Tasha Kheiriddin - Poor Quebec. In five years, the province has gone from the Conservatives' favourite child to the black sheep of the federation. No new arena. No HST deal. Nothing in the budget, beyond money to fix two Montreal bridges and bolster the forest industry.
What gives? With only 12 seats needed for a majority government, don't the Tories want to gain some in Quebec?
The answer to this question may actually be a resounding non. While the Tories don't relish the idea of losing seats in Quebec, they don't necessarily need more of them. And since the latest CROP poll puts the Liberals at 11% in the province -7% among francophone voters -the Tories hardly fear the Liberals making any gains.
Indeed, the Tories may be finally resorting to the strategy advocated by political scientist Peter Brimelow in 2005: "While Quebec is at the centre of every major government decision ... the natural conservative tendencies of [English Canada] will continue to be frustrated. For the Canadian Right, the road to power lies not through Quebec, but around it." Former Harper advisor John Weissenberger advised the same course in 2004: "An Ontario-West electoral strategy is no longer laughable. With 201 of 308 seats ... it's entirely rational and ... a potential winner."
For five years, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has disregarded this advice and courted the Quebec vote. He put forward the resolution recognizing Quebec as a nation in 2006, got the province a seat at UNESCO, funnelled millions in corporate subsidies to Quebec companies and polished his French. The result? Zip. With the Tories at 10 Quebec seats after two elections, it should be no surprise that in 2011 the Tories are setting their sights elsewhere.
Sure, they kicked off their campaign in Quebec City, which has been promised $21-million in airport improvements. But the next day, Mr. Harper was pounding the podium in Brampton, Ont., thundering to a largely immigrant audience about how "the coalition" is denying Canadians everything from arts credits to rural doctors.
Playing up fears of a separatistbacked coalition only helps the Tories in English Canada. It could actually hurt them in Quebec, where francophone voters don't take kindly to anyone beating up the home team. By the same token, aggressively fighting the Bloc in Quebec and appealing to the soft nationalist vote makes very little sense if such gestures cost the campaign votes in federalist English Canada.
What would the Tories hope to accomplish by a Quebec-bypassing strategy? Quite simply, the annihilation of the federal Liberal party. If the Liberal vote implodes like the Conservatives' did in 1993, and the Bloc maintains its strength, or picks up any Liberal seats in Quebec, then the result could be a Tory majority with a Bloc Opposition, with the former Natural Governing Party wandering the political wilderness for a decade or more.
While such a divide-and-conquer strategy would pay immediate political dividends for the Tories, it risks deepening the political divisions between Quebec and the rest of the country. It also would give the Bloc a much bigger podium for its grievances, which might help the Parti Québécois provincially. The first separatist leader to head her Majesty's Loyal Opposition was Lucien Bouchard in 1993; two years later, with his party's help, Canada was nearly torn asunder in the 1995 Quebec referendum.
Of course, there is one other possible outcome of this strategy. Quebec voters love a winner, and it is possible that if the Tories look like they will sweep the ROC, Quebecers may jump on the bandwagon and elect more Conservative MPs as well, as they did in 1984 with Brian Mulroney. Either way, Mr. Harper would remain comfortably ensconced at 24 Sussex Drive. The only question is, who would get the keys to Stornoway?
tkheiriddin@nationalpost.com