Tom Mulcair: The Quebec Liberal leadership contender who could put a stop to a surging separatist tide

Sandy White, former advisor to Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, analyzes the shifting political landscape in Quebec and Canada.

For those of us who’ve been through the wringer of very divisive referendums, the threat of separatism is devoid of charm.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, an able politician whose success is founded on an understated populism, has decided to put her own threat under wraps for the time being and that’s a very good thing for Canada.

Meanwhile, you guessed it, a resurgent Parti Quebecois has been sabre rattling again and the separatist threat is alive and well in La Belle Province.

The PQ’s current leader, Paul St. Pierre-Plamondon (PSPP for short), is a studious talkaholic who has managed to reignite his party’s standing in the polls, if not support for separatism itself. At least not yet.

PSPP is surfing easily on a very large wave of discontent with the hopelessly incompetent CAQ government of Francois Legault, as it stumbles to the end of its second mandate.

PSPP is already starting to soft-pedal his supposedly rock hard promise to hold the province’s third referendum on sovereignty if the PQ gets reelected. He now talks of a ‘consultation,’ not of a referendum. To the untrained eye, that’s splitting political hairs, but there’s a sucker born every minute and no one who knows the place is taking the threat lightly.

Legault got just over 40 per cent of the vote in the last election. A perfect split of the remaining 60 per cent among four opposition parties gave his CAQ a massive majority.

The Quebec Liberals had their worst showing ever but thanks to a strong concentration of Liberal votes amongst Montreal’s Anglo and cultural communities, still managed to eke out official opposition status.

The Quebec Liberals haven’t had a permanent leader since former head Dominique Anglade stepped down right after the 2022 election debacle. That is about to change as Quebec Liberals will begin voting on Monday for their new leader, who will be announced at a convention in Quebec City on June 14.

When former federal minister Pablo Rodriguez indicated he’d be running, the Trudeau government was some 25 per cent behind the Conservatives in the polls.

That, of course, changed very rapidly after the arrival of Mark Carney, but Rodriguez was not in a position to have the second thoughts of a Sean Fraser or Anita Anand who both reversed their announced decisions to quit politics. Rodriguez had left what had been a sinking ship and his lifeboat was going to be the Quebec Liberals. He couldn’t swim back.

Rodriguez was himself a Montreal MP and he garnered early strong support from the Quebec Liberal caucus, which was concentrated in the Montreal area. That support and some general general polling results, led many to believe that Rodriguez would win in a romp.

The problem for Rodriguez was that the polling in question was general and didn’t zero in on party members.

Another challenge was that under the leadership rules, each one of the 125 ridings was attributed the same number of points, irrespective of the number of members. Of the 3,000 points per riding, 1,000 were reserved for members under 25. Navigating those rules required hard work across the province and across age groups.

The majority of Quebec ridings are located outside of the Montreal area. In fact, Legault only has two seats in Montreal and yet has totally dominated the rest of Quebec in winning his two majorities.

Karl Blackburn

It took forever for the team supporting Rodriguez to understand that math and it may now be too late as a tireless campaign across Quebec regions by former Member of the National Assembly, Karl Blackburn, is showing exceptional strength.

Recent deep polling of a large sample of party members by Mainstreet shows Blackburn beating Rodriguez in the second, run-off ballot.

Only one other candidate, pharmacist and former Chamber of Commerce head Charles Milliard is considered to be a real, if unlikely, contender.

Don’t let the family name fool you, Blackburn is a dyed in the wool francophone Quebecer from the resource rich Saguenay-Lac-St. Jean region.

I first met him when he won an implausible victory in Roberval as the Charest government rolled into power some 20 years ago. I was the environment minister and I got to see how Blackburn worked on what could easily have become a contentious file concerning competing uses for one of that area’s majestic rivers.

Blackburn always knew his files better than anyone and has an innate knack for keeping everyone on side. He doesn’t divide, he always adds.

He has held the highest offices in the Quebec Liberal party and went on to a career at the top level in the forestry industry before becoming president and CEO of the Conseil du Patronat (Quebec’s larget employers’ group).

Blackburn also has a unique openness for the ethnocultural reality of Montreal. I reconnected with him last year when we met during an important event for the large Maghrebine community. No longer in politics, Blackburn was not obliged to spend his Saturday evening attending an event of this type. He stayed throughout because of his strong interest in understanding the rich fabric of Montreal’s diversity.

Blackburn was late into the race. A bout with prostate cancer sidelined him from the first months. Many in the party thought it was too late for him to throw his hat into the ring.

When he decided to run, he collected the necessary signatures in the required number of ridings in record time.

He prevailed in his fight against the disease and and has campaigned across the province relentlessly, with special emphasis on the regions outside of the big cities and it’s worked.

One of the jobs that Blackburn held at the Liberal Party was that of chief organizer, and it shows. He has brought back, and brought together, an A-Team of seasoned political pros that the Quebec Liberals haven’t seen in years.

Keep an eye on Blackburn. He represents the very best of the party of Robert Bourassa, able to build bridges where the separatists are promising to blow them up.

A man for his era, if he does win the leadership, he could well lead the Quebec Liberals to victory in next year’s general election.