Headlines come for wrong reasons
There have been setbacks and missteps as Pauline Marois’s minority government has survived its first 100 days
“If there are adjustments to make we will make them.”
PREMIER PAULINE MAROIS
QUEBEC — It was an usually candid admission for a leader being grilled on her performance.
“It’s not perfect, but nobody’s perfect,” Premier Pauline Marois said of her record in office at a news conference wrapping up the sitting of the National Assembly for Christmas.
“No government is perfect, but we try to be. We would like to be.”
Marois went further, saying that in her view just about the worst thing anyone can do is act stubbornly when it’s clear a decision is just wrong or there is widespread opposition.
Marois said she sat back and watched the Liberals do just that, dig in their heels on issues like tuition fee hikes and the commission looking into corruption in the construction industry.
Her government will not be like that, she said.
“If there are adjustments to make we will make them, I am telling you in advance,” Marois said.
But closing in on 100 days in office, the theme of what the new Parti Québécois government is doing right and wrong (or not at all) has become the mainstay of news conferences.
Coalition Avenir Québec leader François Legault likes to say only three months into the job the government is as worn out as the Liberals were after nine years.
Already wrestling with the minority status voters granted the PQ Sept. 4, the questions irritate politicians to no end. On Thursday, Marois snapped at a reporter who reminded her that backpedalling on the double-dipping of former PQ leader André Boisclair was one of a series of policy reversals.
“Thanks for reminding me I am backtracking,” Marois said. “You should be telling me it’s good that I am listening to people. I think it’s wise to be able to listen to the population’s opinion.”
But this is indeed a government making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
“There are limits to governing by trial and error,” Legault said at his own endof-session news conference. “We have before us a government with a serious lack of judgment.”
The list of policy reversals and flip-flops is long. This government did not abolish the $200 health services tax as promised in the election. Bridging schools were not abolished. Hydro rates are going up in 2014, instead of being frozen.
The PQ’s pledge to toughen up the Charter of the French Language had to be watered down and the government is not pouring taxpayer money into sovereignty committees to prepare for the “big day” as it promised its rank-and-file members.
“Easier said than done,” noted Le Soleil political columnist Gilbert Lavoie Thursday.
Instead of boycotting the very federalist Council of the Federation, Marois walked through it like a rock star, ready to talk turkey on economic issues.
Marois lost one minister, Daniel Breton in environment, a man Legault described Friday as a “ticking time bomb,” that Marois totally misjudged.
Her international relations minister, Jean-François Lisée, had to apologize twice in two days this week alone.
“I made a gaffe,” the normally very confident Lisée told the legislature Wednesday.
The major pieces of legislation the government did get adopted were consensus-style bills such as Law 2 on the financing of political parties and Law 1 on public contracts. They were heavily amended at the committee level by Lib- eral and CAQ MNAs, as both parties like to remind anyone in earshot.
Still, as PQ house leader Stéphane Bédard noted, they nevertheless managed to push through nine of the 15 bills presented, which is not bad for a minority government.
At her news conference, Marois was able to boast that, in part because of her government’s leadership, a message has been sent to Montreal and Laval. “Since Sept. 4, corruption is in full retreat.”
So how did the average taxpayer make out in the midst of all these theatrics and posturing? Not very well.
The PQ government’s Nov. 20 budget increased sin taxes for alcohol and tobacco. The health tax was just replaced with a so-called progressive version that spares the very poor but still represents $100 in extra tax for those earning between $20,000 and $40,000.
This week’s spending estimates were another reality check for the province. Universities and CEGEPs have to manage, within the next four months, cuts totalling $128 million. Montreal’s health and social service network is being cut by $80 million.
And the government has to come with another $400 million in cuts — they are not yet identified — if it still hopes to balance the books by next year as planned.
But the unwritten story of the last few weeks has been the relatively free ride the opposition parties have been given. Without trying too hard, they have looked better compared to a PQ in disarray.
The Liberals remain smug, fuelling the impression in their ranks that all they have to do is sit back and wait for a few more PQ gaffes before they can take back their “rightful,” seats on the government’s side of the house.
Privately though, some Liberals say even withe PQ’s errors, voters increasingly are connecting their name with corruption as the Charbonneau Commission continues its work.
Asked about the branding problem Friday, Liberal interim leader Jean-Marc Fournier said despite the close score of the September election — the Liberals got 50 seats compared with the PQ’s 54 — they are taking nothing for granted.
“When you lose, well, you don’t win,” Fournier said.
As for the Charbonneau Commission gradually homing in on the Liberals, Fournier said: “They (at the commission) will do their job, we will do ours. Quebecers will make a choice at some point.”
In contrast, Legault was all smiles Friday when asked about the performance of the CAQ’s 19 MNAs. For one thing, they definitely appear as more natural in their opposition shoes than Liberals who sometimes talk as if they are still ministers.
CAQ’s politicians invariably get off the punchier questions, which are bound to be picked up in the television clips.
Oddly, the biggest test of Legault’s control over his rainbow coalition came during the now great flag debate. Sovereignist and federalist CAQ MNAs alike rose to vote for the status quo, resisting the trap set for them by the PQ’s motion to remove the flag.
But by Friday, as politicians who have been at each other’s throats for months stopped to wish each other happy holidays, it was clear the PQ MNAs are the ones most in need of a break.
As one analyst noted, they will have much to think about.
“It’s a government that is only groping along,” noted senior Radio Canada political analyst Michel Pépin. “And it pulls its hand out of the fire as soon as it sees it’s too hot.”