WELCOME TO THE BATTLE FOR QUEBEC
With sovereignty off the table, campaign might focus on bread-and-butter issues
QUEBEC It will be a unique, dare we say, Canadian-style election.
The campaign Premier Philippe Couillard kicks off Thursday with a visit to the lieutenant-governor will — for the first time in a long, long time — focus on the bread-and-butter issues of the day.
Who of the four leaders will make the best premier? Who do you trust to run the economy? Who has the best daycare plan? Where do the parties stand on taxes, health-care services, education, immigration, language, environment, transit?
Name it, it’s on the table. Voting day is Oct. 1. Welcome to the battle for Quebec.
What’s out, more or less, is the old federalism-sovereignty debate. That in itself is a first in 40 years in Quebec. In this campaign, no party is talking referendums.
The Parti Québécois has not abandoned the independence idea — far from it — but that is not what the focus will be during the next 39 days as the campaign caravans set out to criss-cross Quebec.
Instead, there is a far more powerful force lingering in the late summer air, one that has sitting politicians shaking in their boots. That is the desire for change after almost 15 years of Liberal rule.
Poll after poll shows Quebecers are tired of the same old, same old. Add to the mix record levels of dissatisfaction with the way things are and you have a potent cocktail in your glass.
Couillard admits the Liberals have their work cut out for them. Clearly, they are starting this campaign on the defensive.
“It’s always a challenge, everywhere, for an incumbent government,” Couillard said Wednesday at an event in Montreal. “By definition, everyone will be opposed to an incumbent government.
“But look at the auditor general’s report. It’s incredible what we have managed to do.”
If Quebecers are in for a rollercoaster campaign, recent campaigns in North America reveal a few incontestable givens.
First, campaigns matter, big time. Ask Doug Ford in Ontario, Thomas Mulcair in Ottawa, Denis Coderre in Montreal. That includes the all-important televised leaders debates watched by millions, and in this campaign there are three, including one in English.
Second, voters are a fickle bunch. No longer happy to just vote the way their parents did, they shop around. Their final decision is often made at the last minute, a fact that drives pollsters bananas.
The mood is volatile, to say the least. A Léger poll of voter intentions published Aug. 18 in the Québecor media chain revealed 45 per cent of voters who have made up their minds say they could change them in the coming days.
Leading in the polls, the CAQ vote is especially fluid, says Léger president Jean-Marc Léger.
“When it comes to the CAQ vote, the Jell- O has not congealed,” Léger said. “It is an intention, a favourable feeling, but we are a long way from votes in the box.”
The poll uncovered one other new worrisome tidbit for the Liberals: people age 45 and up who usually vote for them have strayed to the CAQ.
The Liberals are surprisingly solid among the 18- to 34-yearold crowd, which in this campaign will total 28 per cent of eligible voters for the first time in history. The trouble with that demographic is they tend to not actually vote.
But this campaign has a new dynamic, one observers are underestimating, says Christian Dufour, a political analyst who has been observing campaigns for years.
Dufour says the shelving of the traditional referendum issue has sparked a massive rush to the centre of the spectrum by all the parties.
“Since there is no debate on the national question, and no debate between the left and the right, the election will become a referendum on Philippe Couillard,” Dufour said in an interview.
“In other words, do Quebecers want to keep the Liberals in office or not?”
On the other hand, CAQ’s main vulnerability lies in its lack of experience, even if most observers agree the party won the precampaign period hands down while the Liberals stumbled almost daily.
And what of the mood in Quebec’s English-speaking community? The word angst comes to mind.
Anglophones, traditionally Liberal voters, will have to decide if they believe CAQ Leader François Legault, a former Parti Québécois cabinet minister, when he says he is no longer interested in independence and will not hold a referendum if he takes power.
“There is no hidden agenda,” Legault said, addressing the community directly in a speech to a party policy convention in May. “With the CAQ, no referendum, no ambiguity, no shrewd tricks. It’s clear.
“With us, it’s within Canada — plain and simple. There’s no threat of referendum anymore, so there’s no reason to stick with the Liberal Party, which has taken you for granted for decades.”
“Free yourself. Join the team for change.”
The Liberals, who have spent months trying to patch up relations with the community, continue to try to shore up the vote.
Couillard has floated the idea that Legault has a hidden agenda, that he says one thing in French and another in English, one thing in Montreal and another in the regions.
In an August interview with the Journal de Montréal, Couillard said be believes Legault might actually be hiding a referendum up his sleeve.
“Mr. Legault says he wants to ask for more powers from Ottawa,” Couillard said. “What if it’s no? He might do referendums if things don’t work out. In a debate like this (federalism versus sovereignty), we cannot sit on the fence.”
It appears the Liberals will try to kick-start the issue, but it’s unclear the strategy will work. At an event last week at Concordia University organized by the Institut du Nouveau Monde, which drew 700 people, only one question out of the 25 from the audience to the four leaders present was connected to the issue of independence.
The issue that did stir up emotions that evening and could emerge as deal breaker is immigration; specifically, the CAQ’s plan to reduce the number of immigrants admitted to Quebec by 20 per cent a year and impose French language tests on those who do get in.
Failing to pass the test in three years would mean the new arrival would not get a Canada citizenship selection certificate.
After being attacked about the plan last spring, Legault softened his position to say Quebec cannot actually expel anyone because it is a federal jurisdiction. What that means is they would be allowed to stay, but would exist in a grey zone without any particular status.
“It’s clear the plan does not please some people,” Legault said after the Concordia meeting in reference to the boos he got in the hall. “But several people came to see me after to say they agreed with me.”
Legault has not hesitated to play the identity card when needed. A week ago, he returned to the theme, saying in a TVA interview picked up by the Journal de Montréal that if elected he will make state secularism a priority with legislation barring persons in authority positions from wearing religious symbols within the first year in office.
If Ottawa contests the law, a CAQ government would not hesitate to override the Charter of Rights using the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause, he said.
As the front-runner, Legault has a lot riding on this campaign. Having spent 10 years building up the CAQ from scratch, he needs to produce results or move on.
PQ Leader Jean-François Lisée has his own set of problems. Since taking over the party, he has watched support slip away to the CAQ. The PQ currently has the support of 18 per cent of voters.
Lisée has responded saying there’s nothing he likes better than to play the role of underdog.
But the PQ finds itself in an all-out war with Québec solidaire led by the duo of Manon Massé and former student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois because negotiations aimed at reaching a non-aggression pact flopped.
Under the current projections, the PQ could be reduced from 28 seats in the legislature to about six, which is the same number QS could win.
QS, which has three seats, is thinking big in the campaign, saying it will make inroads off the island. Massé, with her no-nonsense manner of speaking, has emerged as their best asset. She is the one who will tangle with the other leaders in the debates.
With nothing to lose, watch for Massé to steal the show.
“Let me tell you, it’s going to rock,” Massé said in May.
A Léger poll of voter intentions revealed 45 per cent of voters who have made up their minds say they could change them in the coming days.