Quebec polls and parties 2014

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CanadaOrangeCat

Ha  ha Caquiste. Ca ca?

CanadaOrangeCat

Toutes mes excuses pour le double post

Brachina

 The PQ is running a major student leader who formerly attacked the PQ, which has angered other student leaders.

Matthieu

They actually have two of the three main student leaders of the printemps érable: Léo Bureau-Blouin of the FECQ and Martine Desjardins of the FEUQ. 

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois of the CLASSE could only join the QS, though I am not sure if QS is left-wing enough for him.

Brachina

 QS isn't leftwing enough for Gabriel? Talking about setting the bar high.

Matthieu

Just suppositions on my part, though I appear to be wrong: http://tvanouvelles.ca/lcn/infos/national/archives/2013/05/20130529-2256...

He is not a candidate, but it could happen. Would it be good or bad for QS however? That is an interesting question, because he was a very polarizing figure during the student strike.

Unionist

Downhill. I wish rabble had someone competent to report on Québec.

lagatta

Le Mouvement Action-Chômage, an unemployed workers' defence group, is disassociating itself from its former spokesperson, Pierre Céré, who is standing for the PQ in Laurier-Dorion (Villeray and Parc-Extension). They say that they weren't surprised, as Céré acted as a spokesperson for the Bloc and its spokesperson (Gilles Duceppe). Remember, Duceppe was actually very good on that issue and many people outside Québec praised his dogged fight on the issue, whether or not they agreed with him or the Bloc otherwise.

But the MAC is making a point to speak out against the PQ, also supporting austerity politics and attacks on the working class. Remember, the PQ made cuts in welfare payments of all things - I believe that they had to back down to some extent.

http://www.newswire.ca/fr/story/1318913/le-mac-de-montreal-se-dissocie-d...

Céré is also opposing Andrés Fontecilla, a community organiser in Villeray, of Chilean origin, who is one of the spokespersons for Québec solidaire. I just hope this doesn't get the Liberal clown who is representing this riding now re-elected.

Laurier-Dorion is just north (Jean-Talon boundary) of Gouin, held by Françoise David, and where I live now (I used to live in Laurier-Dorion, a few streets north of where I live now).

DaveW

The leading populist agitator in favour of charter, Richard Martineau of Journal de Montreal, today in his column  raises distinct possibility of a minority Govt. In which case, all that PQ stuff dies on the order paper or gets hugely watered down.

alan smithee alan smithee's picture

It's scary that a right wing Harper carbon copy government formally known as the social democratic PQ may get their majority playing every manoeuvre from the Tory play book.

What's scarier is there is no alternative as the PLQ and CAQ are just as bad.

I'm still going to vote but sadly it's not going to make a difference..QS will be lucky to gain even 1 seat.

Fuck it all to hell.

David Young

I'm more interested in Q.S.'s polling levels.

If their support drops, are there enough seats in play that the P.Q. could get that majority?

Should Q.S. support remain (or increase their seat count?), would the P.Q. govern as if they had a majority with Q.S. support?

 

alan smithee alan smithee's picture

I can't see QS supporting the PQ unless they moved more to the centre-left...I can't see this happening because Marois is clearly a Stephen Harper admirer.

I like QS electoral message 'Voting with our head' but unfortunately it will not resonate especially in the regions whom will probably decide whether the PQ gets their precious majority.

DaveW

As for polling, too close to call, and we know how effective pollsters were in BC and elsewhere recently

sherpa-finn

Hot from the Twitterverse, news that ...  Pauline Marois annoncerais Perre-Karl Péladeau dans St-Jérôme demain.

If that doesn't confirm the PQs social democratic credentials once and for all, what ever will?!

A bizarre footnote: Sun News (owned of course by Quebecor that Peladeau used to head) ran with this precise story a couple of weeks back but Peladeau denied it at the time.  According to the Sun report... The rumours swelled after the Prince Arthur Herald reported that Peladeau would be a Parti Quebecois candidate for the riding of St. Jerome.

The Prince Arthur Herald - WTF?

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/politics/archives/2014/02/20140226-185648.html

DLivings

sherpa-finn wrote:

If that doesn't confirm the PQs social democratic credentials once and for all, what ever will?!

That would be like identifying a Green Party candidate as having social democratic party credentials, so therefore the Green Party is social democratic.

I don't buy it.

I understand that there are many progressives that vote PQ and BQ, but there are conservative nationalists as well.

Having noted that, "uncle google" tells me that the $7/day daycare was implemented by Marois in 1997 and that one of her interests this time around is to eliminate the fee.  So there are certainly some shared interests that might be worked on between a federal ndp government and a PQ government in Quebec.

cco
alan smithee alan smithee's picture

DLivings wrote:

 

I understand that there are many progressives that vote PQ and BQ, but there are conservative nationalists as well.

 

 

This is precisely why progressive sovereignists should abandon the PQ and vote QS en masse.

lagatta

I do hope people realise that sherpa-finn was being facetious about union-busting scum Péladeau's social-democratic credentials.

Anarchopanda! Great.

Brachina

http://m.thestar.com/#!/news/quebec-election-not-a-foregone-conclusion-h...

 

 Some perpective, 42% Quebec are worried about the economy while 5% will think the values charter is more important.

lagatta

Union-busting vermin PK Péladeau will indeed be standing for the PQ in St-Jérôme. He kept both Le Journal de Québec et le Journal de Montréal workers locked out for very long periods, and has busted unions as far away as in France.

This piece of filth merits hard time, and I'm being charitable here.

Stockholm

Rene Levesque must be rolling over in his grave to see a Berlusconi-like monstrosity like Peladeau becoming the de facto leader of the PQ. Levesque led a journalists strike at Radio Canada and now his party will be controlled by an anti union firebrand who locked out journalists

Unionist

Françoise David was on the radio this morning saying that no Québec solidaire MNA would "ever, ever" sit on the same bench as PKP. We'll see how the pseudo-lefty PQ panderers (like Dubuc and Laviolette) explain how this is all for the greater good of the nation.

sherpa-finn

lagatta wrote:  I do hope people realise that sherpa-finn was being facetious about union-busting scum Péladeau's social-democratic credentials.

Thanks, l! As they say, if you need to explain your jokes afterwards, they probably weren't very good jokes!

Two follow-up points of note: some Qc journalists now musing that the PQ's private polling numbers must be looking very strong, because someone like Peladeau doesn't run in an election just to sit in opposition.

And if the PQ does win, those will surely be interesting caucus / cabinet meetings with former student leaders sitting around the same table with Peladeau. Someone's is going to be taking a little water in their wine!

(And you just gotta wonder what all those loyal Sun News viewers in Kamloops and Etobicoke will think of the news that their trusty source of all truth has now been revealed as the plaything of a damned separatist!)

alan smithee alan smithee's picture

I mentioned this a long time ago but it's worth repeating ; The PQ are right of the Charest Liberals.

It's fucking embarrassing...I came within an inch of voting for them last election because I believed they were the clear alternative to PLQ and CAQ.

Thankfully I voted with my head.

Québec officially has no democracy.....Revolution,anyone?

Stockholm

If Peladeau was only going to run with the assumption that a PQ win was guaranteed, he would not trust any polls the PQ showed him... He would commission polls himself! Why would he trust so called internal polls that the PQ could easily manipulate to make him think he could win.

For Peladeau it's a win win. If the PQ wins he becomes finance minister. If the PQ loses he becomes the new leader of the party.

lagatta

The Charest Liberals are pretty damned rightist as well; always strongly in favour of more private medical clinics for one thing, not to mention their Plan Nord, with no consultation of Indigenous peoples. Also corrupt as all hell.

sherpa-finn, and former trade unionists and community activists. Thinking of a couple of people I know personally, Pierre Paquette and Pierre Céré.

And for once, I find myself entirely in agreement with something Stockholm has said, in relation to a Québec topic. Will lightning strike?

Péladeau makes Conrad Black look like a friend of communications workers...

alan smithee alan smithee's picture

I never said that the Charest Libs weren't right wing...I'm saying that the PQ have swung to the hard right and the thought of Péladeau as Finance Minister is far scarier than what the PLQ under Charest.

Québec has never seen the austerity measures a slug like Péladeau will no doubtedly impose.

I can only hope that progressive péquistes wake up and realize that their interests lie with Québec Solidaire and a nice chunk of PQ votes find their way to our Orange team.

If not,we're fucked.

lagatta

Already the Hydro rate increase in the wake of a hellish winter is terrifying. I have sleepless nights over it. A lot of us simply won't be able to pay.

swallow swallow's picture

Independence replaced by the values charter in spot number one and a labour-basher as "star candidate" of the parti Sun Media. PQ progressives really have to ask some hard questions rather than the sort of QS-bashing they were up to in the past couple of days. 

sherpa-finn

A few extracts (my loose translation) from Chantal Hebert's droll blog this morning after the PKP press conference with Pauline Marois... calling it "a bad good idea".

http://www.lactualite.com/blogues/le-blogue-politique/pkp-au-pq-une-mauvaise-bonne-idee/

The Pauline Marois who proudly presented her new candidate this morning is a little different from the one banging on pots during the maple spring.... Experience as the Big Boss is not always the best preparation for a life in politics,  just look at Paul Martin and François Legault ... This will leave a bitter taste amongst the separatist-eating journalists of Sun Media .... 

Brachina

lagatta wrote:

Already the Hydro rate increase in the wake of a hellish winter is terrifying. I have sleepless nights over it. A lot of us simply won't be able to pay.

 

 As someone who lives in Ontario all I can say is welcome to our nightmare. Although I doubt you'll be paying as much as we do. Honestly there is no excuse for Hydro Quebec to boost rates like that.

sherpa-finn

Yikes: the nationalist fix is in.

Gilles Duceppe on Twitter: La souveraineté n'est ni à gauche, ni à droite. Elle est devant. Félicitations à Pierre Karl Péladeau pour sa décision.

Unionist

Brachina wrote:

 As someone who lives in Ontario all I can say is welcome to our nightmare. Although I doubt you'll be paying as much as we do. Honestly there is no excuse for Hydro Quebec to boost rates like that.

All true. Québec has [url=http://www.ontario-hydro.com/index.php?page=electricity_rates_by_provinc... cheapest hydro rates in Canada[/url]. But that will be cold comfort to low-income folks. Ever since Lucien Bouchard gazed lustfully at Mike Harris's common-sense revolution, the PQ has differed from other neoliberals only in rhetoric. Now, even that has changed.

 

alan smithee alan smithee's picture

Unionist wrote:

 Ever since Lucien Bouchard gazed lustfully at Mike Harris's common-sense revolution, the PQ has differed from other neoliberals only in rhetoric. Now, even that has changed.

 

Exactly.

sherpa-finn

Peladeau is saying that he will put his assets into a blind trust, but will not sell them off. Not sure exactly how that makes it "blind" but perhaps others can explain.

For those interested to see what comprises the Quebecor conglomerate - here's a listing from 2010 (so may be somewhat out of date).

 http://www.cem.ulaval.ca/portraits_entreprises/QUEBECOR.html

PS This very message is coming to Babble via my Videotron hook-up, grace a M Peladeau!

lagatta

Yes, of course I'd pay more Hydro in Ontario (even though the GTA is considerably warmer than greater MTL), but my income has declined in recent years, due to Harperoid cuts to almost all of my clients. And try finding a "real job" past 55...

Matthieu

Like him or not (I certainly don't, not after how he treated the people who worked for him), but his candidacy has probably assured a majority to the PQ and, in the future, he could possibly play the role of Lucien Bouchard in a referendum. All the PLQ and CAQ criticisms about PQ's weakness on the economic side are becoming moot: the CAQ is in a full-blown panic and the Libs are trying to downplay him and failling. In an election where the economy is the single most important issue by far, this candidacy has changed the cards a lot.

I've got to agree with Duceppe on this. Before Charest gave the Liberals a hard right turn, both the PQ and PLQ were big-tent parties, attracting both left and right wing candidates. On French forums, the PQ was taking a lot of flak because Marois was seen as too left wing: the candidates were student leaders, teachers, union leaders, journalists, presidents of the professional orders. There were even talks about how a PQ victory would lower Debt ratings (a major issue in Québec, which has the largest debt of all provinces).

Though I am in the PQ's left wing, for the ultimate goal of independance, I was quite aware of the need for the PQ to get more credibility on the economic right (not talking about the social right wing here), and no other candidate could have done it this strongly. I'll just have to make sure that this doesn't change the party too much.

sherpa-finn

The response of the FTQ, Quebec's largest labour union: "M Péladeau's record on labour relations has been a catastrophe for Quebec workers". 

http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1319399/reaction-de-la-ftq-a-la-candidature-de-pierre-karl-peladeau-le-pq-recrute-le-champion-des-conflits-de-travail-au-quebec

DaveW

Matthieu wrote:

Like him or not (I certainly don't, not after how he treated the people who worked for him), but his candidacy has probably assured a majority to the PQ and, in the future, he could possibly play the role of Lucien Bouchard in a referendum. All the PLQ and CAQ criticisms about PQ's weakness on the economic side are becoming moot:

Nonsense. Star candidates backfire as often as they stimulate, and this guy is very polarizing; lots of people including current union leaders  hate or distrust him

And it gives the Liberals the new issue of how close this character was to the Cabinet table as a private businessman. Look at the Left here in babble, no question of QS getting friendly with PQ, au contraire.

DaveW

Excellent! Let the games begin! I hope and pray this is Pauline being too clever by half, and a huge flop.

It brings the whole issue of conflicts of interest to the fore, ex. her hustler husband Claude Blanchet...

Unionist

Matthieu wrote:

Though I am in the PQ's left wing, for the ultimate goal of independance, I was quite aware of the need for the PQ to get more credibility on the economic right (not talking about the social right wing here), and no other candidate could have done it this strongly.

I hope Péladeau goes bankrupt, following financially where the PQ has long since gone politically.

Quote:
I'll just have to make sure that this doesn't change the party too much.

I wouldn't worry about that.

 

Brachina

 This is the gift QS has been dreaming of.

 PKP is a dirt bag, the bastard behind the Jack Layton mesaage parlour Smear among other disgusting bullshit, what ever they gain from the right they can expect to lose to the left.

 And Matthiew you are kidding yourself, someone like PKP doesn't do something like this unless he is sure that he will be a major player or even the next leader.

 

 If Marios wins Quebec will end up PKPs personal kingdom.

 And don't buy into the blind trust bs, he already has his minions in firm control of things, he doesn't need direct control.

lagatta

You are too hard on dirt bags, Brachina.

Matthieu, I walked the lines for the workers at not only le Journal de Montréal, but also le Journal de Québec, when attending a meeting in Québec City. It was a horrible attack on all communications workers - so many of us have been reduced to precarity, and his filthy behaviour made matters far worse. I loathe PKP. My wishes for him are unprintable.

I do hope this will increase our vote from trade unionists. Now we have Claude Généreux as a candidate, as well as André Frappier and other trade unionists.

scott16

can some translate the quote from Duceppe, please?

La souveraineté n'est ni à gauche, ni à droite. Elle est devant. Félicitations à Pierre Karl Péladeau pour sa décision.

alan smithee alan smithee's picture

scott16 wrote:

can some translate the quote from Duceppe, please?

La souveraineté n'est ni à gauche, ni à droite. Elle est devant. Félicitations à Pierre Karl Péladeau pour sa décision.

 

Sovereignty is neither left or right..It's above it...Congratulations to PKP for his decision.

Brachina
alan smithee alan smithee's picture

Ms. David's words just reinforce my support for QS....Clearly the most principled of the parties.

sherpa-finn

Brachina wrote: And don't buy into the blind trust bs, he already has his minions in firm control of things, he doesn't need direct control.

I am not an expert on this stuff, but I think there are two distinct tiers to the blind trust issue .... the lower end simply separates the individual from direct operational control of his/her assets.  And this is what Peladeau claims to have down.

But the higher end obliges the individual to liquidate his/her assets which are then invested and managed by others, behind a closed door. 

So even if PKP has legitimately done the former - and relinquished editorial and managerial control of Quebecor - he has not done the latter. Which means that we have a media / communications baron in a leadership position in a gov't that (should it be re-elected) will no doubt be making major policy decisions on a whole series of related issues. Thus the obvious conflict of interest scenario (real and perceived).

Maybe someone remembers how Paul Martin handled this (or not) vis a vis Canadian Steamships ... or others. I don't.

DaveW

Wow, strong words from QS and QFL , that are close to the left flank of Marois camp,

hope they narrow her base and lose PQ a few seats; 2-3 more losses could mean defeat or minority status...

I have to admit, this move has energized ME: I want the PQ out!

Unionist

sherpa-finn wrote:

Maybe someone remembers how Paul Martin handled this (or not) vis a vis Canadian Steamships ... or others. I don't.

I think he sold his shares to a third party.

His three sons.

 

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