Quebec’s young progressives win with consensus

From the battle to maintain heavily subsidized post-secondary education to winning the Montreal mayoralty, the effectiveness of Quebec progressives has been noteworthy in recent years.

The consensus-building sentiment in the Et maintenant manifesto shows one reason why. It represents a subtle yet important distinction between the intellectually adventurous culture that produced its authors and a seemingly more fractured, acrimonious English Canadian left wing.

Writers Léa Clermont-Dion and Aurélie Lanctôt, who initiated the manifesto, are among an emerging class of young, progressive Quebecers attempting to position themselves at the forefront of international conversations.

There is palpable movement on gender equality, as abusive behaviour by men in authority is becoming safer to condemn.

This coalition of Quebec feminists seeks to expand the conversation even further, from condemnation to solutions in professional and personal realms, asking: and now what?

The authors show nuance in framing the Me Too movement as generally positive while making a concerted effort to avoid alienating male allies, highlighting the need to “keep up the momentum, with men by our side.”

Meanwhile in English Canada, the nation’s most renowned feminist author, Margaret Atwood, is defending her feminism this week in the pages of the Globe and Mail (and on Twitter, where one popular male progressive dismissed Atwood’s reflection as a “spasm of self-pity.”)

“Am I a Bad Feminist?” asked the author of the seminal The Handmaid’s Tale.

There seems to be more reverence for accomplished thinkers in Quebec, and more room for diversity of opinion within its new wave feminist movement.

Et maintenant is also a welcome departure from more nationalistic endeavours like Les Janette, feminists who in 2013 engaged in a more culturally specific, restrictive activism. Time will tell if this new initiative is impactful, but bridging gender, ethnic and political divides at once can only help to advance conversations.

Similarly, it was mainstream legitimacy and a convincing enough case for affordable postsecondary education that promoted the 2012 Quebec student argument to political consensus from campus chatter, where many EnglishCanadian progressive ideas seem to linger.

The protest movement was on occasion violent or otherwise overzealous, but mostly pacifistic, sustained and an ultimately effective exercise in public sector lobbying by student associations and labour unions. Its three principal leaders, two of whom would later be elected to the National Assembly, foresaw that a firm stance on affordable tuition would eventually inspire public support and pay dividends.

The current demand for skilled, educated multilingual workers in local technology industries in particular provides some justification for higher education as a priority investment for the Quebec government at the time.

It is entirely possible that a future breakthrough, perhaps in the artificial intelligence sector, could be made by a 20-something Quebec woman who benefited from generous education subsidies won by this province’s plucky progressives. That’s the sort of political change you can’t effect with a mere hashtag.

It was years of political drudgework, strategic activism and moderate policies that helped Projet Montréal score another big victory for feminism, winning Montreal’s mayoralty.

Party brass had clearly learned valuable lessons after years of myopic municipal environmentalism. More liberal or centrist candidates were recruited — with one borough mayor even adapting Projet Montréal’s brand colour from radical green to tempered blue — and endorsements collected from across the political spectrum. Mayor Valérie Plante’s campaign had a positive tone on the surface, but was a sophisticated, methodical attack on her former rival’s vulnerabilities.

Plante begins the year embodying important recent advances for both Canadian progressivism and feminism. She didn’t get there by undercutting women who came before her or closing the door to ideological opponents. Quebec’s progressive activists seem to place particular value on consensus-building and the quality of being inspiring, or rassembleur(euse); concepts their English-Canadian counterparts would do well to more widely embrace.