Quebec getting to know what’s in PSPP’S heart and head

The Parti Québecois has had six elected leaders since the sovereignist party was created in October, 1968. Its founder, René Lévesque, was never actually elected leader, but as the head of the larger group that merged with another group to form the PQ, he automatically assumed the leadership.

One leader was acclaimed - Lucien Bouchard, in 1995, after then-premier Jacques Parizeau resigned abruptly in the wake of the failed referendum of the same year.

This group of chefs can be broken down generally into two categories: heart or head, emotion or reason. Some fit more neatly into one category or the other.

Take the founder, for example. Lévesque knew instinctively the path to sovereignty lay with an emotional appeal to Quebecers fed up with a federation that showed little respect towards the francophone majority.

Little concerned was he with the nuts and bolts of how sovereigntyassociation with Canada might work. When he was preparing to bolt the Liberal Party, his then friend and future political foe Robert Bourassa, cautioned him: “You don’t seem to realize that political independence goes with monetary independence. Quebec cannot be sovereign and pay the bill with Canadian dollars.”

To which Levesque replied: “Monetary system, economic system, all this is plumbing. One doesn’t worry about plumbing when one fights for the destiny of a people.” Heart.

By contrast, Jacques Parizeau, though a bit of a lefty radical in his youth, was a technocrat through and through. Prior to joining the PQ in 1969, he had been a senior civil servant instrumental in setting up much of the infrastructure underpinning the Quiet Revolution the nationalization of Hydro-québec and creation of the Caisse de depôt et placement being two examples.

His pompous demeanor and trademark three-piece banker suits were not exactly the package to connect with the little people. Still, he had the good timing to take over the PQ as the Meech Lake Accord was unraveling and about to rev up the masses with the potent brew of humiliation and resentment.

A few thousand votes more on the Yes side in the 1995 referendum and Parizeau could well have been the perfect péquiste premier to negotiate Quebec’s exit from Canada. All head.

Then, amongst the group of five PQ leaders to win an election - Levesque the only one to win two, 1976 and 1981 - there is Lucien Bouchard, who, history concedes, nearly singlehandedly brought the Yes side to the brink of victory.

That Bouchard was all heart, a mesmerizing, emotional speaker who felt first hand the bitter failure and betrayal of Meech. Once winning the 1998 election, however, with the referendum heat cooled, he was the Quebec leader forced to bring in hotly contested austerity measures.

The only other PQ leader to win an election was Pauline Marois who cashed in on fatigue with the long reign of Liberal Jean Charest. She won a minority in 2012 but lost two years later to new Liberal leader Philippe

Couillard. She wasn’t around long enough to determine how much heart she had - obviously not enough to stay in power let alone win a referendum.

Other PQ elected leaders - Pierremarc Johnson, Bernard Landry, André Boisclair, Pierre-karl Péladeau (!), and Jean-françois Lisée - sorry to say, are asterisks in the party’s saga, which, frankly, seemed to be nearing an end with the three seats won in the 2022 general election under new leader Paul St-pierre Plamondon (PSPP). So what about PSPP? Heart or head? He is so high in the polls he is convinced he sees the promised land. But does that make his heart soar like a hawk? Hardly, based on the 1960s-style bitterness- and resentment-spewing speech he gave to a PQ gathering in Drummondville on April 14.

His Durham Report vision of a Canada deliberately plotting to “weaken and erase” the Quebec people, to “crush those who refuse to assimilate,” had commentators rethinking the glowing praise they have been heaping on the separatist golden boy since the party won a surprise victory in a Quebec City byelection last year.

Then, last week, in a National Assembly exchange with Premier François Legault, PSPP mimed slitting his wrists when the premier asked him if he would join the CAQ if the PQ leader’s proposed third referendum failed.

Heart or head? Hard to tell. But folks are sure getting to know more about the real PSPP.