Shades of 1979 in the 2019 election battle for Quebec
OK, Justin Trudeau is not his dad, Andrew Scheer is not exactly a clone of Joe Clark, and for sure François Legault is not René Lévesque, but as we enter the denouement of this election one can’t help but be reminded of the 1979 vote when those three characters had lead roles in an intense national drama.
A brief recap: the unpopular prime minister Pierre Trudeau lost the May, 1979, election to Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark, a 36-year-old leadership convention compromise choice; this happened just as the Parti Québecois (PQ) government was preparing the ground for a referendum in a year’s time on what they called sovereignty-association.
At that time, well before Law 101 began to have its true impact of redressing historical grievances and spawning new generations of confident, forwardlooking francophone Quebecers, the emotional pull of independence was powerful, particularly as channelled through a brilliant communicator like Lévesque.
Having the federalist superhero Trudeau out of the picture as the epic battle for Quebec was about to be engaged was a gift from the voters outside Quebec almost too good to be true for the PQ. Trudeau’s Liberals won 67 of Quebec’s 75 seats in 1979 but were trounced elsewhere in the country.
Clark, with only two MPS from Quebec, and a caucus stocked with folks who had had enough of Trudeau and his French shoved down Canadian throats, was not equipped to be the kind of champion of federalism the circumstances were going to require once the struggle for the hearts, minds and votes of Quebecers was underway.
A combination of miscalculations, however, resulted in Clark’s minority government being defeated in a budget vote only nine months into its mandate. Clark lost the subsequent February election to a Pierre Trudeau coaxed out of retirement and spoiling to use his redemption to make things right, as he saw it, in Quebec. Scarcely three months later, the No side won a convincing 60 percent victory.
The parallels between 1979 and 2019 are not stark, but there are some striking similarities. Andrew Scheer, reprising Clark’s role as the young western Conservative leader with a decent grasp of French, seems to be as accommodating as Clark was of Quebec’s ambitions. Trudeau dismissed Clark as the “headwaiter to the provinces” for his apparent willingness to grant their every wish at the price of federal influence.
The obvious example of such in the current campaign is Scheer’s unhesitating declaration that a Conservative government would not intervene in future legal challenges to Quebec’s Law 21 secular dress code for Quebec officials. In the succinct analysis of Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hébert, “Scheer's categorical assertion that a Conservative government would forever remain on the sidelines of a Bill 21 challenge has to be taken with a big grain of salt.”
Hébert points out “In the past, both levels of government have intervened - as a matter of course - in court challenges that have revolved around the extent of their respective constitutional jurisdictions or that of Charter rights.”
Of course, Scheer’s currying of favour with Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government is intended to win seats by tapping into that vein of sentiment that makes Bill 21 such a hit in places where a niqab, kipa or turban have scarcely been seen, let alone their wearers employed by the Quebec public service.
Legault is on a roll one year into his thundering purge of the unabashedly federalist Liberals of Philippe Couillard last scene fly-fishing in the Saguenay.
The Legault government’s popularity has not only survived the honeymoon but it’s reached heights usually reserved for single party states like Alberta - don’t let the NDP anomaly fool you.
It doesn’t take a political savant to link the surging popularity of the Bloc with the strength of the CAQ. Bloc Leader Yves-françois Blanchet, a former PQ environment minister, has been uninhibited in his embrace of the CAQ, which is not surprising since most of the adherents of the new party are former sovereignist travellers.
An important question going into this election, one where the only real drama has been over Bill 21, is how far will an emboldened François Legault go in pursuing his own version of sovereignty-association.
And then, the question is, who will stand up for Canada? Shades of ‘79.