Quebec election : Nationalists slip

As the non-election election goes, the PQ is sliding to a dangerous level. There is nothing new there, as the curve has been going down for quite some time. Jean Charest and the Liberals could win a majority government, unless a spectacular twist in events occurs.

There are several structural and long-term processes behind that decline. The first spin is about the incapacity of social-democratic parties, in Quebec, Canada and the rest of the world, to maintain their head above the water. They are caught between the rock and the hard place. On the one hand, their proposals are not bold enough to catch the sympathy of the people. In addition, they lack credibility, precisely because of the fact that when they are in government, they come up with the same neoliberal recipes as others. Marois for example has been demolished for having the honesty to say that the huge cutbacks in health under the last PQ (Lucien Bouchard-led) government were ‘necessary'. She is right in a way, at least if you admit that neoliberalism imposes unacceptable constraints and denies national governments any meaningful margin of maneuver. If you say that then, you cannot but end your phrase by saying that the only solution is to fight them. But social-democrats turned social-liberals cannot say this. And so people don't believe in them anymore. Look at the so-called socialists in Europe, same story.

The second reason of course is the disintegration of the nationalist perspective as it was put forward by the PQ in the 1970s. Be careful, do not think that this is the end of the national struggle, as Canadian federalists, on the right and the left, hope. It's the end of a particular phase that was captured by the PQ and that tried to reconcile social and national aspirations into a reformist, incrementelist project. This is gone. Partially because the PQ was unable to mobilize social forces, including local Québécois aspirant-bourgeois (Quebec inc, as it is known). Partially because the federal government with the quasi total support of the Canadian bourgeoisie was able to block it. So at the end of the day, the magical critical mass was not reached, although, back in 1995, over 60% of the francophone majority voted yes. Simply saying, this is not enough now. Therefore the strategy needs to be totally changed, focusing on building another social coalition, taking into account, not only the' francophone' majority, but the ‘popular' majority, which is not only (and less and less so) francophone. This new alliance between popular classes cannot be built by the PQ even it changes here and there its ‘basic narrative'.

What to conclude? One could think, ah ah, this is good, an historical moment for the left, a window of opportunity for Québec solitaire, for example. I don't think, unfortunately that it is that simple. For many reasons that are rooted in the last 30-40 years, the ‘left' (in its broadest significance) has been allied, sometimes with reluctance, with the PQ. The left was, in its majority, thinking that it was more realistic to ‘lean' on the PQ, as it is in English Canada with the NDP or in France with the Socialists. Nothing difficult to understand there. But that ‘alliance' however uneasy, is sticking with us. In many ways, the social liberal twist, the prolonged demise of the PQ, is also ‘our' defeat and is perceived like that by lots of social sectors of which a certain segment turns towards demagogic, rightwing populism.

What I am trying to say is this: the decline of the PQ will impact negatively on the left, at least on the short and medium term. And in addition of course, it will leave many more openings for the right, which had the intelligence of adopting under Charest, a moderate profile, incrementally pushing their conservative agenda bits by pieces.

Hard times ahead therefore. For English Canada, you can predict with lots of assurance that the decline of the Nationalists will reinforce the Stephen Harper. It was all too evident in the last federal election who prevented Stephen from winning big time.

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