But my God Quebec don't need a QNDP, with two shit choice and QS making minucule gains at best, why would Quebec need an QNDP?
The hard truth is this is shit for Quebec in the Short term, but so was the other choice, but this is great for the ROC and in the long term for the Quebec because it opens the door for the QNDP and yes that is a good thing, because otherwise you looking at possibly decades of Liberal rule otherwise, which will suck I assure you.
I can't salute a Liberal victory either. The PQ has been so ghastly this time round that we forget the corruption, repression and other horrors of the Québec Liberal Party. My only hope is a few more QS seats, but that won't be easy.
I don't blame you, but hopefully some lemonade can be made from these lemons for the long term. Sometimes that is the best one can hope for when one has a shitty hand.
And of course for now there is always activism, and a federal NDP government in 2015 will blunt the impact alot, its hard to justify cuts when the federal government is giving you more money for programs and the like.
Hopefully Coulliard will be leary of indulging in corruption or anything that smells of it from fear, time will tell.
Watching the debate during hockey's intermission.
My impression so far Couillard is weak and Legault is a fuckin' asshole.
Marois sure had her coffee before this debate. Compared to last time, she's putting on quite a show. I thought David ran away with it in 2012, but she's off to a slow start.
I have to admit...Marois is winning this debate.
Legault's more sedate tonight than he's been all campaign. I guess his advisors told him to tone it down.
And is it me, or is Couillard code-switching a bit?
Watching the debate during hockey's intermission.
My impression so far Couillard is weak and Legault is a fuckin' asshole.
What game are you watching?Watching the debate during hockey's intermission.
My impression so far Couillard is weak and Legault is a fuckin' asshole.
Habs v CLB
I've got the Sens-Lightning on and hemsky scored a sick goal right when you posted. I doubt Marois will score those kind of points.
"The only woman who's lost her job is Fatima Houda-Pépin." [i]Burn.[/i]
The first was Maria Mourani.
and the hits just keep on coming: TO Star/Forum poll calls it a runaway Liberal trouncing of PQ: 45-32 ...
now THAT would likely lead to the extinction of the old PQ and clear the way for some innovation
It's a Forum poll, take it with a grain of salt
What game are you watching?Watching the debate during hockey's intermission.
My impression so far Couillard is weak and Legault is a fuckin' asshole.
Habs v CLB
in hockey 2-1 late in the 3rd; the debate in shoot-out
good ol' 308 puts the Liberals in the lead for the first time in their main seat projection:
http://www.threehundredeight.com/
and
a serious analysis of Forum results:
http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/elections-quebec-2014/201403/20/01-474...
Le 5 mars dernier, alors que tous les sondages donnaient le PQ et le PLQ au coude à coude, Forum Research plaçait déjà l'équipe de Couillard deux points devant le parti de Marois (avec respectivement 40% et 38%). La CAQ obtenait 12% et QS 7%.
Généralement, le vote libéral est plus élevé dans les sondages de Forum Research tandis que plusieurs sondages québécois ont tendance à le sous-estimer. «Mais rappelez-vous en 2012, Forum Research avait eu raison», souligne Claire Durand, professeur titulaire au département de sociologie à l'Université de Montréal et Secrétaire-trésorière de la World Association of Public Opinion Research. En 2012, malgré la défaite libérale, le parti avait créé la surprise en obtenant plus de sièges que les firmes de sondages avaient prédits, sauf Forum Research.
as likely the reigning oldster around here, at 57 this is an INCREDIBLY interesting election for me;
my young interest in politics was launched by 2 events: the accession of Pierre Trudeau to Liberal leadership in 1968, and the astounding Quebec election of 1970, in which the young PQ got crushed, but won a huge moral victory
These two events set the agenda for the next 2 decades of Canadian politics.
The 1970s were an echo chamber for the ideas of those two sides, esp. in Montreal. I was stunned by le 15 novembre 1976, voted Yes with some hesitation in 1980, then was cheered that the good-government PQ was re-elected in 1981.
But for the PQ, it has arguably been downhill from there; 1981 saw a peak of 61 percent French support for the PQ; today it is 38 pc and sinking. The usual electoral cycle of 9 years Liberal govt. followed by 9 years PQ has become stagnant, esp. as the quality of PQ leaders has declined -- from Levesque to Parizeau and Landry, and bottoming out with Marois.
That whole cycle is finally ending. I expect the PQ to be defeated April 7th, which will have a HUGE psychological effect on the party and its members and voters. The true believer's chant of "next time" is deflated totally. There will be no next time after a 3rd Non. That will be a crushing blow for many pequistes.
The internal party pressures will also be huge, and if PKP is elected at St Jerome (not guaranteed), the first PQ convention after the defeat will be a pressure cooker of recriminations and factionalism. It could explode in a Left-Right split.
From there, see Canada's federal politics in the 1990s for any precedent; new parties rise and fall, are founded and disbanded, and finally a new configuration emerges.
That is why 2014 is the most important QC election in 40 years. It ends an era, and frees us to do something new. 
Dave, I beat you by a bit. And don't think I'm the only person of the boomer cohort in this discussion.
the PQ in its youth and prime years was quite something, very exciting in the 70s;
I always got along with Mercier MNA Gerald Godin, who taught himself Greek to communicate with his constituents; he would be drummed out of Marois's party today
Yes, Amir is very much an admirer of Godin. Quite a character too. There is a poem by him on a wall next to Mont-Royal métro station, about the newcomers in the area. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tango_de_Montreal.jpg
Tango de Montréal
Sept heures et demi du matin métro de Montréal
c’est plein d’immigrants
ça se lève de bonne heure
ce monde-là
le vieux cœur de la ville
battrait-il donc encore
grâce à eux
ce vieux cœur usé de la ville
avec ses spasmes
ses embolies
ses souffles au cœur
et tous ses défauts
et toutes les raisons du monde qu’il aurait
de s’arrêter
de renoncer
(Gérald Godin, Sarzènes, 1983)
someday, somewhere, another thread on Godin, who died so very prematurely;
but, down memory lane again with the 1970s PQ:
I can recall still the full-page electoral maps in La Presse after the 1970 vote, with the entire province coloured Liberal red, then the tiny little 6 (or 7?) blue-coloured ridings in East End Montreal -- Hochelaga Maisonneuve etc. -- and the crack young PQ team of MNAs around Claude Charron, Robert Burns Louis O'Neill, Jacques-Yvan Morin et cie.
Those were the days. Of course it scared the hell out of a lot of people, but I always enjoyed the ride.
That is why I hesitate a bit in 2014 to say the PQ must die, but the facts are clear. It has become a big negative here.
Like the split in the canadian conservatives in the early 1990s, a split in the PQ ranks will also probably mean Liberal rule for some time. Changes in Quebec society have come because of the PQ, and everyone is better off for that.
Changes in Quebec society have come because of the PQ, and everyone is better off for that.
The biggest change of all to Quebec society was the Quiet Revolution and that all happened under a Quebec Liberal government led by Jean Lesage
You should be happy with the recent poll numbers then.
OK, so for 1970, I got Claude Charron and Robert Burns right; 
there were also Camille Laurin, Lucien Lessard, Marcel Leger, Charles-Henri Tremblay and Guy Joron: frankly, the last three named above I could not have recalled
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/29th_Quebec_Legislature
as for the 1973 PQ platoon of just 6 MNAs, that is when well known members such as Marc-Andre Bedard and Jacques-Yvan Morin joined and PQ electoral footprint grew in the Saguenay, but defeats kept the parliamentary group tiny compared to 102 Liberals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30th_Quebec_Legislature
.
someday, somewhere, another thread on Godin, who died so very prematurely;
but, down memory lane again with the 1970s PQ:
I can recall still the full-page electoral maps in La Presse after the 1970 vote, with the entire province coloured Liberal red, then the tiny little 6 (or 7?) blue-coloured ridings in East End Montreal -- Hochelaga Maisonneuve etc. -- and the crack young PQ team of MNAs around Claude Charron, Robert Burns Louis O'Neill, Jacques-Yvan Morin et cie.
Those were the days. Of course it scared the hell out of a lot of people, but I always enjoyed the ride.
That is why I hesitate a bit in 2014 to say the PQ must die, but the facts are clear. It has become a big negative here.
Did the map look something like this?
For the record, Hochelaga riding didn't exist provincially until Hochelaga-Maisonneuve was created in 1989. Also, Jacques-Yvan Morin wasn't elected until 1973 and Louis O'Neill didn't become an MNA until 1976.
Here's what the full Quebec map looked like (the Union Nationale is in violet, the Creditistes in yellowish-green):
The biggest change of all to Quebec society was the Quiet Revolution and that all happened under a Quebec Liberal government led by Jean Lesage
So since you're the first to tell us how little today's PQ has to do with the PQ of Lévesque (whom I'm guessing you despised until it was useful to pretend you loved him), perhaps you can tell us what the Liberal government of Lesage, which nationalized Hydro-Québec, fought to be "Maîtres chez nous", and had Lévesque as a cabinet minister, has to do with the Charest-Couillard PLQ of today, whose first priority is tearing down everything Lesage worked to build.
Changes in Quebec society have come because of the PQ, and everyone is better off for that.
The biggest change of all to Quebec society was the Quiet Revolution and that all happened under a Quebec Liberal government led by Jean Lesage
After Lesage, of course, the PLQ permanently switched to being a party of the corporate center-right, so there is no way that any future PLQ campaign can possibly reference the Lesage era(Jean Lesage would be politically homeless in the current Quebec spectrum). Most PLQ voters wouldn't tolerate any talk of Lesage-type policies now and everyone else would laugh in the face of any PLQ leader who even tried(not that any of them have).
Since the defeat of Lesage, the only time Quebec has ever has any type of progressive governance has been when the PQ was in power(and even that was largely limited to the first Levesque government).
OK, so for 1970, I got Claude Charron and Robert Burns right;
there were also Camille Laurin, Lucien Lessard, Marcel Leger, Charles-Henri Tremblay and Guy Joron: frankly, the last three named above I could not have recalled
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/29th_Quebec_Legislature
as for the 1973 PQ platoon of just 6 MNAs, that is when well known members such as Marc-Andre Bedard and Jacques-Yvan Morin joined and PQ electoral footprint grew in the Saguenay, but defeats kept the parliamentary group tiny compared to 102 Liberals:
historical question...to your knowledge, was THAT Robert Burns any relation to the 18th Century radical Scottish singer-poet of the same name? It's possible, given how many Scots immigrants(most of whom could be called economic exiles, having left Scotland due to the Clearances) ended up in Quebec.
.
YOu can argue that the current Quebec Liberals have little in common with the Liberals of Jean Lesage - but you can also say that the PQ of today led by a blatant racist like Pauline Marois and with a righjwing union buster like Pierre Karl Peladeau having complete control of economic policy has even less in common with the PQ of the 70s under Rene Levesque
Québec solidaire seems to have gained a bit. Hope we pick up at least a seat or two.
CAQ seems to be dying, like the ADQ.
Which begs an obvious question...anyone here think there's a "tipping point" at which PQ support would decline enough(or the PLQ lead over the PQ would become large enough)to cause left-sovereigntists to say "the hell with it, this thing is gone" and throw their votes in significant numbers to QS?
YOu can argue that the current Quebec Liberals have little in common with the Liberals of Jean Lesage - but you can also say that the PQ of today led by a blatant racist like Pauline Marois and with a righjwing union buster like Pierre Karl Peladeau having complete control of economic policy has even less in common with the PQ of the 70s under Rene Levesque
True...which should create the kind of political vacuum situation in which left voters, both the tiny number who are still status-quo federalists and the larger number who are more-or-less sovereigntist would desert the big parties and back QS. But we don't seem to quite be seeing that yet in this campaign. Do you think there's any hope of it?
And could an argument NOT be made, to the part of the left that still votes PLQ out of "pro-Canada" sympathies, that, given that there have been several ostensibly sovereigntist Quebec governments without Quebec actually coming any closer, in practical terms, towards sovereignty as a political reality, that those voters no longer have to feel obligated to vote for a party they otherwise despise and which will likely never implement a single left-of-center policy on any issue just to "hold the country together"? That they COULD vote QS now without having to worry about waking up in a different country the day after the election?
I know you'd prefer the creation of a QNDP, but since that's not likely to happen yet(and since the last effort to create a QNDP ended up in utter failure)wouldn't a QS breakthrough be the best possible outcome this time, given that the PLQ is now committed to corporate-toady neoliberalism, the PQ is now likely consigned to defeat by a large margin, and the choice between those two parties has now become dreary and pointless?
... perhaps you can tell us what the Liberal government of Lesage, which nationalized Hydro-Québec...
Completely different era ~50 years ago though.
Both the then right-wing governments of BC (Socred) and Manitoba (PC) respectively also "nationalized" their respective utilities at about the same time - BC Hydro and Manitoba Hydro.
Since all 3 are the major Canadian hydro-electric producers today, I suspect that the reason behind their respective "nationalizations" was the inability of the then "private" operators to obtain the massive amount of capital required for major/future hydro dam projects in their respective jurisdictions at the time.
Again, a completely different era in Canada ~50 years ago from today.
<DP>
That whole cycle is finally ending. I expect the PQ to be defeated April 7th, which will have a HUGE psychological effect on the party and its members and voters. The true believer's chant of "next time" is deflated totally. There will be no next time after a 3rd Non. That will be a crushing blow for many pequistes.The internal party pressures will also be huge, and if PKP is elected at St Jerome (not guaranteed), the first PQ convention after the defeat will be a pressure cooker of recriminations and factionalism. It could explode in a Left-Right split.
From there, see Canada's federal politics in the 1990s for any precedent; new parties rise and fall, are founded and disbanded, and finally a new configuration emerges.
That is why 2014 is the most important QC election in 40 years. It ends an era, and frees us to do something new.
I actually tend to agree with your analysis! (Caveat - kinda from afar though... am proverbially dipping my foot in the Pacific Ocean as I type. ;)
Yes, a completely different era -- before the right had figured out the proper way to thoroughly kill all leftist policies, by infiltrating formerly centre-left parties, pulling them in a Blairite direction, and telling us things like public ownership, health care, and defined-benefit pensions are "unrealistic".
Remember the days when even the right had to pretend to care about progressive issues? Neither do I.
... perhaps you can tell us what the Liberal government of Lesage, which nationalized Hydro-Québec...Completely different era ~50 years ago though.
Both the then right-wing governments of BC (Socred) and Manitoba (PC) respectively also "nationalized" their respective utilities at about the same time - BC Hydro and Manitoba Hydro.
Since all 3 are the major Canadian hydro-electric producers today, I suspect that the reason behind their respective "nationalizations" was the inability of the then "private" operators to obtain the massive amount of capital required for major/future hydro dam projects in their respective jurisdictions at the time.
Again, a completely different era in Canada ~50 years ago from today.
Speaking of which, some historians actually argue that the Quiet Revolution began after the death of Duplessis with the Union Nationale under Paul Sauve, who also died prior to the 1960 election leaving the Union Nationale in disarray. And don't forget Diefenbaker who was responsible for Canada's first Bill of Rights, amongst other reasonably progressive actions for the time. As you say, a different era where right wing governments were almost as left as the NDP now:).
further left.
The ultimate disaster for Peladeau is if the PQ loses the election but he is personally elected in St. Jerome - then he has to figure out whether to involve himself in a fratricidal leadership war in the PQ or to be an opposition backbencher...not pretty - he better hope he loses in St. Jerome if the PQ loses province-wide. BTW, if I lived in St. Jerome I would be VERY tempted to vote PLQ since they are running a former journalist who is a union activist that PKP locked out!
Weirdly, other Journal lockout people have forgiven him, to keep PQ solidarity, including blowhard columnists Lise Payette and... Landry
All very entertaining, watching the PQ Hindenberg flame out...
L’inscription de nouveaux électeurs sème le doute dans des bureaux de scrutin montréalais
Quelque 75,7 % de l’électorat de la circonscription de Sainte-Marie–Saint-Jacques, au centre-ville de Montréal, est francophone. Pourtant, depuis lundi dernier, plus de la moitié des personnes qui se présentent pour obtenir le droit de voter pour la première fois sont anglophones ou allophones. Un phénomène démographique observé dans plusieurs circonscriptions de la métropole, et qui inquiète au plus haut point les autorités électorales.
SMSJ's going either PQ or QS unless something earth-shattering happens, but I do wonder what other ridings the article is alluding to.
Isn't just a bit creepy and down right racist for the PQ to be complaining that too many anglophones and allophones are registering to vote??? It sounds like a Republican in Alabama sounding the alarm that "too many" African-Americans are registering to vote and that the white hegemony might be endangered.
How exactly does the PQ know that "half the people who registered to vote" were non-francophones? Did they make each registrant submit to a language test? Did they hire a private investigator to look into the backgrounds of each new person added to the list to see what langauge they speak most often at home? What on earth are they talking about???
Imminent predictions of the demise of the PQ are grossly overstated, IMHO.
As any Qc nationalist realises, it will take a big tent indeed to ever get 50%+1 of all Quebecois voting yes in a referendum. And the PQ is by far the most likely vehicle for that to ever happen.
The QS is a proudly sovereignist, socialist-progressive and feminist party, - which in its current incarnation could probably never claim to have more than c.15% of the Qc population as its 'natural' constituency. As such it is not a credible force for driving the sovereignty of Qc, - but a prospective contributing player.
The PQ is here to stay, and with the QS (under current leadership) effectively occupying the left-wing of the political spectrum, it will be a much more centrist party than before, largely indistinguishable from the Liberals on all but issues of national identity.
Mathieu Vandal does not work for the PQ. He worked, until his resignation, for the DGEQ. Here's his resumé. Feel free to pick over it for evil racist separatist connections, but I don't think you'll find any. Mostly medical NGO work abroad. Sorry to burst your narrative bubble.
I have news for you Ste. Marie-St. Jacques is a downtown core riding in Montreal that is highly transient and includes several university and college campuses - its not at all surprising that a lot of students and recent arrivals would need to be added to the list. Its also a fact that according to Statscan about 25% of the population of SMSJ is non-francophone and it is growing as more and people from all over the world move to Montreal and want to live downtown - while old pur laine Quebecois types who don't like to see social change are fleeing to off-island suburbs (something like the "white flight" we saw in American cities in the 60s and 70s when whites couldn't stand the idea of living near Blacks and Puerto Ricans and fled to lily white suburbs)
A little musical / humorous interlude, for those so inclined:
http://blogues.journaldemontreal.com/humour/le-beat/pkp/#.Uy3vsei-Wok.twitter
Marios is vile, attacking Muslim woman wasn't enough, nope, so now she's going after anglophones and Allophones voters. The idea of a conspiracy of Anglophones from other provinces coming to Quebec to commit electoral fraud is riduculus, for one thing whose going to pay for the trips of all these people and lodgings?
Marios will stop at nothing in her thrist for power. And if she does lose she'll do her best to insure that innocent people get blamed for it. This reminds me of how the Liberals attacked Rathika over bullshit allegations of voter fraud in regards to all the Tamils voting for her. That too was disgusting.
What worse is the Tories will point to this as proof the unfair elections act protects against voter fraud.
In a similar vein to #395, - you might want to check out http://dossierqs.com/ I think this is the sort of source that passes for "non MSM" and is considered a reliable and reputable source over on Babble's international pages ...
In it, QS is clearly shown to be a false-flag party shilling for federalists, run by Trotskyites and answering to London, or Belgium or Vancouver. (It gets confusing., but there are also CIA and NDP links, trust me.)
The implication is that QS now stands wholly unmasked, - and no self-respecting progressives should vote QS. But I stand to be corrected by someone with a more discerning sectarian eye.
I assume the posts about the voter registrations in SMSJ refer to the article in today's Le Devoir on page A10. One person being quoted is Mathieu Vandal, who I think is the president of the revision committee for SMSJ as a functionary for Elections Quebec, and a Denis Dion who is the director general of Elections Quebec.
There are no Parti Quebecois complaints, or quotes from any Parti Quebecois officials or any other party whatsoever.
It is stated that the circonscription is nearly 95% francophone, not the number seen in the other post. Roughly translated, Dion stated that "in the 1995 referendum, there was a lot of business like this, but one cannot say that it is comparable to the referendum". Many pequistes including Mr. Parizeau feel that 1995 was stolen (which he was allowed to write in the Journal), GWB style. Quebec politics is not for the weak of heart.
The other thing is there is a 6-month residency requirement, which I think people referred to in the article are having difficulty proving in order to 'fill the requirements'. To me, this policy makes sense because it is going to take a conscientious person that much time to understand what is going on here. If all you have to go on is the Anglo media, you are experiencing a narrower range of policy options.
This is a hugely loaded article, but Le Devoir has been quite careful not to politicize it. Potentially, this could be bad news for the Liberals. The political mind here goes to underlying causes like a laser beam. It is quite awesome. You could feel at home in such a place!
I think we should dial down the hysteria about 'Pur laine' and 'white flight' a hundred notches, based as they are on something for which there is no evidence.
Elections here are highly interesting, especially from Laurier Dorion. There is nothing like it in the Western world. And Toronto - you can't even build a subway without intense political drama. Meanwhile Montreal is building 5 new subway stations on the blue line to Anjou. Didn't even make the news.
Oh come on, red-baiting? There are enough false flags for all of us.
