Nadeau-Dubois joining QS pushes PQ to the right

Life used to be simpler for Parti Québécois leaders.

They only had to worry about two parties: the Liberals in front of them, and the PQ behind them.

Now, however, the PQ no longer has a monopoly on the nationalist vote. It faces competition from opposite directions, from the Coalition Avenir Québec on its right and Québec solidaire on its left.

The PQ has tried to eliminate at least the competition on its left by proposing “convergence,” or an electoral alliance, with prosovereignty QS.

But such an alliance would be against the partisan interests of the Solidaires, whose party has been growing at the expense of the PQ.

Also, the Solidaires, who tend to be younger and concentrated in multicultural Montreal, oppose the identity politics that the PQ has been practising off and on for the past decade.

The PQ’s hopes were raised earlier this year when first Françoise David, then Andrés Fontecilla stepped down as the Solidaires’ co-spokespersons; both had been holding off the PQ.

But those hopes were soon dashed when former student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois joined QS, and announced that he would seek both David’s former seat in the National Assembly and Fontecilla’s post in the party as male co-spokesperson.

GND, as he is familiarly known, has since been just as cool toward the PQ as David and Fontecilla were.

The publicity resulting from his joining QS, following Solidaire MNA Manon Massé’s successful defence of her riding against elimination, has given the party at least a temporary boost in the polls, again at the expense of the PQ.

As a result, PQ leader Jean-François Lisée appears to be giving up on an alliance with the Solidaires, and turning his attention toward the right, where the CAQ has more votes to lose.

One of the Coalition’s bestknown promises, aimed at middle-class families, is to reduce every taxpayer’s income tax by $500. Lisée, while he was still courting the Solidaires, ruled out any tax cuts under a PQ government, in favour of maintaining spending on services.

But last week, he criticized the Liberal government’s latest budget for not reducing taxes more than it did.

And Lisée began to escalate the identity politics that the Solidaires reject, but which the PQ has used in the past to compete with the Coalition.

Two weeks ago, the Liberal government announced a consultation on racism and systemic discrimination.

Lisée saw in the announcement an opportunity to come to the defence of the majority, against what he called the government’s attempt to “put Quebecers on trial” for racism.

“We are the party that defends Quebec’s values and the Quebec identity since its founding, and still today,” Lisée told the Quebecor media, a quote picked up in a tweet from the PQ declaring “the Quebec identity” one of its priorities.

And this week, he followed up by announcing a petition on the PQ’s website against the consultation.

He took pains to present the petition as even-handed, since it also calls for concrete action against discrimination, based on a package of 20 proposals the PQ made last month. And he was accompanied at the announcement by the vice-president of the Black Coalition of Quebec, along with other minorities.

But seeking signatures on a petition justifying “an aggravation of tensions” as an appropriate response to an “indictment” against Quebecers seems likely to pit the majority against minorities.

And the petition contradicts itself, and gives away its true purpose as identity politics, by throwing in a measure that has nothing to do with fighting discrimination against minorities: a call for legislation restricting religious accommodations and symbols.

After Lisée criticized the consultation on discrimination, Premier Philippe Couillard accused Lisée in French of “negationnisme,” a word that refers to denial of the Holocaust.

It was a low blow; Lisée is no neo-Nazi, and does not even deny that there is discrimination in this province.

But he does appear to be desperate.