We didn’t expect the PLQ to grow in the polls because it’s a party with no real leader and suffered a historic defeat this fall: 4e place in the votes cast.
But the Léger-Le Devoir poll released yesterday confirmed that he was perhaps living through the worst moment of the worst desert crossing in his history: 14% in voting intentions; Only 4% support among Francophones.
To understand what’s wrong and work on a revival, party monks – unbeknownst to most elected officials – have created a committee that will include former La Presse columnist and former Senator André Pratte.
Peltier
No doubt all sorts of ideas will be explored to rethink this party as old as Quebec. But current Liberals should listen to former Liberal cabinet minister Benoît Pelletier.
In an interview with QUB on Tuesday, Pelletier claimed that the PLQ was wrong to reject the idea of a commission on the future of Quebec. This idea – I’ve talked to you a lot about it lately – was first floated by reporters to a distraught-looking François Legault during a press conference following the Trudeau government’s disappointing unilateral announcement on health-care funding. Such an exercise in consultation and reflection could help restore the balance of power in Quebec versus Ottawa.
The idea was picked up by PQ leader Paul St-Pierre-Plamondon, who turned it into a formal request in a letter to François Legault. The latter offered him a summary dismissal, claimed he was making “profits” in Canada, and accused the PQ of wanting only one thing: a referendum on sovereignty.
PLQ not federal!
We didn’t realize it, but Marc Tanguay’s PLQ also rejected the idea of a commission. His argument: The PQ leader is on the wrong track when he claims that federalism is harmful to Quebec: “Federalism is not the problem, it is François Legault who does not have the necessary leadership”.
Reading this response, Benoît Pelletier saw it as “proof that federalism is an absolute option for the PLQ”. He then stressed that within the PLQ “there are many people who no longer understand what federalism is”.
The PLQ, which once held a very Québec vision of Canadian federalism, now appears to have embraced the Trudeauist vision of Canada, a centralized multicultural dominion that tends to see itself as a unitary state where Ottawa can take care of everything .
And where any application of the exceptions is a cheek. On this last issue, Pelletier replies: “There are never absolute rights and freedoms”.
I doubt that the speech by this former Jean Charest minister is still acceptable in the current Liberal Party. If I’m right, that means his journey across the desert is far from over.
