Election will test Quebec’s NDP swing
Bloc Québécois’ Duceppe says success was because of Layton, not Mulcair
Like boxers in a ring, some politicians can’t quite resist a rematch.
Take Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe. After watching his party virtually wiped off the electoral map in 2011 — dropping from 47 MPs to two, with the New Democrats grabbing the spoils — he’s come out of retirement looking for redemption.
He’s convinced the Bloc has a future, arguing what happened in 2011 is an example of fickle but pragmatic Quebec citizens indulging in strategic voting to get more out of the Canadian experience rather than actually rejecting the Bloc’s ideas or him.
Plus, as he pointed out this week, the last time Quebecers went to the polls their minds were filled with the “Bon Jack” factor, a reference to the affection for former NDP leader Jack Layton.
“The person who was responsible for us losing many ridings was not (current leader) Thomas Mulcair,” Duceppe said kicking off his campaign Sunday. “It was (the late) Jack Layton.”
Still, as another round of the Battle for Quebec kicks into gear leading to the Oct. 19 federal election, the Bloc has a long way to go to redeem itself while the NDP still appears to have the wind in its sails.
If anything, the Bloc has made itself even less appealing since the last election — a fact connected to the arrival of language hardliner Mario Beaulieu as leader.
After Beaulieu took over from Duceppe, who quit on election night in 2011, many party moderates left, including key MPs.
The Bloc held two seats at dissolution and, according to a Léger poll in July, was sitting at 19 per cent in the polls.
The Bloc is fighting back. Beaulieu — realizing the party was going nowhere under his leadership — stepped aside before the election campaign and let the better-known Duceppe come back.
Duceppe has been mending fences ever since but, at age 68, is struggling to shake off his image as yesterday ’s man; a guy still fighting the old sovereignist battles.
It’s been quite a come down. Money is scarce and getting a full roster of candidates to run for a party apparently going nowhere has been a struggle. The party is still short about 30 but Duceppe says the party will have a full slate.
One of Duceppe’s first moves has been to launch a roving bike tour of the province to meet Quebecers and hold spot news conferences.
In his comments on election launch day, Duceppe went on at length about sovereignty, a sure sign he feels the Bloc needs to shore up its base vote of sovereignists first before dreaming of wooing soft nationalists.
Analysts agree the Bloc needs to win at least 12 seats to save face and, by ricochet, come to the aid of its sister party, the Parti Québécois, which is also in dire need of an electoral boost.
Which leads us to the other side of the Quebec battlefield where the NDP is spoiling for a rematch: a chance to show the stunning election of 59 MPs in 2011 was no fluke.
Mulcair sees his electoral success here as a springboard to better things.
“The time has come for the rest of Canada to complete the change started here, in Quebec, in 2011,” Mulcair said Tuesday at a news conference on Mount Royal, the same place he announced he was running for the NDP eight years ago.
“I am anxious for progressives in the rest of Canada to join the Quebec ones to form Canada’s first social-democratic government in history,” Mulcair said.
The Quebec part of the election will also be an interesting test of the mood of citizens.
Political scientist Alain G. Gagnon of the Université du Québec à Montreal is among analysts who believe the 2011 “orange wave” reveals a fundamental political shift; away from Quebec’s traditional federalist-sovereignist divide to a more conventional left-right debate.
“If Quebecers feel the NDP — and I think this is happening — has the wind in their sails and has the best chance of defeating the government, then many francophones and anglophones will transform the orange wave into something more permanent or at least durable,” Gagnon said in an interview.
“In other words, there was a time to build the nation and we’re now more into building social policies which give that citizenship some depth. It will be very difficult for the Bloc.”
“What happened in 2011 was a sea change in the approach to politics here,” added Mulcair. “For decades we had been told that if you were a federalist you had no choice you had to go into a certain party and if you were a sovereignist you went to another.
“That’s starting to break down. People started looking at social policies, environment policies, economic policies realizing that the NDP spoke their language.”
And Gagnon added early campaign poll data — which places the NDP first in Quebec at 37 per cent — will make it tough for anyone to catch up.
That includes the Liberals. Gagnon said many Quebecers remain ambiguous at best about the party and its new leader, Justin Trudeau. Léger has the party running fourth in Quebec — at 18 per cent. It has had trouble getting new big-name candidates too.
On the other hand, Gagnon said, a 78-day campaign means there’s plenty of time for the NDP to trip up, which could lead to surprises.
The Conservatives are up for the fight too — even if they are starting from way back with only five seats in the province and none in Montreal.
It may have been symbolic, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched his national campaign in Quebec — specifically in the Liberal stronghold riding of Mount Royal.
The party has hopes in rural francophone areas of Quebec. And it hopes to make gains in the greater Quebec City region thanks to the arrival of popular former Coalition Avenir Québec MNA Gérard Deltell.
On Sunday, Harper tried to counter the notion Quebecers are basically not to the right enough to vote Conservative.
“Don’t let anyone tell you Conservative values are not the values of Quebecers,” he said in Montreal.