Good riddance, PKP,

Pierre Karl Péladeau never made any sense as leader of the Parti Québécois (PQ). A union-busting corporate mogul leading a party that came out of the labour and social movements. A man with no long-term public commitment to sovereignty dedicating himself to “making Quebec a country.”

Only a party shaken to its core by an unexpected and devastating defeat would throw itself into the arms of such a man. And yet that’s precisely what the PQ did just less than a year ago when it hailed “PKP” as its new leader.

His tearful resignation on Monday came as a bombshell in Quebec politics. He wept openly and said that after his split with his celebrity wife Julie Snyder he had “no alternative”: “I’m forced to make a heartbreaking decision between my family and my political project . . . I have chosen my family.”

But the fact is the writing had been on the wall for some time. In January, when his marriage fell apart, he was besieged with questions about whether he still controlled his family conglomerate, Quebecor, and benefited from offshore tax shelters. He had failed to lift the PQ in the polls, and support for its raison d’être, sovereignty, stood at just 33 per cent. One headline in the Montreal Gazette at the time asked: “Is the Parti over for PKP?”

Péladeau, in short, was a disaster for the PQ — just as every independent observer had predicted. The leader who made no sense to begin with ended up by imploding in spectacular fashion. The best thing for his former party is that it happened in record time, and it has a full two years to regroup under a new leader before it must face the voters again.

For federalists, then, the departure of PKP is cause for some regret. It is hard to imagine that the party dedicated to breaking up the country could once again choose as leader someone so ill-suited to public life as Péladeau. The PQ has always attracted talented political figures — think of René Lévesque — and it still has strong people like former ministers Bernard Drainville and Jean-François Lisée in its ranks. Either of them would be more effective.

That is cause for concern among Quebec Liberals. The administration of Premier Philippe Couillard is not particularly popular. The long-running Charbonneau inquiry into corruption in the construction industry reflected badly on his party. His government has also fought with public sector unions over its austerity agenda, and been on the defensive when it comes to environmental issues such as the proposed Energy East pipeline.

All that should have provided fertile ground for the Parti Québécois to prepare for a serious run against the Liberals in the next election, scheduled for the autumn of 2018. But with the arrogant, inept and problem-plagued PKP at the helm, the PQ could not capitalize on any of the advantages that came its way. They should be glad to be shot of him.

Still, the PQ has an enormous hill to climb after its lost weekend with PKP. The party has stumbled from crisis to crisis over the past couple of decades, and the root cause is clear: Quebec voters simply won’t buy what they’re selling, i.e. independence. For anyone who cares about Canada, that’s the best news of all.

It’s hard to imagine someone so ill-suited to public life as Pierre Karl Péladeau