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Only in Québec - Daniel Breton (founder of Green Party, candidate for NDP) jumps to PQ
January 19, 2012 - 7:27pm
Pourquoi pas? L'un est aussi bon que l'autre...
What is going on in my homeland?
Pauline Marois recruits environmentalist Daniel Breton
This will supposedly be announced tomorrow, but has just been leaked to all the media.
Daniel Breton is co-founder of the Québec Green Party. He was their candidate in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. He also founded Coalition Québec Kyoto.
In the 2008 federal election, he ran for the NDP in Jeanne Le Ber.
I saw him at the NDP leadership event last Sunday.
The PQ??? Why??? Oh well. I love Québec.
Isn't the PQ the main alternative to the Charest government, notwithstanding the new party that was just formed?
First, the PQ is falling apart. Seven (7) elected MNAs have left the party in recent months.
Second, the PQ is a neoLiberal party. That doesn't make it much of an alternative to the Liberal party.
Third, the Charest government is hardly comparable to the Harper government. I don't know anyone whose main aim in life is to defeat the Charest government. That's why, rather than alliances, we are seeing a proliferation of parties, mergers, etc. - mostly on the right.
I'd be interested in hearing Daniel Breton explain himself.
Yes, but aren't you forgetting something - the PQ is sovereignist. Maybe that's the attraction for Breton?
Maybe. But so is QS. And maybe CAQ. And why did he found another party, and run for yet another party, before figuring out that the PQ was sovereignist? Or did he just figure out that he was sovereignist? And forget that he was leftist?
I'll await with much interest his rationalization.
Meanwhile, I'm watching with equal interest how Bernard Drainville is claiming to support Pauline Marois while calling for a coalition of all sovereignists within the PQ - at least for the moment - and why do I hear Gilles Duceppe tiptoeing up to the mike?
ETA: From La Presse re Drainville:
LOL! And they've just announced that the Mercier is down to one lane because some pedestrian spotted a hole. Anyone using bridge analogies in Québec is sinking fast!
You are overthinking this.
Founder of tiny Green Party.
Then runs for the NDP, as long as it remains in the wilderness.
Decides to switch to the PQ when the ship is obviously sinking.
The man has an impeccale sense of timing.
If you should ever happen to find yourself on a ship where he is a passenger also, make yourself VERY familiar with the location of all lifeboats.
That cinches it, Marois must be packing it in.
You're right! Why do I always look for complicated explanations? He's a masochist!
But I kinda liked him. He's done some good stuff on the environmental front. Now what?
Or maybe he's an entryist, and thinks the PQ will soon be small enough to take over?
He should run for the Liberals federally next. Anyone who switches political colours that often, eventually finds their home
ETA: And then becomes a Radio-Canada (or V) comentator
Very good! And it makes more sense than Breton's explanation.
He was on local CBC radio today. He said Jack asked him to run again in 2011, but that he replied (paraphrase):
Jack, I can't, the Charest government is giving away our resources and getting ready to sell out even more, and destroy the environment - he's reversing all the gains we made with the "Maîtres Chez Nous!" slogan post-1962 and the Quiet Revolution. It's urgent and my job is here!
According to him, Jack said: You're right - stay here [provincial politics] and fight the good fight!
When asked, "When did you become a sovereignist?", he said he had voted "yes" in 1995. When asked why the PQ (rather than another party), he said (in another interview, because I couldn't listen to the whole CBC one) that he saw it as the most "sensitive" to the natural resource file.
Anyway, here's the interview - I'll listen when I get a chance, and others of course can too. See if we can figure out why he picked the PQ. There's more to this than meets the eye.
Had I had any inkling of this, I would definitely have asked him on Sunday! Ah Unionist, timing is your downfall.
Report: Breton wanted to run again at the NDP convention in 2009 link
ETA: In the interview Breton says he talked to Layton about going provincial in September 2010. The guy gets around!
I suspect that Breton didn't run for the NDP in May because he didn't think he could win a seat. When he ran in 2008 in Jeanne LeBer the riding was seen as a top NDP target and Breton came in third with just 15% of the vote. I think he gave up and was probably almost suicidal on the night of May 2 when he realized he would have been an MP if he had put his name on the ballot. Now the next federal election is 3.5 years away and just about every remotely winnable NDP seat in Quebec already has an NDP incumbent so Breton missed the boat on ever being an NDP MP. So when Marois calls him and offers him a PQ nomination in a very winnable seat on a silver platter, he grabs it. What's so hard to understand?
I do believe Stockholm may have unlocked the mystery! That's a really cynical analysis, Stock, but it rings of the truth.
My only remaining question is: Did François Legault call him - if not, why not - if yes, how did the conversation go?
Did I mention that I love Québec politics?
I also find a "Jean-Claude Rochelau syndrome" hypothesis convincing. I wonder how many others feel victim to that politically terminal condition as well, by not running in 2011.
Say again?
I can think of at least 3 more seats that the NDP will have a shot at picking up in 2015:
Ahunstic, Lac-Saint-Louis, and Westmount-Ville Marie.
Breton would've been a great candidate against Maria Mourani in Ahunstic, especially if the B.Q. goes the way of Social Credit.
I thought Social Credit was in power in Ottawa...
I took Stockholm's comment as slightly tongue-in-cheek. Literally, yes, there are those three seats, plus some new ones after redistribution, plus any seats where the present MP does not stand again, plus he could have out-organized an incumbent and won the nomination.
The fact remains that he missed the boat. A point that many senior New Democrats in Ontario will remember, if they declined to run again in 1990 and decided to let someone else be the hopeless candidate. One of the reasons Bob Rae got away with killing the Ontario NDP is because we had in some cases elected our B Team.
Rather than open a new thread just now, the speculation about the PQ is approaching hysteria level:
A failed putsch?
An opinion piece by Denis Lessard interpreting the events of recent weeks as an attempted coup by Gilles Duceppe against Pauline Marois, which just ran out of steam in recent days - but there's the caucus meeting next week, and the national council on Jan. 27, the polls are still terrible, and anything could happen.
Bernard Landry prépare une sortie
Yeah, remember him? Well, apparently the ex-premier, whom the La Presse story calls Marois's "eternal rival", will release a document next week to the media. The Duceppe camp seems happy, recalling its excellent relations with Landry. Landry himself is being coy - the document will say what it says, and people can draw their own conclusions.
Where's my acetaminophen??
Ok, enough drift. Back to psychoanalyzing Daniel Breton.
Fonds publics: Gilles Duceppe dans l'embarass
I'd love to see the NDP call for the BQ to return the money. At the same time, I've wondered if this sudden discovery wasn't linked to the PQ turmoil: a leak to hobble Duceppe.
Gilles Duceppe closes door to politics, denies claims of impropriety
Pauline Marois has outmanoeuvred Gilles Duceppe. And gee, duh, I wonder who leaked this story about the BQ spending its parliamentary funds on partisan expenses, on a Saturday morning no less?
She may, of course, have manoeuvred the PQ out of any remaining vestige of relevancy. Let's hope someone (QS in alliance with some actual progressives) can pick up some of the pieces before the right (PLQ, CAQ, PQ) monopolizes the next election by default. On the other hand, maybe this will help clear the picture for the mass movements (youth and students, environmental, workers, women, indigenous, solidarity & peace, etc.) to bring forward their own polticial expression.
Oh, and the "merger" (takeover) of the ADQ with CAQ is official now, with a few dozen (kidding, but only just) members voting 70% in favour. That will give the CAQ nine (9) members in the Assemblée nationale when it opens next month - 4 from ADQ, 2 ex-ADQ, and 3 PQ deserters - not one elected under the CAQ banner.
How do you like that for floor-crossing, eh?
Byzantine politics. Another reason I love Québec. I think.
Yes, that was pretty blatant about who was kneecapping Duceppe.
The PQ is managing to totally outclass the BC NDP for scorched earth "internal" politics. Carole James clearly had limits how far she would take that- Marois has none. That cannot auger well for the PQ surviving the divisions. Duceppe is really gone now- but going this far means the Duceppe loyalists are going to exact revenge, no matter the collateral damage, and no matter that they may [mostly] bide their time for now.
Yicky.
Brings back sweet memories of the BQ being created in 1990 from a dozen ex-Tory floor crossers plus Liberals MPs jean Lapierre and that racist guy from Hull who made comments about "some guy with feathers" killing Meech Lake.
Landry letter reignites PQ infighting
The headline may be a bit of an exaggeration. Landry doesn't attack Marois by name, but he clearly criticizes her strategy of governing "as if" Québec were sovereign. I think this sortie may get lost in the midst of all the other developments of recent days.
Thanks for all the good posts. I've been trying to follow the story but been busy lately. What would I do without you guys/gals
I think "infighting" may be putting it gently:
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?anno=2&hl=en&rurl=translate.google.ca&sl=fr&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://www.vigile.net/&usg=ALkJrhidit8siw94y2UL2lMLh5IUFO52Mg
Well yeah, but that's vigile.net. They won't be happy until Parizeau is back at the helm. And they won't be happy then either.
I dont know when exactly, but Duceppe is to be hauled before his former House colleagues to explain the paying of partisan work with House funding.
I hope the PQ flunky whose bright idea this was can at least manage some guilt that it comes to this.
There are so many House paid staffers who never do anything except party work, plus all the others that do a LOT of it.... it isnt funny. Duceppes transgression is that he crossed the line of appearances that have to be kept. More to the point: this would have been known to dozens of PQ/BQ insiders for years, it was OK then.
yeah, this is approaching mafia-level intrigue. a completely astonishing turn of events, to the point that marois looks pretty secure in her position. it's really unclear what's happening in quebec right now. almost everyone i know votes solidaire but lately i'm hearing people entertaining a pq vote. the ndp is definitely sinking, but people don't really want to vote for any of the other parties. the coalition is less interesting now that it's clear that it's basically another iteration of the adq, and the pq is taking a sharp turn to the left (never a winning proposition in quebec). i can't think of another jurisdiction on the planet earth that has a more volatile political environment, and we're not talking ireland/iceland/greece economic issues here, or any major ethnic conflict, or really anything in particular. i'm guessinfg that there's something generational going on, but i can't really guess what it means.