Endorsement could be two-cheek kiss of death for O’Toole
In a week that featured what many expected to be make-orbreak debates for the contenders in the Sept. 20 election, Quebec Premier François Legault showed up to steal part of the show.
On Thursday, Legault stepped in front of the cameras to dish out unusually pointed election advice to Quebecers. For all intents and purposes, he put his face on the federal ballot alongside that of Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole.
Describing the policies of the New Democrats and the Liberals as “dangerous” for Quebec’s autonomy, the premier invited the province’s nationalists to steer well clear of both parties.
His own preference is for a minority Conservative government.
There is no doubt Legault’s intervention could move the federal needle. But whether it will do so in the direction he seems so determined to set remains to be seen.
The timing of the manoeuvre was certainly revealing of his mindset.
He held his news conference on the morning after the French-language leaders debate, amid mostly positive media reviews of Justin Trudeau’s performance. By comparison, Erin O’Toole had come out of the exercise weighted down by his commitment to scrap the Liberals’ child-care initiative.
Post-debate polling released Friday by Nanos suggests the French-language encounter put the Liberals on a bit of a roll in Quebec. It pegged support for Trudeau’s party at 41 per cent, well ahead of the Bloc Québécois at 27 per cent and the Conservatives at 19 per cent. (Those numbers do not totally factor in Legault’s impact, if any.)
With results like that on election day, Trudeau could again finish first in Quebec. That would reinforce his contention that he has no less legitimacy to speak for his home province than Legault
That scenario could also see the Bloc lose the balance of power in a minority Parliament to the NDP.
From Legault’s perspective, that’s a lose-lose combination.
Jagmeet Singh and Trudeau share a belief in the notion that there should be national standards set on the country’s long-term-care system and that there should be some strings attached to the money Ottawa transfers to the provinces for health care.
It was that specific approach that Legault described as dangerous. To listen to the premier, he would rather have the Conservatives cancel the childcare deal that would see Ottawa transfer $6 billion to Quebec over the next five years than negotiate health-care funding across the table from a Liberal prime minister.
By throwing himself in Trudeau’s path, the premier may ensure that the federal stars coming out of the election are more favourably aligned with his autonomist agenda. But history suggests that success is not guaranteed.
Lucien Bouchard was the last Quebec premier to put a lot of political capital on the line in a federal election. In 2000, Quebec’s formidable sovereigntist premier put his considerable weight against Jean Chrétien’s clarity act.
In that endeavour Bouchard could count on the support of Quebec’s then-Liberal leader, Jean Charest, who also opposed the bid to put federal rules in place for a future referendum.
On election day, Chrétien beat the Bloc Québécois by five points in the popular vote, making that his party’s best showing in decades. When Bouchard stepped down as premier a few months later, he mentioned the federal election result as part of his rationale for concluding that sovereignty would not be achieved any time soon.
Fast forward to 2021 and consider that when Legault appeals to nationalist voters, he is primarily addressing an audience of Bloc Québécois sympathizers.
The Quebecers who voted for Trudeau in 2019 did so in the face of repeated admonitions from Legault about the Liberal leader’s refusal to commit to never joining court challenges of Bill 21, his government’s securalism law.
It is not clear those same voters would be more amenable to switch their support to the Conservatives in the name of strengthening their premier’s hand in a federal-provincial negotiation on health care.
There is at least one scenario that could see Legault’s intervention resulting in more rather than fewer Liberal gains. In the last two elections, a favourable split in the nonliberal vote between the Conservatives and the Bloc helped the Liberals secure a few more francophone seats.
And then there is the issue of whether Legault’s good words are a blessing or a curse for O’Toole outside Quebec.
The premier’s popularity may rub off on the Conservatives in Quebec, but his support could have the reverse effect outside the province. In many quarters of the rest of Canada, Legault is a controversial figure.
One way or another though, the premier’s move has at least provided Quebecers with a rare moment of blinding clarity as to the place of climate change in his list of priorities.
Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec came to power without an environmental platform. Since then, he has tried to convince Quebecers he has a green conscience. But the latter was not much in sight as he advised voters to pick a federal government committed to scaling down Canada’s climate-change ambitions.