Quebec Headed into Elections

The political Oligopolists Jean Charest and Pauline Marois

Quebec City. Quebec’s Liberal Premier Jean Charest today asked the Quebec Lieutenant-Governor to dissolve the National Assembly precipitating an election on September 4th, just 35 days away. This will be Quebec’s third Provincial election in just over 5 years, following the March election of 2007 which resulted in a Liberal minority government and the December 2008 election resulting in a Liberal majority government. With less than a year left before an election would have been mandatory, Charest has chosen September 4th as an election date in all likelihood to avoid campaigning after Quebec’s inquiry into construction corruption resumes, in which the governing party’s dirty laundry is expected to be aired out.

The results of this election will be some of the hardest to predict and may just usher in a new era in Quebec political history. Since the end of the 1960’s Quebec has been dominated by two political currents holding an effective oligopoly over all political developments. On one side stands the forces for separatism as embodied by the nationalist Party Quebecois (PQ) provincially and the Bloc Quebecois federally, and on the other stood the federalist forces as embodied by the federalist Liberals at both provincial and federal levels.

Francois Legault, Quebec’s new wave?

Of late these political machines have seen their lock on political office challenge and sway to other affiliations. At the provincial level, Mario Dumont’s Action Democratic party represented a right of center block relatively uninterested by constitutional talks of separation or renewed federalism. That party has been absorbed by ex-PQ cabinet minister Francois Legault’s new party Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) of the same political persuasions. At the federal level the Bloc’s grip on Quebeckers’ votes was almost wiped out by late Jack Layton’s New Democratic Party. Much of Layton’s support seems to have been passed on to the new party head Thomas Mulcair without hindrance.

All this points to renewal in Quebec. A paradigm shift is upon the province with many commentators speculated that the new political axis will be focused on a more rightwing vs. leftwing debate. This has yet to be confirmed by Quebeckers themselves who more than anything seem to be grabbing at straws in search of change which no party has so far really offered. Voting intention surveys point to deep divisions among Quebeckers with the PQ led by Pauline Marois edging out the Liberals by a 33% to 31% (well within the margin of error) and the CAQ falling of its highs to just 21%, according to a QMI Agency survey conducted yesterday. While many Quebeckers seem to desire change and be rid of the Liberals apparent corruption most Quebeckers, do not want to talk about separatism which remains forefront in the PQ electoral plateforme. Plagued by recent blunders by its leader and some of its new candidates the CAQ has been unable to preserve the support the political formation enjoyed back in March.

In such a volatile environment and with recent elections laying waste to voters surveys’ credibility it remains almost impossible to predict if the next government will be a majority or minority, blue or red government. What is known so far is that a PQ government would tighten the screws around english education in Quebec as well as harden its stance around separatism from the Bernard Landry and Andre Boisclair years. The party has added to its electoral platform talk of demanding more constitutional jurisdiction from the federal government in an apparent move to rekindle past tactics of sparking constitutional crises. On the separation issue Francois Legault is more mute. He has promised a 10 year moratorium on discussion of separatism in his party while acknowledging that he is a separatist at heart. In a bid to benefit from Quebeckers apathy towards the subject Charest is playing up his party’s ‘steady as she goes’ federalist credentials, all while subtly showing himself to be a nationalist by publicly decrying Lowe’s foreign takeover attempt on Rona, a Quebec based construction goods retailer.

Most analyst expect a hotly contested election full of antipathy and scorn as well as a healthy dose of demagoguery. As a backdrop to the election many important issues seem to already have been forgotten by the parties angling for power. Quebec’s fiscal quagmire and lack of productivity seems to have all but disappeared most likely because of its electoral cancerousness. And with an election campaign of only 35 days expect to see some of the most pressing concerns of the province go wayward, displaced by the theatricality of the Student Mouvement trying to reverse the current government policy of increasing university tuition fees.

MtlEconomist will be following the important developments of the campaign to help keep its readers informed and aware. So follow us here and on twitter as Quebec heads to the polls on September 4th!