Québec election discussion (Part II)

Rhéal Séguin in today's Globe and Mail wrote:

The political crisis in Ottawa has placed sovereignty at the centre of the Quebec election campaign, reviving nationalist fervour and creating uncertainty in Liberal Leader Jean Charest's election campaign.

Former Parti Québécois leader Jacques Parizeau, one of the most fervent defenders of Quebec independence, weighed into the debate as he applauded the Bloc Québécois' support of the proposed coalition government, arguing that it represented "huge gains" for Quebec.

Mr. Parizeau told Le Journal de Montréal that the political crisis in Ottawa would "once again place sovereignty back on the agenda."

The comments will likely fuel Prime Minister Stephen Harper's repeated attacks against the "separatist" backed Liberal-NDP coalition. But by using the heavily charged "separatist" term Mr. Harper has awakened a sleeping tiger. Nationalists are taking exception at being blamed for the turmoil in Parliament. While in French Mr. Harper uses the less pejorative term souverainistes, that hasn't stopped Quebec provincial Liberals from expressing [b]fear that Mr. Harper's finger-pointing at "separatists" could anger enough nationalists to have an impact on the results of Monday's election.[/b]

Mr. Charest is aware that of the 1.3 million Quebeckers or 38 per cent of the province's voters who supported the Bloc Québécois in the Oct. 14, 2008, federal election are not all hard-nosed separatists. [b]Many hold nationalist views and could react strongly against what is being perceived as Conservative Quebec-bashing[/b], and harsh comments coming from Western Canada and elsewhere accusing the "separatists," through their support of the Liberal-NDP coalition, of attempting to "hijack" the Canadian government.

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Will Amir Khadir be able to win Mercier this time and usher in the entry of Québec solidaire in the National Assembly? (Recap: Khadir lost by only 1 123 votes in the 2007 election.)

Things seem to be aligning nicely... (crossing fingers)

A PQ electioneerer admitted in a call to a journalist from La Presse (oops...) that their "pointage" was showing Khadir in advance. QS's own tally shows similar results, I believe.

Robert Perreault, former PQ Minister and MNA for Mercier has expressed his support for the candidacy of Khadir!

This weekend's editorial in Le Devoir said that QS deserves to have its first MNA. Thanks for this utmost demonstration of magnanimity, Bernard... Still, it's better than a "claque s'a yeule"—we'll take it...

Go Amir! Go Mercier!

Hey, if Pauline Marois wants to shackle herself to a corpse, that's her loss. 

Any prospects outside Khadir's riding? 

Ze wrote:

Any prospects outside Khadir's riding?

No prospects of wins (except maybe for Gouin), but here are some of the more promising ridings for QS:

- Gouin (Françoise David's riding)

The PQ won by 3 408 votes in 2007 (PQ: 37% / QS: 26%). Sadly, I don't think Françoise will be able to eke out a win this time around, but she might reduce the difference to a thousand or so.

- Sainte-Marie—Saint-Jacques

Manon Massé got 14% of the vote in 2007, down from the 22% she obtained in QS's very first electoral outing, the 2006 by-election in Sainte-Marie—Saint-Jacques.

- Outremont

Sujata Dey got 9% in 2007. May Chiu, another former Bloc candidate (Amir Khadir once ran for the Bloc, also in Outremont...), represents QS in this election. Note that the provincial riding does not correspond exactly to the federal one.

Other places where QS got decent scores in 2007: Taschereau, Hull, Rouyn-Noranda.

Perhaps he's never heard the song "mon pays" or realise that Québécois, whether pro-independence or pro-federalism, talk about "le pays".

poor todd. He hates Québec so much that he is going to vote for a rightwing neoliberal party that steals poor kiddies' lunch money and eats kittens.

CBC declared a Liberal majority. No surprise... But:

Amir Khadir is [b][i]leading in Mercier[/i][/b]!

And the ADQ is [b][i]heading down the toilet!!![/i][/b]

So until further notice, I'm happy...

So far I'm happy - cautiously - about Amir and not even as cautiously about the rout of the xenophobic, reactionary ADQ. Remember that they started up all the demagogic "reasonable accomodation" stuff - and never presented a brief. Meltdown since then.

I do confess that I love the fact that our candidate who is leading now is not remotely "pure laine". Except in the Persian carpet sense.

I'm not down there - don't think the babble people know why except a couple I've PMed. Old babblers will remember Renzo, my incredible black half-Siamese cat. He went missing at Hallowe'en - scary time for black cats - and finally returned, very skinny, on the 6th of December.

So I'm mostly cuddling, hugging, feeding him, (other than working, of course). I can't bear to leave him.

I'm glad he came back.... must have been a very chilly kitty.

I'm pretty excited about Khadir.

Francoise David is not far behind, herself.

 I only wish that lived in Mercier or Gouin (I'm not far from either!) so that I could back a candidate that I support.

With almost half of the polling stations counted, Amir still has a small lead over Turp (about 500 votes; about 37,5% vs 33,5%). The most noteworthy observation to make is that the percentages of the two leading candidates have been relatively stable for a long time now.

Looking good. Still crossing fingers like crazy. 

josh, yes I do think that contributed to a resurgence of the PQ vote. A lot of people here deeply resent the Québec-bashing - remember that has roots in deep bigotry, almost racism, a couple of generations ago. And not just people who support Québec independence. Suspect a lot of what one calls "soft nationalists" voted PQ.

And in any case, it will be good to be rid of the ADQ, though I suppose there are rural/outlying region frustrations and what could be called "white working class" frustrations (though there are a lot of militant trade unionists here still, who tend to vote PQ and Bloc, some QS). They raised an ugly current of xenophobia and utterly false problems of "integration". The only real problems of integration here are access to the skilled and professional jobs immigrants were brought over to perform.

Me too, crossing fingers for Amir. Really important in the defence of public health care (and not using it as a means of speculation) among other things.

And in important news, Renzo is up and about and being a pain in the arse!

There is no way that Harper's anti-unity rants aren't at play here.

Still so fantastic to see QS-- hopefully this will continue and be the story of the next election.

And nice to see the Quebec Facist party take a good hit.

Listening to Radio-Canada! Dr Amir Khadir (whom I know rather well) has been ELECTED!!!!!!!!!!!

We. Fucking. Did. It.

People of Mercier: you rock! Verily.

ETA: I have this smile that Just. Won't. Go. Away...

Pauline Marois just gave (or maybe is still giving, who knows, I can't stand it any more) her "victory" speech. She said she had spoken to Charest and offered her assistance in these difficult economic times. She said her views had diverged sometimes with Dumont, but that they shared views when it came to the "defence" of Québec, and that history would recognize his "contribution" to Québec... She said not one word about a new party winning its first seat in the NA - because of course QS's very existence is a challenge to the PQ's loss of its social conscience.

I think that in many ways this is a perfect result. The neo-fascist ADQ which is closely allied to Harper has been demolished. QS is on the map and a lot of Mercier is in the federal riding of Outremont and they have cooperated with the NDP in the recent past. Charest has his majority - but its actually quite narrow - a lot of people will blame Harper for the ADQ and the Quebec Liberals doing less well than expected.

Oh, wondrous stuff. Can we read the rejection of the ADQ as a rejection of Harper, too? Please, can we?

Though its interesting that in marois's speech - she pointedly made reference to the PQ as a "social democratic party" - I don't think I've heard THAT in a very long time.

Stockholm wrote:

Though its interesting that in marois's speech - she pointedly made reference to the PQ as a "social democratic party" - I don't think I've heard THAT in a very long time.

It's just words - reflecting her recognition of the external QS threat and the internal SPQ Libre pressure, perhaps. I'd rather someone act progressive than call themselves progressive. She has a long way to go.

Ze wrote:

Oh, wondrous stuff. Can we read the rejection of the ADQ as a rejection of Harper, too? Please, can we?

In fact, the ADQ machine run Harper's last Quebec campaign.  With resignation of "Super Mario" Dumont, Harper has LOST his strongest ally in Quebec.

How "demolished" is ADQ, anyway?  They still eked out 7 seats and didn't bottom out the way some pollsters were predicting--though that may have been a dead cat bounce from so many incumbents running...

Many QS militantEs (hmm, especially militantes) worked for Mulcair's campaigns, and others worked for Anne Lagacé-Dowson, who unfortunately didn't succeed in taking Westmount.

Yeah, I actually agreed with everything Stockholm had said as well!

The most prominent "cultural community" QS candidate is Amir himself. But it is not always easy to determine who is really a member of a cultural community.

But the most significant aspect of QS candidacies was 53% women.

lagatta wrote:

Perhaps he's never heard the song "mon pays" or realise that Québécois, whether pro-independence or pro-federalism, talk about "le pays".
poor todd. He hates Québec so much that he is going to vote for a rightwing neoliberal party that steals poor kiddies' lunch money and eats kittens.

You're off about me, on more counts than I can count, despite your puerile attempts at humor.  But this is not about me, per se.

You're on about a francophone federalist writing about mon pays. (It's my home, too.)  Give us an example; I couldn't find any.

lagatta wrote:

A lot of people here deeply resent the Québec-bashing - remember that has roots in deep bigotry, almost racism, a couple of generations ago. And not just people who support Québec independence. Suspect a lot of what one calls "soft nationalists" voted PQ ...

And in any case, it will be good to be rid of the ADQ, though I suppose there are rural/outlying region frustrations and what could be called "white working class" frustrations (though there are a lot of militant trade unionists here still, who tend to vote PQ and Bloc, some QS) ...

They raised an ugly current of xenophobia and utterly false problems of "integration" ...

The only real problems of integration here are access to the skilled and professional jobs immigrants were brought over to perform ...

Really important in the defence of public health care (and not using it as a means of speculation) among other things ...

Credit where credit is due department: Defence of public health care is a given in a progressive platform.

As for integration, I have to admit that QS is at least talking about staffing the public service with cultural communities at their proportion among the population.

Does that mean anglo-bashing will be history? Even among the independentist and soft-nationalist trade unionists in the public sector?