Legault will Be forced to campaign on identity

CAQ may not want to talk about identity during campaign, but may have no choice

Well, that could have been awkward.

Last weekend, the Coalition Avenir Québec party held an event to show off its team of candidates in the Oct. 1 general election to the media. Party supporters were not invited.

Still, an audience did show up at the remote Shawinigan location: one man, sporting bikerstyle colours bearing the menacing wolf ’s-footprint insignia of the notorious anti-immigrant group La Meute (the Pack).

Whether the man was there to support the CAQ or out of curiosity, his attendance at a high-profile public event of a party that practises identity politics wasn’t the kind of “optics” the Coalition wants.

The CAQ takes pains to keep openly xenophobic supporters, such as Gilles Proulx, out of sight and hearing of the non-Frenchspeaking voters to whom friendly François Legault has been appealing.

The man with the wolf ’s footprint on the back of his vest might have been seen as evidence that Legault’s dog-whistle messages, about imaginary teachers in chadors and protecting “the kind of society that our ancestors left me,” have been understood. The CAQ might have been branded “La Meute’s party.”

And Legault would have been in no position to complain about “guilt by association,” after his party spent the last four years tying the present Liberal government to usually unproven allegations against the previous one.

Fortunately for the CAQ and its leader, however, the media deemed the appearance of a La Meute sympathizer, at an event held by the party currently favoured to form the next government of Quebec, to be not newsworthy. If a couple of reporters hadn’t tweeted photos of him, it would be as if the man was never there.

Actually, Legault could be encouraged by the man’s presence. It could be a sign that nationalists have assimilated the CAQ leader’s promise to protect their language and values against what he says are too many of the wrong kind of immigrant. So Legault wouldn’t need to keep repeating a message that risks alienating minorities.

But the dynamics of this campaign could force Legault to choose between nationalist and minority votes. And there are more of the former.

In 92 of the 125 ridings, people who most often speak French at home make up at least threequarters of the population. It’s those voters who will probably determine which party forms the next government, and whether it has a majority.

Among French-speaking voters, polls give the CAQ a comfortable lead in popularity over its closest rival, the Parti Québécois.

The PQ, which depends on nationalists for support, is in a fight for its survival. The latest projection by Philippe J. Fournier of Qc125.com said the PQ most likely would have won only nine seats. And Fournier rated only one riding, MataneMatapédia in the Gaspé, as solid for the PQ.

The PQ is counting heavily on its leader Jean-François Lisée in the three televised campaign debates, the last of which is to be held 11 days before the vote.

But those are personality contests, not formal debates at the Oxford Union. And even Lisée has acknowledged that he has a likability problem, by appointing Véronique Hivon as his “deputy leader,” or running mate.

So, it could turn out that the PQ’s last hope in the crucial final days of the campaign will be identity. A Léger poll in May suggested that the PQ’s strongest issues are related to language, culture and immigration, and that on those issues, it is stronger than the CAQ.

In the 2016 PQ leadership campaign, when Lisée was trailing, he turned to identity, warning of assault rifles concealed beneath burkas and associating front-runner Alexandre Cloutier with a controversial Muslim imam, and came from behind to win. And nationalist commentators have been urging him to campaign on identity in the election.

That might force Legault to do the same, or risk losing the votes of nationalists — and not just the few who display the wolf ’s footprint.