Conservatives putting Quebec in their sights

Doors open as Bloc crumbles, Trudeau stumbles

The political gods have handed the federal Conservatives an opportunity in Quebec and, at a tempo yet unseen under Leader Andrew Scheer, the party faithful are mobilizing to try to seize it.

On the whole, Tories could be accused of being passive, reacting more to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government than promoting Scheer as an alternative. Not so in la belle province, where a vigorous push for support is underway.

“The Bloc Québécois is failing. The NDP, it’s not going well with their new leader. And us, with our new leader, it’s going well,” Maxime Bernier, Scheer’s close rival during last year’s leadership race and arguably the party’s most visible member in Quebec, said Wednesday. “The future for us will be very bright in Quebec.”

Alain Rayes, Scheer’s Quebec deputy and the person in charge of finding candidates for the 2019 election, said he is confident about the party’s strategy and, in particular, the idea of stealing “nationalists” from the BQ who want more for Quebec but do not want to separate from Canada.

“I’m personally profoundly convinced that we will improve our showing,” he said.

One of the newest Conservative members is a former leader of the BQ, Michel Gauthier. He was glad-handing at the party’s first-ever Quebec party convention last week in SaintHyacinthe, east of Montreal. Meanwhile, Rayes and the rest of the 11-member Quebec caucus are undertaking 40 or 50 consultations in Quebec ridings over the next few months, which will inform a publicly-available report in the fall and, he said, next year’s election platform.

A byelection in Chicoutimi next month will prove a litmus test for how all of these efforts are working out. Conservatives finished fourth there in 2015, but they have scored a well-known candidate — Richard Martel, a former junior hockey coach — and expect a better showing June 18.

A mix of factors are behind Quebec’s emergence as a favoured battleground.

For one thing, Trudeau suffered in the polls after embarrassments during his trip to India earlier this year. His government has also made faux pas in Quebec that English Canada is less attuned to — for example, complaints over the decision not to tax Netflix reached a fever pitch in a province heavily focused on its own cultural products, but barely moved the needle elsewhere.

Other opposition parties aren’t doing so hot, either. The steady deterioration of the Bloc Québécois has accelerated after more than half of its Ottawa caucus quit this year, and its leader faces a confidence vote June 1. Meanwhile, sexual harassment investigations, the pipeline debate and internal squabbles have sucked oxygen out of new NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s ability to focus on developing a brand in Quebec.

Scheer is floating specific policy ideas to Quebecers. At Saint-Hyacinthe, he promised to look at giving Quebec more power on cultural and immigration issues, though he offered no specifics. He also announced the party supports a single tax return for Quebecers — they currently have to fill out two — to be administered by the provincial government. The policy, already adopted by the NDP and endorsed by Premier Philippe Couillard, would make Quebec the only province to hold such power over the flow of federal tax money.

“If it’s just an issue of which flag is on it, we care more about it being efficient, and that it costs less,” Rayes said. Asked whether it could give Quebec some kind of leverage in a negotiation later, he disagreed and said, “why not? It doesn’t change anything for us if it’s happening at the provincial level.”

Internal wrinkles have been smoothed. Bernier has fallen into line and delayed publication of a book that would’ve contained criticisms of the leader — a move that came not from formal discipline, but peer pressure. Rayes said he will take on the same role as every other Quebec MP in this year’s consultations.

Bernier said that was fine by him. “It’s not about myself. It’s everybody helping, and that’s my role,” he said. “My priority is to help Andrew to have more seats in Quebec.”

Both MPs rejected the idea that the party might be doing better in Quebec more because of Trudeau’s mistakes than Scheer’s virtues. The leader’s French is getting better, and people are attracted to the approach of listening, and not trying to impose an agenda on the province, said Rayes.

But on a national scale, Conservative support is nonetheless very closely linked to Trudeau’s relative popularity, especially since Scheer’s policy platform has not been fleshed out. When Tories started polling better this spring, in the wake of Trudeau’s India trip, one former Parliament Hill staffer reacted this way: “Holy s---, he has a chance.”

A campaign source said more favourable polling for the Conservatives was leading to better fundraising and more promising candidate recruitment. The source said having Rayes spearhead that work in Quebec by making him the deputy was “one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.”