THE UBER-WEALTHY CAPITALIST TURNED SEPARATI IOUR
PQ front-runner seen as sovereignty’s last chance before time runs out
There have been no palm branches or cries of hosanna, but the reception the Parti Québécois has given Pierre Karl Péladeau could hardly have been more enthusiastic if he were the Second Coming.
To criticize Péladeau, the front-runner in the race to be the next PQ leader, is to risk the wrath of the sovereigntist faithful, as challenger Bernard Drainville discovered before he dropped out of the race last week. After questioning whether it was wise for the PQ to look to a “saviour” like Péladeau — known across Quebec by his initials PKP — to end its woes, he said he was advised to clam up. “Bernard don’t go there,” members told him. “What we want is party unity.”
The PQ would not be the first political party to fall head over heels for a new flame, but in this case the pairing is particularly odd. Péladeau, the fabulously wealthy, unionbusting former chief executive of Quebecor Inc., is in many ways the antithesis of what the PQ has long embodied as a social-democratic party in lockstep with the labour movement. If party members appear prepared to throw those principles out the window and hand Péladeau a blank cheque when ballots are counted May 15, it is a sign that they hear the clock ticking on their project of an independent Quebec.
Marc Laviolette, a former union leader and president of a political club that once represented labour and the left within the PQ, has a long history of challenging the party’s leadership. The party severed official ties with the club, SPQ-Libre, in 2010 after becoming fed up with its criticism of former leader Pauline Marois. Among prominent PQ members, he is one of the few happy to speak his mind about what a Péladeau victory would mean for the party.
“When PKP decided to run in the last election, we welcomed that, because in order to achieve Quebec’s sovereignty, it takes a broad coalition,” he said. But having him sitting as a member is a lot different from having him in control. “We have always said, good first violinist but not the conductor,” Laviolette said.
During his time atop Quebecor, Péladeau antagonized unions with lengthy lockouts of staff at the chain’s flagship Journal de Montréal and the Journal de Québec. In 2010, he published an anti-union tract in one of his newspapers complaining that labour conflict sapped too much time and energy from Quebec businesses, putting them at a disadvantage with other jurisdictions where there is greater co-operation in the workplace. One union leader responded by calling Péladeau’s comments “hateful.” Asked last December about the comments by the Presse Canadienne, he said he did not remember making them and that the context had changed since 2010, without elaborating.
Laviolette said it would not be so easy for Péladeau to dodge the question if he is elected leader. “In Quebec, the labour movement is sovereigntist, and sovereignty cannot be achieved without the support of the labour movement,” he said. “That will be his big challenge, to draw close to the union movement.”
Péladeau will also be vulnerable to attack because of his refusal to divest his holdings in Quebecor, the media empire founded by his father, the late Pierre Péladeau. “Considering that he is the controlling shareholder of Quebecor, everything he says or does, our adversaries will suggest there is a conflict of interest, whether it is true or not,” said Laviolette, who is supporting Martine Ouellet for the leadership.
He said he has a hard time accepting how the party of René Lévesque has swooned over Péladeau. “People are looking for a saviour. It’s too bad, but that’s how it is. I don’t know if it’s our old JudeoChristian roots that explain that, but they run the risk of being disappointed.” Many sovereigntists of his generation, who have lived through two referendum defeats, hope they can surf Péladeau’s prestige and glamour to a victory in their lifetime.
“When they say there isn’t a lot of time left, I say, ‘Listen, the fight for Quebec independence began with the (1837-38) Patriotes’ rebellion.’ If it’s not tomorrow, it will be later, when Quebecers are ready,” Laviolette said.
Péladeau himself has contributed to the sense of urgency, declaring last month that immigration and demographic trends were working against separatists. “We won’t have 25 years to achieve it. … It’s clear we’re losing a riding every year,” he said.
Since his raised-fist arrival in the 2014 election campaign, Péladeau has consistently said his only real interest in entering politics is to make Quebec independent.
He has publi s hed an 11-page economic platform for the campaign, but even it has a sovereigntist tinge. He promotes such ideas as “Buy Quebec” legislation favouring local suppliers and a policy to prevent major Quebec companies from being bought by outsiders. “Quebecers have to learn to become confident in their economic destiny and to see more of their own succeed,” the economic platform concludes. “We deserve to live better, to be prosperous and to commit ourselves to our full liberty.”
He has offered few concrete policy proposals since launching his leadership campaign five months ago. In an article in the current L’actualité magazine highlighting 41 “interesting and sometimes surprising” ideas put forward by the leadership candidates, Péladeau was the source of just eight, by far the fewest among the main contenders. On sovereignty, he has refused to say what his approach will be to holding another referendum, promising to clarify it before the next election.
Alexandre Cloutier has said he will hold a referendum once a million Quebecers have signed a register calling for one. Ouellet has promised a referendum in a first PQ mandate. But a CROP poll published last week in La Presse found that Quebecers believe Péladeau is the candidate most likely to hold a referendum, with 50% of respondents saying he would call one and just 23% saying he would not.
Péladeau declined an interview request for this article and he cancelled three RadioCanada interviews scheduled for the campaign’s final weeks. Instead, he prefers to deal directly with PQ supporters, frequently updating his Facebook page with endorsements and commentary. On Wednesday he posted a video from former PQ premier Bernard Landry who says Péladeau is creating “extremely favourable circumstances” for independence. “I prefer those who raise a fist for such a noble cause over those who throw in the towel,” Landry says.
Landry, who stopped writing his Journal de Montréal column to protest the lockout and called on the provincial government to intervene, is typical of sovereigntists willing to “pinch their noses,” as Laviolette puts it, and climb aboard the Péladeau bandwagon.
In an article for the Huffington Post, sovereigntist filmmaker Jules Falardeau wrote about the “Péladeau enigma.” Quebecor’s use of Delaware to register affiliate companies raises questions about tax evasion, he acknowledged, and his past handling of unions is a “legitimate concern.” But in the end, independence trumped all other concerns for Falardeau, and he threw his support behind Péladeau.
“I’m the same crusty, redsquare leftist who mourned Hugo Chavez, the same who was in the streets in 2012, the same who supports student strikers and who writes columns on the installation of a police state,” he wrote. “But I am an indépendantiste. Above all.”
Even those cheering against Péladeau in the leadership race are loathe to identify Péladeau’s shortcomings. François Gendron, the longest sitting Member of the National Assembly, first elected under Lévesque in 1976, has endorsed Cloutier. But any criticism he has of Péladeau must be read between the lines.
He said he supported the 37-year-old Cloutier, who has a master’s degree in law from Cambridge University because he embodied “novelty, youth and fresh air.” That, he said, is what is needed for the PQ to attract new supporters and bounce back from the 2014 election defeat, in which it drew its lowest share of the popular vote since 1970. New supporters, in turn, help further the two bedrock PQ objectives, which he identified as independence and social democracy.
Asked whether it was not hard to see Péladeau as a defender of social-democratic values, Gendron said he does not comment on the other candidates. “It’s a fair question, but I’ve got nothing to say. Not that I’ve got nothing to say, but it would accomplish nothing to engage in socio-political analysis three weeks before the end of the race,” he said.
In another endorsement video, PQ MNA Claude Cousineau praises Péladeau for talking up independence at every opportunity. “Pierre Karl has Quebec tattooed on his heart,” he says. La Presse columnist Alain Dubuc this week called Péladeau “the last-call candidate,” seen by desperate members as the one who can achieve independence before time runs out.
But while PQ members overwhelmingly favour Péladeau, his broader appeal has only shrunk over the course of the campaign. The latest CROP poll showed support for a Péladeau-led PQ at just 30% among Quebecers, three points behind the Liberals, and seven points lower than he stood in February’s CROP poll. The PQ may soon be reminded that decisions made at closing time are rarely the wisest.