After what has been a singularly dispiriting election campaign, it is difficult to say with assurance which of the parties with a serious chance of forming the next government best merits the confidence of Quebec voters.
It is easier to say which party is least likely to serve the needs and interests of Quebec if elected to govern. That is undoubtedly the Parti Québécois and its leader, Pauline Marois. The PQ and Marois have run a despicable campaign that, in promoting the goal of separating Quebec from Canada, has put forth policy proposals designed to appeal to the most culturally intolerant and xenophobic elements of Quebec society.
At a time when what Quebec needs above all is sound economic management, Marois and her cohorts have served notice that a PQ government’s major preoccupation will be to pick jurisdictional quarrels with Ottawa, demanding more control over areas of administration such as employment insurance and broadcast regulation. Unspoken but clearly evident is the hope that the federal government will feed resentment against Canada among Quebecers by not caving in to the separatist government’s demands.
The prime concern in the first months of a PQ administration would be the implementation of a new and more constraining version of the province’s language law. It would deny adult Quebecers free choice in college education by extending the restrictions on access to English-language primary and secondary schools to CEGEPs. Small businesses with as few as 11 employees would be subject to francization rules and subject to harassment by language-law enforcers.
The right to run for public office would be subject to language requirements, and even before a PQ government obtained majority support for independence, it would expend money and energy on formulating a Quebec constitution and establishing a Quebec citizenship that would be of purely cosmetic value.
Beyond that, it would seek to plunge Quebec into yet another debilitating sovereignty referendum, one possibly triggered by a petition signed by separatist hardliners representing a bare 15 per cent of the population. It would proceed in this endeavour even though polls reliably show that two-thirds of Quebecers are opposed to another referendum in the next government’s term of office.
For federalists, the re-election of Jean Charest and his Liberal Party would be the most reassuring outcome. The Liberals are the only one of the three major parties to offer an unstinting commitment to Canada. They have done a commendable job of keeping the provincial economy on an even keel through the turbulence of the past decade’s major recession. And they offer experience, stability and continuity in government. They feature some outstanding local candidates, such as Kathleen Weil, Geoff Kelley, Yolande James and Jacques Chagnon, who are personally worthy of their constituents’ continued support.
But after three terms in office, the Liberals have the earmarks of an exhausted government. They have notably failed to deliver on promises and expectations in health-care delivery and in upgrading Quebec’s underperforming public-education system. They were right to impose the university tuition increases they did, but their re-election would almost guarantee a continuance of the social unrest that the student protests unleashed this spring.
The Liberal government has also lost face with Quebecers for its failure to address corruption in the construction sector that has resulted in Quebec taxpayers getting soaked for excessive costs on public-works projects. Its dogged reluctance to call a public inquiry, even as evidence of rampant corruption mounted, appears to have irretrievably undermined public trust in its ethics. There is also the possibility that if the Liberals are re-elected, damaging revelations by the Charbonneau Commission could plunge the government and the province into a crisis of public confidence.
What is different about this election is that for the first time in the four decades that the PQ has been on the ballot in Quebec, there is a party in contention besides the Liberals for whom federalists can cast more than a protest vote.
François Legault and his upstart Coalition Avenir Québec are less than uncategorically federalist, but Legault presents a credible guarantee that he will not seek to advance a sovereignist agenda for at least a decade. The CAQ pledges to focus its efforts on areas where the Liberals have been found wanting — health care, education, rooting out corruption and reducing bureaucratic bloat — and that appear to be of secondary concern to the PQ. Legault alone among the leaders has addressed the looming problem of funding public-service pensions, the cost of which will spike in coming years, and declared himself ready to stand up to big labour to impose more democratic union practices.
Among the major parties, the CAQ has gained the most traction in this campaign. Yet apart from its leader, there is a glaring lack of governmental experience in the party’s candidate ranks, and some of its policies might rightly give many voters pause, particularly voters in the anglophone community.
Among other things, Legault refuses to commit himself to leading the federalist forces should there be another referendum campaign under a PQ government. He also proposes to toughen language rules and enforcement, though not nearly to the extent of the PQ. The constitutionality and practicality of his plan to streamline the education system by abolishing school boards are unclear. His proposal to have a CAQ administration play an interventionist role in the private sector by backing enterprises favoured by the government with money from the provincial pension fund is worrisome in itself and has turned out badly when tried in the past.
By all appearances, the thing the greatest number of Quebecers agree on at this point is that they want a change in government. As such, the chances of the Liberals being re-elected seem slim, even if backed by an overwhelming West Island vote. That means that the party with the best chance of preventing the economic and social turmoil into which a PQ government would plunge the province is, for all its warts, the CAQ.
If Quebecers elect Coalition Avenir Québec as their next government, they will be taking a chance; but it looks like the best chance available to avoid a prospect that is much worse than anything the CAQ might wreak.