Premier Jean Charest's inaugural address this week sounded more like a campaign speech than a legislative plan for the new National Assembly session.
But then the premier is indeed on campaign, a campaign to win back public confidence in himself and his Liberal government that in recent polls has fallen to record lows. There is much to recommend in what he put forward, but also much to question.
Education was declared the government's top priority and the centrepiece of the education proposal is to introduce English immersion for half of Grade 6 in French public schools. But doubts flared immediately as to whether such an across-the-board measure would benefit all students, particularly those with learning difficulties. And where would the government find the English teachers to do the additional job, particularly in places like Saguenay or Gaspé?
The speech served up a smorgasbord of offerings designed to appeal to various target constituencies, as though the premier had asked all his ministers to come up with something that could be run up the flagpole. Laptop computers and interactive smart whiteboards for teachers. Uniforms and equipment for school sports teams. Tax credits for workers who stay on the job past 65 and improved home care for retired seniors. New funding for artists to take their creations abroad.
On and on it went, with even more ambitious measures. Environmentally friendly resource development. Leadership in the vehicle electrification and support for manufacturers of electric vehicle components. "Dozens of millions" to be spent and "tens of thousands" of new jobs to be created in development of Quebec's northern regions, including deepwater ports for ships travelling through the Northwest Passage. A cancer directorate to reduce wait times for treatments.
All well and good, but what was largely missing was a clear indication where the money for all this is to come from, considering that Quebec, currently saddled with a $64.5-billion debt and a $4.5-billion budgetary deficit, is so strapped that the government can't afford, or so it claims, to pay its crown prosecutors relatively decent wages. Some of it sounded downright contradictory. Such as lowering fossil fuel dependence, from 38 per cent to 32 per cent in a decade, while stepping up exploration and development for oil and gas deposits. And smartboards and laptops for teachers will be of limited benefit in places still without broadband Internet service.
For all its commendable intentions, it's hard to see where the program will deliver startling returns in the short term. The Liberal government has at most two and a half years in office before it must call an election, which is not a long time for sufficiently impressive benefits to accrue from the government's program to dispel the animus toward Charest and his works that has built up during what is going on eight years of Liberal reign.
The Liberal program certainly looks good compared with what priorities the Parti Québécois, the standing alternative to the Liberals, has in mind: repressive new language laws and provoking a federal-provincial conflicts in the hope of enabling another sovereignty referendum. But should the Liberals suffer another scandal or two, any good this speech might have done would evaporate.