Notoriously fickle Quebec will test NDP’S staying power
Call it the political quote of the year; an obscure New Democrat politician from Quebec nailed it last week in justifying her floor- crossing to the Liberals.
“They voted for Jack Layton. Jack Layton died.”
With those words, Lise St.- Denis, MP for St. Maurice- Champlain, appeared to speak for many in Quebec where NDP support has been dropping like a stone since the May election — from 42.9 per cent to 26 per cent as of midDecember.
Such a precipitous drop would seem to confirm that the NDP’S stunning win there was more a reflection of Layton’s personal appeal than a broader endorsement of the party brand.
The fates have been cruel to New Democrats. It was those votes from Quebec that allowed the party to leapfrog over the Liberals to become Canada’s official Opposition. Now, such support appears in jeopardy.
The NDP had picked up 59 of Quebec’s 75 seats last May, reflecting well over half the party’s seats nationally.
Elsewhere in the country, Ndpers are maintaining their support. They are down a little in B. C. but up in Ontario.
However, that won’t be sufficient to keep them in the Commons style to which they’ve become newly accustomed. In any future election, they’re going to need their Quebec support.
And yet the Quebec decline might have been anticipated.
Quebec voters are notoriously fickle and the NDP lacks roots in the province, having held a single seat before the vote. Quebec also has no provincial NDP wing.
Worryingly for New Democrats, Quebecers appear to be in the process of a wholesale political regrouping.
Just last month, the Bloc Quebecois installed a new leader, economist Daniel Paille, to replace Gilles Duceppe.
And a new provincial party, the Coalition Avenir Quebec, was established Nov. 4 under the leadership of Francois Legault, a former Parti Quebecois cabinet minister.
Conventional wisdom would hold that Ndpers ought to be benefiting from buzz around their leadership contest and a party convention set for March 24, but that has not happened. Possibly because most of the eight contenders are unknowns in Quebec.
And problematically for the party, not a single one appears to possess Layton’s royal jelly.
A further complicating factor is that Quebecers traditionally prefer native sons as their federal leaders.
That fact may disadvantage one talented contender, MP Peggy Nash, from Ontario, while giving an edge to the two Quebecers among the party’s top tier of candidates: Brian Topp and Tom Mulcair.
Mulcair would appear to be the front- runner at this point but neither he nor Topp projects the charm and optimism that drew Quebecers to Layton.
It’s hard to know how New Democrats can successfully address their dilemma, even with a Quebecer at the helm.
Many of the party’s Quebec MPS are young and inexperienced. And they have not been seen to be strongly championing Quebec causes.
For example, the Harper government appointed a unilingual auditor general and two English- speaking judges without a lot of blowback from Quebec’s NDP MPS.
And the Quebec government rather than the province’s MPS scored the most points recently in opposing Conservative crime legislation and the dismantling of the federal gun registry.
A mediocre performance by interim leader Nycole Turmel also has not helped.
The issue New Democrats most successfully raised in the current Parliament related to living conditions in the northern aboriginal community of Attawapiskat, in Ontario — not a particular vote getter in Quebec.
Of course, anything can happen in politics. But for the moment, the stars do not look especially well aligned for New Democrats in Quebec.