Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Quebec's new era? - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER – Jean Charest won the Quebec election last night. After waiting nearly five years for this, he's composing the list of names to put into his cabinet and he's ready, as he has so often put it, to take Quebec into the 21st century. Jean Charest is the new premier of Quebec, but the victory isn't so decisive. And for those of us outside the province of Quebec, all I can say is brace yourself. Thinking that separatism is dead is wrong. I'm betting that because of the election of a federalist, a non-separatist, the future of Canada is at greater risk.
At face value, Bernard Landry and the Parti Quebecois are defeated and it looks like the threat of separation is off the radar screen for now, at least until the next election. And with a party defeated so in the polls, political futures are hard to consider. Perhaps, the Pequistes will all disappear and people in Quebec will no longer desire to separate. True, separatism is not too popular right now. It's at a low ebb at this time, but at any time, the spirit of a separate Quebec maybe roused and the future of all Canadians will be insecure at best.
In 1998, the Parti Quebecois, led by Lucien Bouchard garnered nearly 43% of the vote, and won a majority government. The Liberals, led by then-newly-fled-from-Ottawa Jean Charest, actually got nearly 44%, but were relegated to opposition thanks to the madness of the system under which we live. The Pequistes got 75 seats in 1998, whilst the Liberals won 48. This time around the seat totals are slightly different – the Pequistes have 45 seats in Quebec's National Assembly, and the Liberals have 76 seats (the balance of four went to the Action Democratique led by the quick-rising, Mario Dumont, more on him later). In this election, the Pequistes have gone down to 33% of the popular vote, while the Liberals hover around 46%, a very slight improvement, but hardly a revolution, no?
The ADQ under the great right hope, Mario Dumont, had seven seats coming into the race, a number of which were won in a spat of by-elections last year. Most of those seats they lost, reducing them to a disappointing caucus of four. Their popular vote though increased by nearly 7%, but it isn't much considering all the hype and popularity he seemed to have a year ago, or even six months ago.
The Globe and Mail ran as their lead editorial on Saturday, an endorsement of Jean Charest. It was a glowing piece, that ran with a typographical mistake, something that I spotted quickly, which surprises me because the scribblers (at least editors) at "Canada's National Newspaper" are hardly ever wrong. The gist of it was that this election, 2003, would be as pivotal and as groundbreaking as the election of 1960 that elected Jean Lesage and the Liberals and unleashed the Quiet Revolution. The editorial went on to glow that only Jean Charest has the gumption to take Quebec into the 21st century, that under the Parti Quebecois it has been staid, old-fashioned and that Landry's stewardship would be detrimental to the economy. The ADQ, says the Globe, and I happen to agree, espouses progressive economic ideas, but cannot be trusted, because it is far too new and Dumont is seen as far too young. Paul Wells of the National Post, said it best when interviewed on Monday, that at 32, Dumont has spent forty years in politics already. So perhaps Jean Charest can stop the economic haemorrhaging that has occurred in Quebec under separatist rule. Perhaps Charest's consensus between Dumont's radical right-wing ideas mirrored after Klein and Harris and the PQ's left-wing socialist conscience, will be a good balance for Quebec's economic ledgers.
Canadians outside of Quebec may suppose, rightly, but wrongly, that a Jean Charest government will be good for national unity. Perhaps with this vote, the separatists are banished and Quebec will never ever threaten to leave. Alas, that is naïve in the extreme. Charest has said he plans on improving Quebec's lot amongst the other provinces in Canada. Sounds noble, but for the rest of Canada that spells great danger. First, Charest promised years ago, soon after losing the 1998 election, that should he become premier he would work to concocting a sort of Meech Lake part three. In his victory speech last night, Charest spoke of correcting the "fiscal imbalance" between Ottawa and the provinces. Alas, wanting the devolution of powers from a centrist government like that headed by Jean Chrétien, and a future one to be headed up by Paul Martin, that will mean – as history has shown us – that Quebec will want more. Alberta with Ralph Klein at the helm, will refuse to knuckle under, and so will a British Columbian government headed up by Gordon Campbell. The rest of Canada, like it did with Meech Lake, like it did with Charlottetown, will refuse to endorse giving more power and more of the pie to a province, whose population is declining and whose economy is not pulling its weight amongst the other provinces in Confederation.
I like Jean Charest a lot (I like his daughter Amélie more though, look for her to break some hearts and make a ton of ink as her father takes up the premier's job). He's a decent man, who could have possibly stopped the Tories from dying, had he become leader in 1993 rather than Kim Campbell. However, one cannot help but have hope that he won't turn into a Robert Bourassa, demanding so much, because he can't stifle the loud voices in Quebec who demand so much more.
As a British Columbian, I would have been more secure in knowing that Canada would remain a whole country, had the Parti Quebecois won. Had the ADQ and Mario Dumont done better, I think we would have seen a greater level of change in the politics of Quebec, not to mention the country. I do not believe the country, even Quebec's political landscape shifted all that much thanks to Monday's result. Rather than elect a leader in Jean Charest, Quebeckers elected a manager, who can correct some of the missteps of the last nine years of soverigntist government – from Jacques Parizeau, Lucien Bouchard and Bernard Landry. However, with five years in opposition, perhaps Charest should wish hard that it'll just be fine. The Liberals in this province, under Gordon Campbell had ten years in opposition, yet now that they're in government, they're doing, at best, a shitty job considering their long apprenticeship. But for Jean Charest, a victory is a victory, and in politics, to the victor goes the spoils.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .