It’s no longer the economy, stupid
Unemployment is low, but so is support for Quebec Liberals
“The economy, stupid.” That’s the legendary reminder that was on a sign at the headquarters of Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 American presidential campaign.
Well, it’s not the economy anymore, not in Quebec politics, with the next general election due within a year from Sunday.
It used to be that a Quebec government’s political fortunes were linked to the unemployment rate: if unemployment went down during its term, the government would be re-elected.
And under the present government, the economy has boomed. In July, the unemployment rate was 5.8 per cent, the lowest since comparable data became available in 1976. (It rose slightly, to 6.1 per cent, in August).
Yet the Liberals, who are the incumbents and who have been “the party of the economy” since the 1970s, haven’t benefitted politically.
While the unemployment rate is at or near a historic low, so is their support.
In the latest Mainstreet-Postmedia poll for the Montreal Gazette, conducted Sept. 12-14, Liberal support fell to 30 per cent. In a general election, that would have been the Liberals’ smallest vote share since Confederation.
The Liberals take credit for improvements in several economic indicators since they were elected in 2014: not only is the unemployment rate down, they’re well on their way to hitting their target of 250,000 jobs created over five years, and for the first time in a half-century, Quebec’s credit rating is better than Ontario’s.
Politically, however, it’s like a film that gets good reviews from the critics but still flops at the box office.
The voters’ eyes glaze over at the economic statistics the Liberals throw at them. Either they don’t see the stats reflected in their daily lives, or they do, but don’t credit the government.
What they do see is the effects of three years of Liberal austerity in their children’s schools and other public services, and recurring headlines about the Liberals’ unforced political errors and the mud slung at them by their adversaries.
And the Liberals can no longer count on polarization over the threat of another independence referendum, since Parti Québécois Leader Jean-François Lisée has pledged not to hold one.
Even the anglos are restless, and Premier Philippe Couillard’s recent calls for the English-speaking diaspora to come home are really an anglo-friendly message stroking the ones who are still here.
Maybe the voters are just tired of the Liberals, like a once-popular television series that’s had too long a run, and are reaching for the remote to see what’s on the other channels.
It’s a sign that the incumbent is in trouble when he tries to represent change, as Couillard has recently begun to do.
Good luck with that. The Liberals have been in power for 13 of the last 14½ years. Their present cabinet includes several holdovers from past ones, including the premier.
And the present Liberal government is constantly haunted by the ghosts of the former one. Notably, former deputy premier Nathalie Normandeau is facing what is expected to be a lengthy trial on corruption-related charges before the election.
For all that, and in spite of their record-low popularity, the Liberals clung to a slight lead in the Mainstreet poll.
After the results were published, Philippe Fournier, whose Qc125.com blog has become a must-follow for Quebec-politics watchers, projected the Liberals’ chances of winning at least a minority government at 63.2 per cent.
(Another of Fournier’s projections: due to the even distribution of its support in French Quebec, the PQ had a slight chance of winning the most seats even if it finished third in the popular vote.)
But the Liberals’ chances depended on the opposition vote remaining divided among three parties.
On that sign at Clinton headquarters, there was another message: “Change vs. more of the same.”
If that’s the decisive “ballot question” in the next Quebec election, and the electorate answers it by swinging behind a single opposition party in order to oust the incumbent, then the Liberals will be done.