PKP makes his move for PQ helm
No one should be happier than Philippe Couillard if Pierre Karl Péladeau restores the independence question to prominence in this year’s Quebec general election, and with it the polarization over that issue that favours Couillard’s Liberals.
So, no one should have been happier than Couillard this week at the former Parti Québécois leader’s bid to re-capture the leadership from his successor Jean-François Lisée in time for the election.
Usually, plots to overthrow a party leader are executed by agents for the challenger, who maintains a public distance from their efforts. Rarely has even the PQ seen so open a challenge to its leader by the aspirant himself as the one to Lisée by Péladeau.
In the radio interview that caused such excitement in Quebec political circles, PKP did more than simply leave the door open to an eventual return to politics.
He kicked the door in himself, and landed a sledgehammer blow to Lisée’s leadership, already weakened by the PQ’s recent historically low popularity, by announcing his availability to lead the party into the election.
That’s apparent not only in what the Quebecor media baron said in his Radio-Canada interview. It’s also in what he didn’t say, the timing of the interview, and the context in which it took place.
The PQ is facing the prospect of losing at least half its National Assembly members in the election and becoming politically irrelevant.
Indépendantistes have shown signs of increasing desperation. Some have argued that if the PQ can’t save the house (win the election), it can
Rarely has even the PQ seen so open a challenge to its leader.
at least save some of the furniture (survive) by consolidating the pro-independence vote.
Péladeau might have a better chance of doing that than Lisée, who has shelved independence as an immediate goal. PKP has recently encouraged speculation about his return to politics by expressing opinions in social media on a widening range of current issues.
And his interview took place just before important meetings of PQ Assembly members and party officials from across the province.
The laughably transparent pretext for the interview was the approaching 20th anniversary (in 10 months) of a Quebecor initiative to preserve and distribute old Quebec films. Most of the interview was devoted to politics, however, as Péladeau admitted he had anticipated.
He implicitly criticized Lisée for not doing enough to promote independence. Explicitly, he gave the PQ leader a chilly non-endorsement: “We have a leader in the Parti Québécois. It’s Jean-François Lisée. I’ve always been mindful of collegiality” — whatever that means. One could almost hear him shrugging.
Concerning any ambition to lead the PQ into this year’s election, he could have offered a variation on what the Americans call a “Shermanesque statement” of non-candidacy: I will not accept a nomination for leader of the PQ, and will not serve if elected. He didn’t.
Instead, he had two messages for PQ members. One was that the obstacle to resuming his political career has been removed; the dispute over custody of his children that caused him to quit the party leadership and politics in 2016 has been resolved.
The other was that he was available — and not only for a nomination for the Assembly. His choice of words was significant: “Je suis en réserve de la République,” he said un-ironically. I am available if called upon by the Republic.
“The Republic” does not call upon someone merely to run for one of 125 seats in the Assembly. Indépendantistes would have immediately recognized the grandiloquent expression associated with Charles de Gaulle’s wait for an invitation, which he eventually received, to become president of France on his terms.
A more patient Péladeau would have waited for the PQ leadership to come open after a defeat later this year. Instead, he has made his move now, encouraging the party to overthrow Lisée before the election. And in the days following PKP’s interview, he said nothing to discourage the hopes that Couillard must have for him.