Kangaroos, caribous and the PQ’s future
Contest to replace Péladeau is more relevant than it seems, Dan Delmar writes.
For most Quebecers, summer was filled with festivals, barbecues, beaches and other sunny diversions. For the Parti Québécois grass roots, however, the 2016 season was a flurry of activity and activism; a Facebook-fuelled, cross-province boomer blitz to raise awareness about the “urgent” need for sovereignty.
The contest to replace Pierre Karl Péladeau is more relevant than it seems. Until at least 2018, whoever leads the PQ is also the leader of the opposition, the first line of defence for all Quebecers who wish to hold the government to account. Many of the themes discussed during myriad PQ events across the province this summer were worthy topics: education, infrastructure, health, nutrition, etc. As usual with these particular partisans though, one issue has dominated the leadership discourse and it happens to be the one that is least relevant to Quebecers today.
It’s been said that péquistes fall into one of two categories: caribous and kangaroos. Kangaroos, their sovereignist critics charge, conceal or downplay the one thing that should be dearest to them, the cause. Caribous are the more pur et dur péquistes, stuck with the morbid moniker after a tragic 1984 event that saw a herd of nearly 10,000 caribous collectively drown in an attempt to cross the Caniapiscau River in northern Quebec.
Only two of the four remaining aspiring PQ leaders — scrappy upstart politician Paul StPierre Plamondon (PSPP) and veteran MNA Jean-François Lisée — have placed themselves clearly in the kangaroo camp, willing to defer a referendum call until a second PQ term or until the idea is more palatable to Quebecers. Alexandre Cloutier remains noncommittal on the timetable.
Lisée was a strategist for Premier Jacques Parizeau and the Oui campaign; he’s objectively contributed exponentially more to furthering sovereignty than any of his competitors, on
The 2018 election may be, in the caribous’ eyes, a final shot at power.
duty when the movement was most effective, winning 49.42 per cent support in the 1995 referendum.
“If we persist in proposing a referendum in the first mandate,” Lisée said in June, “we would be the third party. We would be marginalized.”
Given his expertise in the matter, Lisée should be concerned that his caribou peers seem to be steering the party, and by extension most of the broader movement, into a brick wall (or the metaphorical raging Caniapiscau rapids) as the 2018 election nears.
The question of when to hold a referendum (should the PQ form a government, which presents a big enough challenge) is a dicey one within party ranks. Both caribou and kangaroo types are rather committed to sovereignty, the only tangible difference being the question of whether the process should be rushed. But the caribous don’t see it that way.
“I’m telling you,” candidate Martine Ouellet said in May, “it is urgent for us to become independent. Every day we continue to be a province, we move backwards.”
As disconnected as Ouellet’s “urgent” appeal may seem, it is not an uncommon perception among radical sovereignists who cite everything from oil pipeline proposals to rising bilingualism ( both seen as destructive to Quebec) in unpopular arguments for a rapid exit from the Canadian federation. With only 56 per cent of PQ members taking an interest in their party’s own leadership race and 13 per cent of Quebecers supporting that “urgent” first mandate referendum (according to a SOM poll earlier this summer), it’s safe to say that the message is going unheard. But from the perspective of Ouellet and other caribous, the panic may not seem unwarranted.
If sovereignty remains a generational project for nationalist baby boomers who are now seeing their influence dwindle, the 2018 election may be, in the caribous’ eyes, a final shot at power, and hence quite urgent to them. With Quebec’s most powerful sovereignist, Péladeau, now sidelined and other senior péquistes, like Bernard Drainville, abandoning the fight, the leadership race concluding next month may be the caribous’ final stand.