP survey pegged support for sovereignty at an especially dismal 28 per cent, or roughly half the historic levels recorded in the early ’90s.

Charest was an underdog when he called the election but he entered into it at a moment many considered the most hospitable timing for his party.

The province’s corruption inquiry is off during its summer holiday — and the return to school is on.

That timing might have helped push to the background ethics scandals that dogged his government such as the minister, Tony Tomassi, who quit politics and is set to appear in court on fraud charges.

Charest wanted to talk about law and order of another kind — in other words, not yielding to student protesters.

Just over a month ago, Charest kicked off the election campaign with an appeal to what he called “the silent majority,” meaning those voters who opposed last spring’s protests and who might be eager to punish the PQ for supporting them.

But the protests died down during the campaign. Most students have gone back to class, and only a few holdout university faculties and the most ardent protesters have kept up the fight.

So the battle over tuition never wound up taking centre stage. Charest was dogged by protests, however, during the campaign and was followed again by a jeering crowd when he cast his ballot Tuesday.

The student protesters rubbed a bit of salt in the wound late Tuesday, with one of their former leaders, Leo Bureau-Blouin, becoming the youngest-ever member of the legislature when he won a Montreal-area seat for the PQ.

Bureau-Blouin turns 21 in December.

PQ elected in Quebec, but can it govern?

By Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 9:52 PM - 0 Comments

MONTREAL – The Parti Quebecois is celebrating a return to power after nine years in opposition but its parade has been dampened by a weaker-than-desired result that could severely limit its ability to pursue its independence agenda.

The party has never governed with a minority in its history and, therefore, has never faced the challenge of tabling an inaugural speech — or any other confidence measures — with the support of other parties that oppose its agenda.

One factor could help resurrect the independence program: it was unclear whether the final seat numbers would ultimately leave another pro-independence party, the smaller and more left-wing Quebec solidaire, with the balance of power.

The PQ won or was leading in about 57 ridings in Tuesday’s election, shy of the 63 needed for a majority in the 125-seat legislature. Quebec solidaire won two seats.

Barring a late surprise the PQ could now face an awkward balancing act — pleasing its ardently pro-independence base, while getting parliamentary backing from other parties.

The governing Liberals had a far better-than-expected result and were leading or elected in about 47 ridings, holding onto official Opposition status and staving off the electoral annihilation many had predicted. The newly formed Coalition party had a disappointing night, winning or leading in about 20 ridings.

Among party leaders, the leader of the PQ and likely premier Pauline Marois was easily elected in her riding; the Coalition’s Francois Legault held a narrow lead; and Quebec solidaire’s two co-leaders, Amir Khadir and Francoise David, were elected.

Liberal Premier Jean Charest, meanwhile, was trailing badly in his riding of Sherbrooke and appeared poised to lose his seat for the first time in nine federal or provincial elections.

Charest’s status is a major wildcard: It’s unknown whether he would stay on to lead the party, or how his party would vote in the legislature without a leader there.

There appeared to be a surge in voter turnout, with the number of ballots cast by 5:30 p.m. more than one-quarter higher than at the same hour in the previous election.

The sovereigntist PQ led in surveys throughout the campaign with its support pegged in the low-30s, leaving open the question of whether a majority government was within reach.

A PQ victory would terminate the reign of Charest, the resolutely pro-Canada premier who made the transition from national politics in 1998 when the federalist forces in the province were leaderless and fearful of another sovereignty referendum.

Charest’s Liberals had won the popular vote in every provincial campaign he led and, since 2003, had held power with three straight election victories.

The intervening years saw his government occasionally clash with Ottawa over policies related to criminal justice, the environment and health transfers but those skirmishes had generally been brief and sporadic.

The party poised to win tonight is the one that was consistently pushing Charest to take a harder line against Ottawa, and that frequently accused him of sacrificing Quebec’s interests for fear of creating a schism with Canada.

The PQ would have no such qualms about schisms. The idea of confrontation with Ottawa is a central theme built into its platform.

The party plans to either demand or create new provincial powers, including a “Quebec citizenship.” To get that document, future immigrants would have to prove they speak French, and the document would be a requirement to run for public office.

The party would also demand a transfer of powers from Ottawa that touch on domestic and international affairs. Targets include employment insurance, copyright policy and foreign-assistance funding.

Should the Supreme Court get in the way of any new language laws, or should Ottawa say no to any request, the PQ has a backup plan: use each defeat as kindling to stoke the embers of the independence movement.

“There are a multitude of examples where we can make the demonstration that we would be best served if we decided for ourselves,” the PQ’s Marois said during the campaign.

“It’s obvious that (each federal rejection) will demonstrate the impossibility that we will ever be recognized as a distinct society.”

In the past, support for independence hasn’t reached its highest peaks because of actions by a PQ government — but because of outside events.

Two examples are the early 1990s, when an attempt to get Quebec constitutionally recognized as a “distinct society” failed, and in 2004 at the height of the sponsorship scandal.

The PQ has its work cut out for it, if it hopes to revive the flames of independence.

A recent survey pegged support for sovereignty at 28 per cent — or roughly half the historic levels recorded in the early ’90s.

Marois has sought to reassure moderate voters that there will be no automatic referendum under her watch.

“I am a responsible woman,” said Marois, an experienced politician who held no less than 15 cabinet portfolios under Rene Levesque, Jacques Parizeau, Lucien Bouchard and Bernard Landry.

“I have convictions and I am going to defend them. There will be a referendum when the Quebec population wants a referendum.”

Marois voted in her Quebec City-area riding on Tuesday and said it could be an historic day if she becomes Quebec’s first-ever female premier. She would become the fifth woman to lead a Canadian province or territory.

When reporters asked her Tuesday how she was preparing for the possibility of becoming premier, she replied: “I’ve been preparing for 30 years.”

Apart from the possibility that the polls are off, there are still several factors that could leave the election result up for grabs — a late shift in support, the strength of get-out-the-vote operations, or bizarre local splits in the three-way race.

There was one major wildcard throughout the election: Legault’s new Coalition party.

With the polls relatively tight, it had never been clear whether this new party might ultimately play the role of contender, spoiler, kingmaker, or non-entity.

Less than a year old, the party gobbled up the ADQ and touted itself as a third way for voters seeking to turn the page on the province’s highly polarized politics.

Its leader is a former PQ cabinet minister and, until recently, an ardent sovereigntist. Legault’s caucus and his entourage are a mix — hence the name “Coalition” — of sovereigntists, staunch federalists, and middle-of-the-road-nationalists.

The party proposed pausing the independence debate for at least a decade. In the meantime, it wants to make structural changes in health care, education and economic policy.

The Coalition’s proposed changes include shifting high schools to a 9-to-5 schedule, abolishing school boards, and providing a family doctor to every resident.

Its economic policies included several nods to the right, such as a call for cuts in the public service, and some to the left such as a proposal for larger state support for Quebec companies.

It also recruited the most famous anti-corruption whistleblower in the province and promises to clean up graft and collusion in the public-tendering process.

Legault voted in his riding of L’Assomption and described the day as historic: “We need a change in Quebec and we have to stop being divided around the referendum (question),” Legault said Tuesday.

Charest was the last of the three main leaders to cast his ballot, doing so in his hometown of Sherbrooke. He was greeted by about a dozen noisy demonstrators wearing the red square that symbolizes the student protests against tuition hikes.

Before voting, he stopped at a number of Liberal campaign offices to thank volunteers.

Charest was an underdog when he called the election but he entered into it at a moment many considered the most hospitable timing for his party.

The province’s corruption inquiry is off during its summer holiday — and the return to school is on.

That timing might have helped push to the background ethics scandals that dogged his government such as the minister, Tony Tomassi, who quit politics and is set to appear in court on fraud charges.

Charest wanted to talk about law and order of another kind — in other words, not yielding to student protesters.

Just over a month ago, Charest kicked off the election campaign with an appeal to what he called “the silent majority,” meaning those voters who opposed last spring’s protests and who might be eager to punish the PQ for supporting them.

But the protests died down during the campaign. Most students have gone back to class, and only a few holdout university faculties and the most ardent protesters have kept up the fight.

So the battle over tuition never wound up taking centre stage.

A protest with people banging pots and pans, of the sort often seen since the spring, was larger and more festive than usual in Montreal on Monday night as demonstrators celebrated the anticipated demise of the Liberal government.

Charest also tried to frame the election as a choice between job growth and prosperity and the upheaval of a sovereigntist PQ government.

He argued the Coalition would also lead to instability in fragile economic times.

Charest joked that if the PQ won, and called a referendum, Legault would have to spend the campaign hiding in his basement. Legault’s party has no official policy on whether Quebec and Canada should, in the long term, be one country.

While trying to woo federalist voters recently, Legault said he would vote against independence in a referendum even if he didn’t participate in the campaign. He also recently described himself as a “Canadian.”

But he says he wouldn’t campaign for Canadian unity.

Jump in early voter turnout in Quebec election; results about to roll in

By Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 8:00 PM - 0 Comments

MONTREAL – There has been an early surge in voter turnout during Tuesday’s Quebec election, as polls suggest the province may see a change in government.

By 5:30 p.m., 52.7 per cent of Quebecers had cast their ballots — a jump of more than one-quarter above the 41.6 per cent turnout at the same hour in the previous election in 2008. The overall turnout last time was 57.4 per cent, and all signs suggest that tally will be eclipsed tonight.

Polling stations close at 8 p.m. ET.

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The Quebec of my dreams

By Lise Ravary - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 12:45 PM - 0 Comments

Left and Right: Getty Images. Montage: Maclean's.

Lise Ravary is a columnist and blogger for Le Journal de Montréal

A few months ago, I wrote about the largely white, mostly Francophone and very boring reality of the Montreal area where I live. It came back to me as I pondered the Québec the Parti Québécois wants to build and the accusations of self-loathing thrown at those who do not practice identity nationalism.

Why does it bother me so much? I am a Canadian and I belong to the Québec people. I am proud of my French Canadian roots and of the culture that nurtured me. I grew up in a working class part of town. We did not go to Place des Arts to hear classical music. We watched québécois sit-coms on TV. I am proud to be a native French speaker.

I attended university in English. The experience didn’t assimilate me or turn me into the stereotypical West Island Anglo hag. If anything it reminded me that the Quebec of my dreams would speak French and would work to keep it that way. Like the Danes are proud to be Danish and speak Danish. Since we live amongst some 340 million English speakers, we would all speak English well enough. We would stop believing the canard that only Québec has an original culture.

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It’s decision day for voters in Quebec

By The Canadian Press - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 5:33 AM - 0 Comments

MONTREAL – An era of tranquility on the national unity front could end today as polls suggest the pro-independence Parti Québécois is favoured to return to office after nine years in opposition.

The sovereigntist party has led in surveys throughout the campaign with its support pegged in the low-30s, leaving open the question of whether a majority government is within reach.

The polls close this evening at 8 p.m. ET.

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Jean Charest, a reformer despite himself

By Paul Wells - Monday, September 3, 2012 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

Ryan Remiorz/CP

In the current edition of Maclean’s magazine, published before Tuesday’s vote, Paul Wells considered the political legacy of Jean Charest: 

If Jean Charest loses badly in the Sept. 4 Quebec election, the resulting political obituaries will not be gentle. Such promise he once held. A long career ends in a long summer of protest, corruption inquiries and collapsing highways. What a bum.

But take a step back.

In March of 1998 Charest was in a fix. He was the 39-year-old leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, already a 14-year veteran of the House of Commons, bruised from a disappointing result in the 1997 election but pretty sure he was doing good work at the head of the party that founded Canada.

Then Quebec’s business elite forced Daniel Johnson to resign as leader of the Quebec Liberal Party. An election loomed, Lucien Bouchard was the incumbent Parti Québécois premier, and Montreal’s plutocratic Desmarais family basically decided Johnson wouldn’t do. So out he went. The pressure on Charest to take over was irresistible.

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Quebec campaign enters final day

By The Canadian Press - Monday, September 3, 2012 at 7:19 AM - 0 Comments

QUEBEC — It’s the final day of campaigning in Quebec as voters prepare to cast their ballots Tuesday.

Charest took a political slapshot on Sunday while campaigning in the province’s capital region.

He warned a PQ government could jeopardize the chances of NHL hockey returning to Quebec City.

Charest suggested the league would be less likely to favour putting a team in Quebec City because of the economic instability a PQ government would bring.

Recent polls have given the PQ the nod in they suggest is a tight three-way race with Charest’s Liberal party and the upstart Coalition for Quebec’s Future.

The fledgling party’s leader Francois Legault has also spent the weekend talking about economic uncertainty under a PQ government determined to hold a sovereignty referendum.

PQ leader Pauline Marois has spent her last weekend of the campaign pleading for voters to give her a majority mandate.

If the PQ wins, what are the prospects of a referendum?

By Benjamin Shingler and Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press - Monday, September 3, 2012 at 7:16 AM - 0 Comments

(Paul Chiasson/CP)

MONTREAL—Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois has spent the final days of the election campaign urging voters to give her a majority and the chance to form a country.

If Marois gets her desired mandate, though, what are the odds of another sovereignty referendum, and how would relations between Quebec and the rest of Canada change?

The PQ leader, who is leading in the polls, says she would hold an independence vote “tomorrow morning” — if the conditions were right.

That is a giant “if.”

For years, the sovereigntist dream to hold a third referendum has remained elusive, butting up against a cold, hard reality that the support may not be there to win it.

Recent PQ leaders have developed all sorts of formulas to keep the base mobilized when D-Day appears so far on the horizon.

Lucien Bouchard, premier from 1996 until 2001, famously promised to call a referendum once he assembled the “winning conditions.” He never called one. Bernard Landry excited party faithful by talking about achieving sovereignty within 1,000 days — meaning, by 2005.

Polls suggest the sovereigntist side could suffer a drubbing if Marois put the question to voters. The most recent CROP survey put support for sovereignty at 28 per cent — a spectacular drop from the historic levels of the early 1990s.

So, what to do in the face of a mountain of a challenge? Start chipping away.

A PQ government would start making Quebec more independent, one swing of its political hatchet at a time. The PQ doesn’t simply plan to whine about Canada. It wants to start separating, slowly.

“It’s not going to be a referendum or nothing,” said Antonia Maioni, a political scientist at McGill University.

“The idea is to have smaller wins and move towards an eventual, perhaps, referendum. At least she can then go back to her party and say I’m moving to a third referendum.”

The Parti Quebecois plans to pursue two basic tracks to eventually make it happen:

First, Marois says she would ask Ottawa for greater control of numerous areas ranging from foreign policy to copyright law to economic development.

If Ottawa refuses, it would fight.

These scraps will take place in legislative arenas and, in some cases, probably in the justice system all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Each PQ loss would be added by to the list of reasons why Quebec would be better off alone, fanning the flames of the separatist movement.

Second, the PQ would set the mechanics in motion to hold another referendum.

The party has already transferred the responsibility for calling one onto the general public.

Once 850,000 people sign a petition, or 15 per cent of Quebec’s population, the PQ says the public could demand a referendum. Marois plans to establish a new cabinet post that would manage such requests.

To provide herself a little wiggle room, in case the polls aren’t favourable, Marois now says the legislature would have the right to refuse.

“Ultimately, it’s up to the national assembly to decide when there will be a referendum,” Marois told reporters recently.

It’s unclear whether this softer, wait-and-see approach will go down well with the party’s hardline, but there’s also extreme reluctance to call a referendum if it can’t win.

To the party brass, including Marois, it’s taken as an article of faith: the party cannot lose again.

Much of the argument for independence, from the likes of Landry onward, has rested on the idea that the movement carries historical momentum and is therefore inevitable.

The numbers have historically bolstered their narrative.

Support for independence was marginal in the 1960s, grew to 40 per cent in the 1980 referendum, to nearly 50 per cent in 1995 — and therefore, according to the sovereigntist mythology, victory was inevitable the next time.

The fear from more cautious PQ supporters is that a slide backward will destroy their “story.” Unless polls climb dramatically from their current position, then, another isn’t likely.

Even so, a PQ government would mean a shake up in Ottawa and countrywide.

Marois plans to retain Quebec’s seat on the Council of the Federation, the Charest-created body that brings provinces together to tackle common problems.

The PQ would be there, though, “to explain why we are different and why we want all of the power over Quebec,” she said.

For Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Parti Quebecois government would present a major challenge and a 180-degree shift from the federalist Charest Liberals, according to Maioni.

“This will be the first time in his mandate that he will be faced not just with a sovereigntist government in Quebec, but a left-leaning government,” she said.

Maioni pointed to an added complication for the Harper Conservatives: they have virtually no presence in Quebec.

“In earlier incarnations of the Parti Quebecois there was something to bounce back off of, whereas now it’s not clear who speaks for Quebec federalists in Ottawa,” she said.

A PQ government could cause even more problems for NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, whose party rose to Official Opposition status largely because of its success in Quebec in the last federal election.

But Mulcair has so far avoided wading into key issues in the province, such as the debate over tuition increases. The party’s policy to recognize a 50-per-cent-plus-one referendum decision would also come under renewed scrutiny, if the PQ moves toward holding one.

“He’s going to have make things a lot clearer than they have been,” Maioni said, adding that a PQ win could, perhaps, lead to a resurgence of the Bloc Quebecois at the federal level.

“If the PQ does do well in Tuesday’s election, that means something is going on within the body politic, and that means all the seats they won are going to be less and less safe.”

Pauline Marois among the people

By Paul Wells - Saturday, September 1, 2012 at 5:39 PM - 0 Comments

Surely the Charest government loses votes every time any Quebecer tries to drive somewhere on the province’s highways. The Inklessmobile spent a half hour parked on the Autoroute des Cantons de l’Est, and I got to St. Jean sur Richelieu quite sure I’d missed Pauline Marois’s lighting visit to the town’s pretty farmer’s market. But I found a crowd of a few dozen people waiting by the side of the street. Maybe all was not lost. I buttonholed a guy wearing a PQ button on his shirt. He turned out to be Dave Turcotte, the PQ incumbent in the National Assembly. Marois’s bus had been stuck in traffic just like my car, he said.

I asked Turcotte how the campaign is going. “You know, this is my third campaign,” he said. “I’ve known defeat, narrow victory, and now it looks like another kind of victory.” Who’s his competition? “The CAQ,” François Legault’s new party. What’s happening to the Liberals? “Melting.”

Marois’s bus showed up and presently she climbed out of it, shoes matching dress, a smile that seemed quite genuine on her face. Like this:

She had four such events on Saturday and will, one suspects, have more of the same on Sunday. I spent nine years covering Jean Chrétien and six covering Stephen Harper; I’m not used to a party leader shaking the hands of any but carefully selected partisans three days before an election. But Marois has little to fear: even though I spotted one CAQ lapel pin in the crowd, she is, my colleagues told me, greeted at least cordially and often with glee wherever she stops. “Is it okay for me to kiss you?” a gentleman of a certain age with a T-shirt that said FIER D’ETRE NORMAND asked her. She nodded; he planted a genteel kiss on each cheek.

My colleagues on the PQ bus told me the real fun of the day came earlier in Châteauguay, when Marois held a longish press conference featuring questions on all the fun topics.
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Cartoon circulated by PQ rival’s wife shows Charest getting guillotined

By Patrice Bergeron, The Canadian Press - Friday, August 31, 2012 at 8:40 PM - 0 Comments

ST-EUSTACHE, Que. – Premier Jean Charest says he can’t believe his rivals could be so low as to show him getting his head chopped off in a cartoon posted on Facebook.

The image was shared on the social networking site by Mariette Fugere, wife of Parti Quebecois candidate Serge Cardin.

Cardin, a former Bloc Quebecois MP, is running against Charest in his home riding of Sherbrooke.

Charest wasn’t amused.

“I didn’t think the PQ could sink so low,” Charest said Friday while campaigning in St-Eustache. “I’d be interested in hearing the reaction of Madame Marois.”

The image shows a prone figure resembling Charest lying under the blade of a guillotine as a ballot-shaped blade is dropped on his neck.

The words “End of the regime” highlight the drawing which is done in red and black.

“This is my hope,” Fugere wrote in a post accompanying the cartoon, which originated with someone else.

Sebastien Aube, the campaign manager for Cardin, says Fugere found the cartoon “amusing” when she glanced at it on her Facebook feed but deleted it moments later when it struck her as odd.

“She explained things and offered her apologies to anyone who found the cartoon offensive,” Aube said.

Jean Perreault, the head of Charest’s campaign and a former Sherbrooke mayor, criticized the circulation of “this drawing in very bad taste.”

He said it deserved to be “firmly and unequivocally denounced.”

Perreault said “it showed a lack of judgment” on the part of a public figure and demanded a public apology.

It’s not the first time Charest has been shown in a deadly situation.

In June, Quebec solidaire co-spokesman Amir Khadir came under fire after police found a parody leaflet in his home showing Charest dead at his feet. Police were in his home to arrest his daughter in connection with some alleged illegal acts during student protests.

The leaflet, a promotional item for a band, was a parody of an 1830 painting depicting a scene from the French revolution.

The altered image showed Khadir as a gun-toting revolutionary standing over the premier.

Khadir said at the time all he wanted was to see Charest lose the election.

Mathieu Bock-Côté on identity politics in Quebec UPDATE

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, August 31, 2012 at 3:03 PM - 0 Comments

Click here to read Martin Patriquin’s feature story on the Quebec election.

What follows is a translated email exchange I had with Mathieu Bock-Côté for the piece I wrote about Parti Québécois and identity politics in this week’s magazine. A sociologist and columnist, Bock-Côté is a formidable voice in the debate over which way the Parti Québécois should move in order to achieve its ultimate goal. In Fin de cycle, published last year by Boréal, Bock-Côté argues the roots of the sovereignty movement’s demise lie in its backing away from the issue of Francophone identity in the wake of Jacques Parizeau’s infamous “Money and the ethnic votes” comment following the 1995 referendum.

The interview has been edited.

UPDATE: Mr. Bock-Côté objected to my categorizing his brand of nationalism as “ethnic” in the piece. To this end, I’ve added his response to a question about this, below.

In Fin de cycle, you write at length about the demise of the PQ (under André Boisclair) and the Bloc Québécois (under Gilles Duceppe.) The reason, if I understand it well, is that the two parties dropped the nationalist and identity issues in their platforms. As far as you’re concerned, why did the PQ “de-nationalize the sovereignist discourse to drain it of the dimension of identity,” as you write in the book?

I examined this question in my first book. In effect, the day after the [1995] referendum, traumatized by Jacques Parizeau’s words, sovereignists convinced themselves of the “historical guilt” of Quebec nationalism. We found our history to be cloistered, closed in on itself, xenophobic even. Wrongfully, of course. But that convinced sovereignists of one thing: the sovereignty project has to be disassociated from the historical identity of the Francophone majority. We then had a sovereignism that was spineless, bleached, paradoxically a stranger to the cultural and historical identity to the people it was meant to enfranchise politically. This movement culminated with André Boisclair. It started to reverse itself again after the 2007 election, and Pauline Marois looked to bring the question back to the PQ, with a certain success.

Is the identity component crucial to the sovereignty movement here in Quebec? If so, why?

You don’t build a country by evacuating it of its historical experience. You don’t build a country by washing it of its memory, by bleaching it of its identity. Once we disassociate the sovereignty movement from the history of the Québécois people, we are forced to justify it through weak arguments. We denounce the Harper government, its social policies, its conservative values. But we forget that all it takes is to replace Harper with a progressive government, and all of a sudden we have invalidated the argument for sovereignty. Or we promise that Quebec is going to be a little paradise on planet earth, which is obviously false. This country will have its qualities, its faults, it will have good years and less good years. Like all countries in the world. I’d add one thing: no country should neglect its history. I’m somewhat happy to see that English Canada is itself rediscovering its British heritage. I think that’s good news.

During his tenure with the Bloc Québécois, Gilles Duceppe spoke about ‘civic nationalism’; that is to say, the idea that a Quebecer is anyone who lives in Quebec. Yet given the fact that vast majority of immigrants identify as Canadian first, I wonder if civic nationalism is even possible in Quebec.

Civic nationalism is a legitimate goal. The question remains, though, if openness to diversity is part of an acknowledgement of the historical nature of Quebec identity, or part of its obliteration. I believe one thing: the more French Quebecers assume their identity, the more they will be attractive to new arrivals. But we can’t have any illusions about it: as long as Quebec isn’t an independent country, the immigrants will identify primarily with Canada. It goes without saying. It’s not politically correct to say it, but the project of sovereignty is a call primarily to the francophone majority of Quebec.

To what point has the PQ under Pauline Marois managed to retake the identity territory abandoned by the sovereignty movement?

I think she’s trying to do it. The PQ is rediscovering the fragility of the French language on the island of Montreal, it is more and more robust in its criticism of Canadian multiculturalism. It is trying to find new ways of integrating new arrivals to the Francophone majority. We are rehabilitating the role of history in the sovereignist discourse. It remains to be seen if this will last. But it seems that the sovereignty movement of today wants to close the doors on its denationalization.

I spoke to PQ immigration and language critic Yves-François Blanchet, who said that we should increase French language training of immigrants, and not necessarily decrease the number of immigrants Quebec accepts. Do you agree?

Obviously French language training must be reinforced, as should the teaching of history. Of course. I don’t believe, however, that the existing immigration rates are appropriate. It would be better to adjust them to our capacity to integrate them, here in a small, fragile Francophone nation in North America.

Who is nous [‘Us’]?

There is no nous in Quebec without an explicit reference to the historic Francophone majority. There is a limit to the disembodied and purely administrative version of a collective identity. It’s up to the new arrivals to integrate. From there, it will be possible to expand the limits of nous, as we say.

How is your stance different from ethnic nationalism?

Ethnic nationalism has nothing to do with the project of sovereignty as far as I’m concerned. Ethnic nationalism proposes a static, closed identity, that has as much to do with blood as it does culture and history. I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with that vision of identity. It would be stifling. We can perfectly integrate into Quebec’s culture without having ancestors from Ile d’Orléans. We can perfectly appropriate the collective Francophone memory and political range without being an “ethnic French Canadian.” Thankfully! A country isn’t a blank page. The history of France is not that of Germany or Slovenia. And what history is the basis for Quebec society, if not that of its Francophone majority?

Memo to Harper from Marois: ‘If I become premier, I’m going to call soon’

By The Canadian Press - Friday, August 31, 2012 at 12:13 PM - 0 Comments

(Paul Chiasson/CP)

MONTREAL – With a steady lead in the polls, Parti Quebecois Leader Pauline Marois is already sketching out plans for her first weeks in office.

Marois, who is the front-runner in the leadup to Tuesday’s provincial election, says she’d take a few days to prepare a cabinet.

Then the pro-independence leader says she would contact Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Within days, or weeks, she says she would start talking to him about transferring powers to Quebec — in areas like employment insurance, language and communications.

The party has said it wants Quebec to have control over multiple things from copyright laws to international aid funds. If Ottawa refuses, it says, that will bolster the case that Quebec and the rest of Canada must go their separate ways.

But the news in the polls isn’t all good for the PQ. In fact, some of it is terrible. A CROP survey today suggests that while the PQ leads by four percentage points in the popular vote, support for the party’s raison d’etre — Quebec independence — is exceptionally low at 28 per cent.

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Quebec Votes 2012: The most dangerous election in decades

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, August 31, 2012 at 9:50 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Rogers Lemoyne

Pablo and Andrea Morales consider themselves Quebecers. The pair arrived in the province from Mendoza, Argentina, in 2005 and settled in Pierrefonds, a suburb on the western tip of Montreal. The decision to come to Canada came in 1999, shortly after a man put a gun to Andrea’s side and demanded her wallet.

Because they hardly knew how to say hello and goodbye in French, the couple took language courses; in 2006, Pablo, 42, was proficient enough to get a job as a technician at a perfume manufacturer where, as he puts it, “We work 100 per cent in French.” That same year, Andrea, 39, began work as a daycare worker. Their spoken French remains a bit halting and tentative. It’s partly because they still speak Spanish at home, and because they realize how much their linguistic efforts have been overshadowed by their three boys.

Though all three were born in Argentina, Pablo Jr., 17, Ignacio, 14, and Tomas, 12, speak French like, well, born-and-bred Quebecers. It’s no surprise: under Quebec’s language law, immigrants and French Quebecers alike must attend French school. Practically their entire scholarly life happens in French, including some 4,600 hours of grammar and conjugation instruction by the time they graduate. They speak Spanish and English as well.

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François Legault, trying to close the deal

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, August 29, 2012 at 10:40 PM - 0 Comments

I pointed the Inklessmobile toward Montreal today and two hours later I was at the outskirts of the great city. An hour after that I was downtown, having spent most of the intervening time parked on the Décarie Autoroute. I caught up with François Legault at a cocktail reception for supporters of his upstart Coalition Avenir Québec party. He gave a short speech and leapt into the crowd to shake hands, at which point I took this relatively good Instagram photo:

He was not in fact doing his Fonzie impression. Onward. It’s a peculiar moment for Legault, the former Parti Québécois cabinet minister who’s formed a vaguely centre-right party that hopes to appeal to people who are fed up with the old fights. What’s happening is that he seems to be succeeding — but perhaps not enough. The front-running PQ is stable or dipping slightly, the Liberals are wilting especially among francophone voters, and Legault is gaining — but he’ll need to pick up the pace of those gains if he’s to close the distance that separates him from Pauline Marois’s PQ. Continue…

The PQ: Better French than Chinese

By Martin Patriquin - Wednesday, August 29, 2012 at 6:06 PM - 0 Comments

PQ candidate Jean-François Lisée was on the radio today talking about how the Parti Québécois will ensure the survival of the French language in Montreal. Just a reminder: under the provisions of Bill 101, the children of immigrants must go to primary and secondary school in French. This apparently isn’t enough for the PQ because, as Lisée himself pointed out in another interview, “from the moment where there isn’t a majority of people whose first language isn’t French, it means there is no majority to defend it. We can be very attached to our second languages, but I won’t go protest to defend English or Spanish.”

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Quebec parties beef up the under-30 ranks

By Tara Brockwell, The Canadian Press - Wednesday, August 29, 2012 at 12:28 PM - 0 Comments

Marcos Archambault - Parti Quebecois, Laurence Fortin - Coalition Avenir Quebec, Etienne Collins - Liberals and Jacinthe Sabourin - Quebec solidaire. (HO/CP)

MONTREAL – The tuition crisis that has rocked Quebec may be having a trickle-down effect in provincial politics, with a large jump in the number of young people running for office.

According to the province’s elections office, the number of candidates under age 30 has increased significantly since the last election — by more than 40 per cent.

There are 171 of those under-30 candidates in this campaign compared to 120 in 2008, 113 in 2007 and 124 in 2003. The Canadian Press interviewed the youngest person running for each of the four biggest parties.

Who are these candidates, what motivates them, and what do they want for Quebec?

Parti Quebecois

Marcos Archambault may be the most surprising separatist you’ll ever meet.

The 19-year-old was raised in a predominantly Anglo suburb west of Montreal, attending English schools until junior college. His mother, a born francophone, spoke English with him at home.

“I guess you can say she was anglicized,” said Archambault, explaining that his grandmother had her educated in English because she thought it was the language of industry.

Attitudes have changed, according to Archambault.

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Protests resume as Quebec universities reopen

By Andy Blatchford and Jonathan Montpetit, The Canadian Press - Monday, August 27, 2012 at 5:46 PM - 0 Comments

MONTREAL – The calm of summer was shattered Monday with the reopening of Quebec universities, where some classes were disrupted as protesters disobeyed the back-to-school law.

The chaotic scenes have emerged in the final stretch of an election campaign where the student unrest has until now faded into a non-issue.

The first day of university saw several classes cancelled as masked, noise-making crowds banged on pots, pulled fire alarms or blew on air horns while ordering students to leave.

The crowds worked their way from one room to another, determined to clear out classes in any faculty that had voted to keep striking in defiance of the province’s back-to-school law.

That led to confrontations with security, staff and those students who wanted study. In one case a middle-aged, grey-haired teacher physically shoved back a group of masked protesters and kept them from entering his class at Universite du Quebec a Montreal.

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Marois describes plan to gain international support for Quebec independence

By The Canadian Press - Monday, August 27, 2012 at 5:42 PM - 0 Comments

QUEBEC – Pauline Marois, who could be elected premier of Quebec next week, has shared some details about her plan to achieve international recognition of an independent Quebec.

The Parti Quebecois leader and current election front-runner suggests in an interview that she’ll adopt a less aggressive approach than the one used before the 1995 referendum.

Marois tells The Canadian Press that she will be pleased to talk about her independence plans with foreign governments.

She says she does not foresee trying to line up promises to recognize an independent Quebec immediately after a sovereignty referendum.

That makes her approach less aggressive than the one used by Jacques Parizeau. He has revealed that before the last vote on independence, in 1995, he had worked to ensure that France would recognize Quebec as a country if his side won the referendum.

But there are some major differences between the current political climate and 1995: support for sovereignty is well off its historic level and Marois, unlike Parizeau, is not promising to hold a referendum in her first mandate.

Also, recent governments of France have been more supportive of Canadian unity than they once were.

Parties draw battlelines as campaign enters final full week

By The Canadian Press - Sunday, August 26, 2012 at 7:20 PM - 0 Comments

GATINEAU, Que.— Quebec’s political rivals sought to draw their battlelines on key issues such as the economy and social values Sunday as they headed into the final full week of the election campaign.

Premier Jean Charest hammered away at a familiar theme during a campaign stop, saying the Liberal Party is the only choice for those who want economic stability.

Charest said the Parti Québécois or Coalition for Quebec’s Future wouldn’t have “any positive impact” on trade relations with other provinces or the United States.

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Bernard Drainville: The guy who’s tripping up Pauline Marois

By Jonathan Montpetit, The Canadian Press - Friday, August 24, 2012 at 11:38 AM - 0 Comments

(Jacques Boissinot/CP)

MONTREAL – The idea of citizen-driven referendums has inspired grassroots chatter within the Parti Quebecois for years. It was a crisis of Pauline Marois’ leadership, several months ago, that finally made it party policy.

Now the ticking “time-bomb,” in the words of one longtime party insider, has gone off just as Marois was strolling through a trouble-free election campaign.

The possible premier-in-waiting has performed a sudden about-face on the policy and now says that, no, a PQ government would not be forced to hold a vote on independence whenever people gathered a few hundred thousand names on a petition.

Marois now says the petition would simply be taken under advisement. Under the constitutional order, she says, parliamentarians must have the final say on such decisions.

The episode has left constitutional observers, political insiders, and Marois’ opponents weighing in on the possible implications on her bid for the premiership.

The PQ has raised, debated and, for a variety of reasons, rejected the idea of allowing citizens to petition for referendums before. Marois herself opposed the plan in 2008.

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