TORIES ARE NOT IN A POSITION TO SERIOUSLY CHALLENGE LIBERAL DOMINANCE IN QUEBEC. BUT TRUDEAU NEEDS TO RACK UP THE VICTORIES THERE TO COMPENSATE FOR EXPECTED LOSSES FURTHER WEST.
Asylum-seeker issue provides perfect platform
Gérard Deltell grew animated Wednesday when he discussed Justin Trudeau’s keynote speech to the Liberal policy convention in Halifax the previous weekend — a speech inordinately preoccupied with the Conservatives.
Deltell, a former TV journalist and Quebec politician and now the Conservative MP for a Quebec City riding, cackled at the prospect of the pioneer of “sunny ways” resorting to scorn, with added vitriol, when talking about his party.
“Thank you for your speech, Justin," he said. “We’re coming for you faster than you expected."
In his Saturday afternoon speech the Prime Minister appeared to heed comments made the previous evening by former Obama strategist David Axelrod. Reinforcing positive policies won’t be enough in the next election, the American warned, and the Liberals will have to “push back hard” on their opponents.
“It may be Andrew Scheer’s smile but it’s still Stephen Harper’s party,” said Trudeau in his speech.
The Liberals are rattled. CBC’s poll tracker, which aggregates recent public-opinion surveys, has the Grits and Conservatives neck-andneck in popular support at 38 per cent apiece.
Trudeau’s promise to build the Kinder Morgan pipeline threatens Liberal seats in British Columbia, while his perceived indifference to the Canada’s energy industry has seen the party’s popularity wane on the Prairies. The disrepute in which all things Liberal are regarded in Ontario, thanks to Kathleen Wynne’s government, has (perhaps temporarily) tamped down support in that province.
The great Grit hope is that Liberal support will hold steady in Atlantic Canada and, crucially, that the party will pick up seats across Quebec, where they currently hold 40 seats but have ambitions of adding another 20. The Liberals remain well ahead of the competition in Quebec — at 39 per cent in the poll-tracker — but they are down seven points in the province this year, and competition is coming from an unexpected source: the Conservatives have seen their support rise from 17 per cent at the last election to around 23 per cent now, with most of those gains happening since the turn of the year.
The implosion of the Bloc Québécois, which has tumbled from second place in polls of the province to fourth, and the failure of new NDP leader Jagmeet Singh to capture Quebecers’ collective imagination, has provided Conservative leader Andrew Scheer with the chance to shine.
Contrary to the received wisdom, Quebecers are warming to Scheer’s party. It is the only province where they have made gains over their unsuccessful 2015 reelection bid and, at current levels of support, they could add to their seat count of 11. Hence Deltell’s delight that Trudeau attacked the Tories, and hence the Conservatives’ recent focus in the House of Commons on the issue of asylum seekers from the U.S., an issue that impacts Quebec disproportionately.
Is this a moment in time, similar to the Stephen Harper speech on open federalism during the 2006 election campaign that helped deliver 10 seats for the party?
Deltell played down any direct comparisons to what had been a period of flux in the province after 13 years of Liberal rule and the sponsorship scandal. But he said the other parties’ travails have created an opportunity for the Tories.
“We saw that in 2015 in Quebec, people said we need a new government. But Justin Trudeau promised so many things, he promised too much and he cannot deliver. He’s failed on many issues,” Deltell said. “He has a worldclass image and there is only one person who could attack that image — himself. He did a world-class job of that in India. It has opened the eyes of the people.”
The asylum-seeker issue has provided a perfect platform. In 2017, around 25,000 asylum seekers entered Quebec at legal and illegal crossings. So far this year, more than 6,000 people have entered the province from the U.S. — three times the number compared to the same period last year.
The federal government has rejected the opposition’s suggestion that it designate the entire Canada-U.S. border as a port of entry, the term for a place where people can lawfully enter a country. Such a move would, the Conservatives say, end the irregular entry of asylum seekers looking to circumvent the Safe Third Country agreement with the U.S. That deal forces people to apply for refugee status in the first safe country in which they arrive — meaning those who first arrived in the U.S. would have to claim asylum in that country, not Canada. Currently, those crossing from the U.S. to Canada outside regular checkpoints — such as at Canada’s busiest irregularentry site, Quebec’s Roxham Road — do not have to abide by the agreement.
The Liberals say the Conservative suggestion is “not a serious proposal” and would incentivize people to cross at more dangerous and remote locations. But Deltell said his party just wants to see people follow the rules and not flout the signs at Roxham Road that point out it is illegal to cross the border at any place other than a port of entry.
“This was a mess created by Justin Trudeau,” said Deltell, referring to the Prime Minister’s tweet last year, coming the day after President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning refugees and visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries.
In the tweet, Trudeau said that all people fleeing “persecution, terror and war, Canadians welcome you.”
As the son of immigrants who arrived from France 60 years ago, Deltell said, he supports immigration. “But people would like to see the rules being followed.”
The next test on whether the Conservatives are real contenders in Quebec will come in the form of a byelection in the Chicoutimi-Le Fjord riding that must be called by June.
The Tories are running a well-known former coach of the Chicoutimi Saguenéens junior hockey team, Richard Martel. But it’s a riding where they came fourth last time — one that was held by the NDP and the Bloc, before Liberal Denis Lemieux won in 2015.
Deltell is realistic but expectant. How many seats have the Conservatives targeted for 2019? “Seventyeight,” he said, with a grin. All of them. “Andrew (Scheer) will be an asset for us in the next election. He has good values, he’s a father, he’s attractive. The more people who know him, the more will like him. People will not change for the same type of guy (as Trudeau),” he said.
More realistically, the Conservatives are not in a position to challenge Liberal dominance in Quebec — at least not yet. But Trudeau needs to rack up the victories in the province to compensate for expected losses further west. And we saw in 2011 that Quebecers are willing to take a chance on a smiling, trustworthy federal leader.
Andrew Scheer will be hoping he can persuade Quebec voters he too is un bon Jack.