The Quebec election is into the homestretch and what appeared to be an unfortunate anti-immigrant slip from Francois Legault has turned out to be the harbinger of a trend.
He wants this fight on so-called ‘identity issues.’
Not content to conflate immigrants with violence and extremism, he’s gone on to say that people who don’t speak enough French when they arrive will harm Quebec’s cohesiveness, even if their kids will be required by law to attend French school.
You’d almost forget that Quebec had the worst record of deaths per 100,000 population during the pandemic. Or, maybe that’s the whole purpose? Change channels…
Legault awoke Thursday, debate day, to the news that he’s slipped considerably in the polls. Léger had him down from 42% to 38%. The post-debate polls shows the Liberals, the left-leaning Quebec Solidaire and the Conservatives in a dead heat, with the Parti Quebecois not far behind. That split amongst the opposition parties meant that, at least for now, Legault still had a lock grip on a majority. But he wasn’t taking any chances.
Over the weekend he was blowing on the embers of a simmering dispute with a Quebec First Nation community. You can never have enough bogey men.
It’s not as if there was nothing else to discuss. Quebec’s schools are in a state of utter disrepair. The school year started with hundreds of unqualified teachers being given jobs because of a rueful lack of planning since Legault eliminated the French school boards.
While education, for example, has been the object of proposals from all sides, there are some important subjects that have been orphaned. The five-way race has at times seemed more like an auction than an election with parties trying to outbid each other. If a subject requires more thought than sound and fury, it’s sometimes neglected.
There’s been more talk of a hypothetical tunnel between Quebec City and Lévis than about the province's crumbling Justice system.
One is a pipe dream, the other is becoming a nightmare.
Last week the usually taciturn Quebec Bar Association made a rare public plea for increased spending on Justice. Coming as it did, in the middle of an election campaign, that plea got noticed. They were calling for a 100% spending increase, from 1.1% of the provincial budget to 2.2% and the request wasn’t exaggerated.
Everyone has had experience with the health system, either for themselves or for a loved one. Nearly everyone has some first-hand knowledge of the education system either as a student or as a parent.
The justice system is different. We more often see the results of that breakdown in the news, not firsthand. In Quebec it has become commonplace for notorious criminals to get off because the system couldn’t organize their prosecution on time. Victims and other witnesses are forced to return again and again to Court, because there was no stenographer or other court official available. Those cases do sometimes make the news, but then there’s no follow-up.
Even the Quebec Small Claims Court system is hopelessly hobbled with exaggerated delays. A simple dispute can now take years to be heard. Justice delayed is now, regularly, Justice denied. No surprise there, given that Quebec’s justice minister has spent his time shepherding anti-minority legislation like Bill 21 and Bill 96, that respectively discriminate against religious and linguistic minorities.
Quebec’s prosecutors are woefully underpaid compared to their Ontario counterparts. Recruitment is not as difficult as retention. Hiring a young lawyer with decent starting conditions is relatively easy. Once they learn the level of stress and difficulty compared to their salary level after a few years, many start to gravitate to the private sector. Experience and expertise is lost and society as a whole, not only the justice system, pays the price.
Record numbers of shootings in Montreal have led to a political bidding war of promises…for the future. Right now, the reality is that a young police recruit will be offered far more pay in one of the outlying suburbs than in Montreal. Getting them to put their life on the line in the metropolis is a challenge and improved working conditions are an obvious prerequisite. The ultimate responsibility is provincial and a legislated intervention is long overdue to correct the indolence at Montreal City Hall.
Advanced home care is an area where Quebec has unfortunately also fallen behind and it isn’t for lack of ability or infrastructure. It’s just really bad planning and execution.
Well-implemented, more extensive home care could lighten the load on the system, as about two-thirds of patients would be able to avoid being hospitalized.
Dr. Geneviève Dechène is a top expert in the field who works with a pioneering intensive home care team which has been providing incredible service through existing local community clinics. That sort of care was supposed to have become generalized but Legault has never delivered.
Now, in the middle of the campaign, Legault says he has a better idea. Dechène recently wrote a thoughtful piece exposing the glaring flaws of Legault’s vapid proposal. For campaign purposes, all he wanted was the announcement. Results didn’t seem to matter. So, after four years of stalling, Legault claimed he would send physicians from Quebec’s hard-pressed hospitals to somehow fan out across the province and provide that in-home care.
Like his tunnel proposal, it was written on the back of an envelope and was utterly fictitious. He’s gotten used to bluffing his way through anything after 2½ years of softball questions from a pliant media during the pandemic. He appears to have been unprepared to have his proposals looked at and, Oh! Horror!, actually pulled apart and examined. It’s not going well.
CONSERVATIVE PARTY RESURGENCE
This campaign has produced one singular surprise: the resurgence of a viable Conservative Party for the first time in a century.
After taking part in the debate, Conservative Leader Eric Duhaime organized the biggest event of any party so far in the campaign, packing a major arena in Quebec City. Legault is supposed to own that whole region, but now the Conservatives have several of his ministers running scared.
That’s why Legault is doubling down on identity issues. The Conservatives have eaten his lunch on the subject of smaller government and fiscal responsibility. Targeting minorities is a safe harbour for Legault but the public is starting to grow tired of it.
During Thursday night’s debate, Legault (who is 20 years older than the average age of his four opponents) appeared tired and bored, in equal measure.
Legault was expecting to win this thing in a romp. Instead, the Conservatives are nipping at his right heel while the very progressive Quebec Solidaire(QS) nips at his left.
Legault also thought that recruiting a couple of high-profile separatists would allow him to keep that electorate in the fold. Bad calculus as the bold young leaders of QS and Parti Quebecois have been confidently strutting their sovereignist stuff, leaving Legault to look like a wannabe.
LIBERAL LEADER WAS 'EXCELLENT IN THE DEBATE'
The Quebec Liberals, after a very rocky organizational start, have settled down behind Leader Dominique Anglade. She was chosen during the pandemic and Legault’s monopoly control of every microphone and camera made it tough for her to become known. The daughter of Haitian refugees (her Dad was imprisoned by the Duvalier regime) she shone at the highest levels of business before entering politics with Legault.
When Legault sided with the discriminatory decision of a soccer federation to exclude a Sikh boy because of his head covering, Anglade left the CAQ (“My parents would’ve never forgiven me,” she once told me) and went on to become a senior Liberal minister with a key economic development portfolio.
She’s clearly done well in business and with her investments because the value of her assets topped the list of candidates at $12.5 million.
Anglade was excellent in the debate which, for many Quebecers, was their introduction to her. She should have no trouble keeping official opposition status for her party but hopes to do even more.
With less than two weeks to go, it will all come down to voter participation and efficiency of each party’s machine.
This election is turning into more of a horse race than anyone expected at the start.
Tom Mulcair was the leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017
