La belle province, Québec, has elected its first minority provincial government in 130 years. The results are:
Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) - 48
Action Démocratique (ADQ) - 41
Parti Québécois (PQ) - 36
The results signal that the old federalist-sovereigntist dichotomy between the Liberals and the PQ, which has defined Québec provincial and federal politics for more than thirty years, is dead. It is a sign of hope for the upstart, right-of-centre ADQ...but also, I believe, for the provincial Liberals and the federal Tories. Why? Because the separatist provincial PQ and federal BQ are in danger of losing their reason for being.
The outcome is interesting on many levels. In a province in which re-electing the governing party to a second majority is an established tradition, the result demonstrates a profound dissatisfaction with politics as usual in Québec. Premier Jean Charest has been unpopular for years, having introduced policies and legislation which have raised the ire of powerful political lobbies, such as students, teachers, and health care workers. His failure to deliver on promises concerning tax relief during his first mandate created an anger which was replaced by cynicism when he promised to apply new federal money coming as a result of the recent Canadian budget to tax breaks, rather than to social spending (which had been the implicit intent of the feds' reformulation of distributing revenue from the provinces).
Charest, a former leader of the federal Tory party (in its former incarnation as the Progressive Conservatives) ran a lacklustre campaign. The federal budget was widely seen as a sop to the provincial Liberals, and the sense of Charest as Stephen Harper's lapdog was accelerated by the Prime Minister's unhelpful comments that more powers and funding might be devolved to Québec, but only if a federalist party won the provincial election.
The ADQ was the big winner. While the Liberals lost 28 seats, and the PQ 9, the ADQ picked up 37 seats. The party soared on a family-focused message of conservative fiscal management. The ADQ views the province's place within Canada almost as beside the point: While they stress Québec's "autonomy," they are opposed to separation, and refused to support a PQ plan for another referendum on the issue.
The results shake things up considerably. The rise to prominence of this third party has, in a stroke, relegated the federalist-sovereigntist debate to the furthest back of the back burners. Indeed, I believe it is not a stretch to say that, at least until the next Québec election, separatism is a dead issue. This may be a sign of a growing perspective that Québecois, with a seat at international bodies and now recognised as a nation within Canada, have nothing much of any real value to be gained from independence.
The results signal a shift rightward in Québec politics as well. The Liberals were compelled to stay left-of-centre to check the left-wing platform of the PQ. Now Charest, a former federal Conservative leader, will - ironically - find more leverage to move with a more ideologically-compatible opposition leader. It may be that the Liberals will end up being the real winners in the long run, able to use the support necessary from the ADQ to pass legislation both as cover for potentially unpopular policies, and as a way of yanking planks from the ADQ platform for themselves.
The big losers? Not the Liberals, imho. The big losers are the Parti Québecois, and its federal equivalent, the Bloc Québecois. Their raison d'être is now truly in eclipse, a result of a constellation of factors beginning with skillful combination of successive federal government's forcing the sovereignty movement's hand with the Clarity Act, well-timed investment of money and devolution of power to the province, and undercutting the effect of hot-button themes, such as nationhood, by co-opting them. The PQ leader, André Boisclair, is essentially the walking dead at this point - it is only a matter of time before he resigns. As for the leader of the Bloc, Gilles Duceppe, who saw his party shed seats to the federal Tories in the 2006 federal election, he will likely retire, having led the BQ now for ten years.
Mario Dumont, leader of the ADQ, will now be tested as firmly as Charest. The PQ will be in disarray for a while. Charest will no doubt be testing the winds to see whether he can take advantage of both the Opposition members' inexperience (several have already embarrassed Dumont with unhelpful remarks), and the demoralisation of the PQ, by orchestrating a pretext for calling an early election. And Stephen Harper, smelling the blood of the sovereigntists and eyeing ten or more additional Quebec seats, may do the same.