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A C Tualité S Politics

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A C Tualité S Politics THE RIPPLE EFFECT FROM LITIC QUEBEC’S REALIGNMENT O S P ELECTION A Robin V. Sears C S T É At both the federal and provincial levels, Quebec voters have long been held U I T captive by the federalist and sovereignist camps. In decades of polarized elections, AL many Quebecers found themselves without a political home, until Stephen Harper established a Conservative beachhead in the 2006 federal election. Then on March 26 came the Mario Dumont earthquake, whose epicentre in the Quebec City region sent aftershocks through the province. Homeless or unhappy second- choice voters, long held hostage by the polarization between the Liberals and the PQ provincially and the Liberals and the Bloc federally, now have a place to go. The ripple effect from Quebec’s realignment election will inevitably be felt on the other side of the Ottawa River. Aux niveaux fédéral et provincial, les électeurs du Québec ont longtemps été captifs des camps fédéraliste et souverainiste. De nombreux Québécois se sentaient dépourvus d’appartenance politique après quelques décennies de scrutins polarisés, puis Stephen Harper a établi une tête de pont conservatrice aux élections fédérales de 2006. Des élections suivies le 26 mars dernier par le séisme Mario Dumont, dont l’épicentre dans la région de Québec a été ressenti dans toute la province. Trop longtemps tenus en otage entre libéraux et péquistes ou bloquistes, les électeurs « sans-abri » ont trouvé à se loger. L’effet d’entraînement de ce scrutin de réalignement se répercutera inévitablement au-delà de l’Outaouais. “ ou see? Elections don’t matter! Look at Harper, Government is too big and too complex to indulge the pol- aping the Liberals after only a year in power!” That’s icy peculiarities of “ideological parties.” Therefore, as Harper Y the plaint of the Tory blogosphere. is a more successful PM than we predicted, he must be more It’s almost a cliché among young Conservative Party sup- centrist than he claimed. porters — especially those with Reform genes — to bemoan the New Democrats are fond of claiming that Canadian vot- Harper government’s apparent tack to the centre of Canadian ers’ choices are between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, if they politics. They, along with a bevy of shallow editorialists across don’t choose their purer social democratic menu. It has only the country, complain that Stephen Harper is nothing but rarely been true, and today the policy gap between Liberals another vote-buying politician with a blue tie, replacing our and Conservatives is as wide as it has been in two generations. more conventional red variety. They could not be more wrong. Elections do matter, and some transform their voters’ One of the media’s favourite political nostrums is that lives for a generation. The 2007 Quebec election may be one the only successful political parties are those that govern of those transformational changes of power. from the centre. It is the received media wisdom in the Since René Lévesque began his brilliantly plotted split developed world that so-called conviction politicians are in the Quebec Liberal Party in the late 1960s, Quebec voters always trumped by those expert at assembling centrist coali- had been offered a policy choice unique in Canadian poli- tions. Never mind that Margaret Thatcher, Pierre Trudeau, tics. They had the status quo, a mildly left-of-centre Liberal Ronald Reagan, George Bush the Younger and John Howard government, or a party committed to creating two new are hard proof that it ain’t necessarily so. countries built on the ashes of the old — even if that revo- Their anti-democratic corollary is that governmental lutionary goal was usually fudged. change doesn’t matter because voters will only get more of This year, on the 300th anniversary of their union with the same, with a variation only in the level of corruption. England, Scottish voters endorsed the nationalist message of POLICY OPTIONS 11 MAY 2007 Robin V. Sears the Scottish Nationalists with more The respected pollster Nik Nanos, New Democrats are serious about chal- votes and seats than ever before. As of SES Research, offered some proof of lenging the Liberals for national credi- with the voters who delivered the PQ the hunger of Quebec voters to escape bility, their response to this new their first victory, however, it is far the separatist/federalist Manichean opportunity in Quebec will be proof. from clear that Scots were really nightmare in a study only three weeks Layton’s recruitment of a star candi- endorsing the creation of a Republic of after the election. He reported that the date last month, the former Quebec Scotland. The outcome is already trans- federal political battlefield in Quebec Liberal environment minister Tom forming British politics as the national would be transformed by the decline Mulcair, is an interesting acquisition parties scramble to deal with this new of the Bloc, following the rout of the for the NDP. reality, just as their Canadian peers did PQ. His research showed that Stephen In communities where democracy is new, political parties Since René Lévesque began his brilliantly plotted split in the often start off built on reli- Quebec Liberal Party in the late 1960s, Quebec voters had gious, regional or language been offered a policy choice unique in Canadian politics. They loyalties. In established democracies, however, vot- had the status quo, a mildly left-of-centre Liberal government, ers support parties that suc- or a party committed to creating two new countries built on cessfully appeal to their the ashes of the old — even if that revolutionary goal was economic self-interest and usually fudged. their values. The Parti Québécois attempted to on the morning after November 15, Harper and, surprisingly, Jack Layton straddle that sectarian/ideological 1976. If voters had provided that clear would be key beneficiaries. Departing divide with reasonable success for a a “republican mandate” to the Scottish Bloc voters would split along ideologi- generation. It all came unstuck March National Party, it would have been the cal lines, with small-town and conser- 26, when the seeds for a transforma- most transformational election in cen- vative bleu nationalists voting tion of Quebec and, conceivably, turies of British democracy. Conservative. The strong social demo- Canadian politics were sown. cratic tendency always central to the The rise of Mario Dumont and he rise of the Parti Québécois, and activist core of both wings of the sov- the ADQ has divided commentators T subsequently the formation of its ereignist movement showed a willing- in Quebec and the rest of Canada as unnatural offspring the Bloc, twisted the ness to vote NDP. to its meaning. The difference is over choice of Quebec voters away from the the ADQ’s definition as a basically norms of most developed democracies. hile Harper’s organizational federalist, socially conservative, pop- In a pattern more common to Lebanon, W efforts to scoop up unhappy ulist party of the Ralliement Malaysia and the Balkans, they were Bloc voters began six months before Créditiste/Union Nationale school, or limited to political choices based on the last election and have accelerated as a clever new Quebec First party community and clan, rather than on since, the NDP continues to play at the with a thinly disguised sovereignist values or policy goals. Systems based on margins in the province. Barring the agenda. Dumont’s slippery rhetorical these narrow political choices are not brief period of commitment at the end skill has provided plenty of ammuni- only necessarily tense and socially frag- of the Broadbent era, when the party tion for each. His roots in the last ile, depending as they do on keeping did devote money and leadership constitutional wars, his association communal differences alive, but they time, New Democrats have consistent- with the quixotic view of federalism also disenfranchise many voters. ly written off Quebec. Party pragma- championed by his mentor, Jean If you are a Quebec voter with con- tists argued that with scarce resources, Allaire, and his role in the 1995 refer- servative social values and a commit- no real labour allies and a strong leftist endum campaign are the touchstones ment to remaining Canadian, you have appeal from the Bloc and PQ, any for those who see Dumont as a real had no one to vote for in a quarter- effort there was hopeless. hidden-agenda politician. century, since the demise of the Union Today the party has its first gen- On the morning after the election, Nationale. If you are a Quebec social uinely bilingual leader — born in he rejected a federalist embrace: “I democrat not interested in sovereign- Quebec — more money than ever in its hope that is not how they perceive me. ty, you were similarly homeless. history, and a dramatically weakened That would be a mistake.” Abstention or unhappy second-choice labour and sovereignist opposition. voting was the reality faced by a large The old excuses no longer apply, espe- n the infamous 1991 Allaire report to slice of the electorate. This election cially as Nanos’s research also reveals I the Quebec Liberals on a proposed allowed them to escape that trap for that the Liberals are far from redeemed new relationship with Ottawa, said to the first time in a generation. in the eyes of these drifting voters. If have been written in part by the then 12 OPTIONS POLITIQUES MAI 2007 The ripple effect from Quebec’s realignment election 21-year-old Dumont, Ottawa would Accord. Dumont was just a kid out of contradictions in his very thin “pro- have shared jurisdiction on foreign pol- school, and Canada’s tolerance for con- gram for government.” icy, but not defence: an interesting divi- stitutional peccadilloes was consider- As a good student of Quebec his- sion to have attempted to apply to ably greater then than now.
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