Unlike Ontario, there is a path to power for Liberals in Quebec
As Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals go in Ontario’s spring election, so too will go Philippe Couillard’s ruling party in Quebec in the fall? Given the turn of the campaign for the Ontario Liberals there certainly are too many parallels to comfort their Quebec cousins. But there are also striking differences.
Wynne and Couillard became leaders of their respective parties within six weeks of each other in 2013. At the time the Liberals in both provinces seemed to have exhausted their welcome in government.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/05/23/unlike-ontari...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-qc-poll-tracker-aug9-1.4778218
While I personally agree with the CAQ's idea to have a universal 8.05$ per day fee for subsidized daycare, I think its bad politics and they just hurt themselves because they're turning on a significant part of their base.
The CAQ voter base is essentially 2 groups.
1. The "I hate Muslims and non white immigrants" crowd.
2. The selfish "I don't have kids, so why should I pay school tax" crowd.
This policy position basically betrays that second group and I've already heard complaints in the media about it. The left will never support the CAQ so this makes no sense. It would be ironic if the CAQ loses because they're too much to the left of the Liberals. But, please go on, make more left wing announcements :)
I'd rather take 4 more years of Couillard than 4 days with Legault. Hopefully if that happens,the PQ can get their shit together and once again become the natural option and the CAQ can go back under their rock..
'Illegal' immigrant comment draws boos and whistles at lively Quebec election skirmish
The man favoured to win Quebec's next election found himself on the receiving end of some boos and whistles over his comments about immigrants during a lively Friday night political discussion at Concordia University.
François Legault, leader of the right-leaning Coalition Avenir Québec party, provoked the reaction after outlining one of his promises to require immigrants to pass a French test within three years of arrival in order to not "find themselves in an illegal situation."
Legault’s comments came during an event, billed as a “dialogue with youth,” at the Montreal university. Representatives of all four major parties were there to take questions that had been sent in advance from Quebecers between the ages of 18 and 35.
Legault was joined on stage by Liberal leader and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, the Parti Québécois’ Jean-FrançoisLisée and Québec Solidaire spokesperson Manon Massé.
Couillard rejected Legault’s approach. “The best way to integrate an immigrant person into our society, it’s not to push them away for six months and put them in a class, but it is to put them in a work environment, with Quebecers, who are going to welcome them and help them learn French,” he said.
Couillard also made a point of noting his commitment to Canada with a party that is "unambiguously federalist," saying he was "proud to be Canadian" and that "being a Quebecer is my way of being a proud Canadian."
His remarks drew some applause, possibly comforting the premier who was the only one to be booed when he arrived on stage at the beginning of the event....
This could also be the election where QS finally moves past the PQ, since QS stands for something and the PQ no longer stands for anything at all. There's really no continued reason for the PQ to be a major force at all in Quebec politics.
The best possible achievable outcome this year would be a hung National Assembly in which QS held the balance of power. They would at least be able to form whichever minority government that produced to be somewhat socially decent.
That's great news. We'll see if it works out as you want.
The PQ are a secondary thought for me. I'm voting Liberal.
Understood. And, as I pointed out to you awhile back, you live in a riding where the CAQ are unelectable. It would take something like a 40-point swing to the CAQ from the PLQ for the CAQ even to have a chance there, and if that swing was happening there, it would probably mean the CAQ was going to win virtually every riding.
I hope you understand that I have no choice really. CAQ is apparently quite popular with francophones. A vote here, a vote there and CAQ could overtake this riding.
Keep in mind that the demographic has changed immensely since when I originally lived here in the early 1990's. It's now pretty high end,a yuppie village and has a large population of people from outside Quebec. It's no longer a Liberal shoe-in.
But I wasn't being sarcastic about what you said about QS. It would be fanrastic news if they finished ahead of the PQ.
However that will mean that the PQ would no longer be the natural alternative. CAQ would benefit greatly. Which kind of sucks.
I'm looking at Ontario and Donald Drumpf's blatant influence on Doug Turd. THere's nothing to suggest Legault would be any different. At least I know what Im getting from Couillard and the Liberals and as 'right wing' that they might be,I can't imagine what pundits have been pointing out constantly about the 'right leaning' CAQ. What do they mean? Whatever it is,it doesn't sound good to me.
They'd have to more than quintuple their vote, leapfrogging three other parties -- all of which got over 20% of the vote last time -- to turn their 5% from 2015 into a win. At that point, unless they ran someone spectacularly popular in S-H-S-A, they'd be running the board with a 125-seat victory. Stranger things have happened, certainly, but if you're voting strategically, it's worth considering that your Liberal vote is far more likely to block a QS win in that riding than a CAQ one.
Have some faith Ken! Soon QS will stand for nothing at all, just like the rest of them. The tragic reality is that with the CAQ being way ahead with francophone voters, and is 6 points ahead of the Liberals in all of Quebec, and is running against 3 other parties, 36% is going to get them a Doug-Ford style majority at least. I can't see anything changing it, as it has been a long-term condition, and those things tend not to change, as in Ontario.
Not sure why you'd say that about QS. They've showed no signs of even considering sellout politics.
Yes, I just don't get that accusation. Usually we are accused of being too "idealistic".
Now when I attend QS rallies and events I'm often one of the oldest people in the room. There has been a strong surge in youth support. Our candidate in Jeanne-Mance - Viger (St-Léonard) lives near me and we often chat: https://twitter.com/ismaelseck_qs?lang=fr St-Léonard, known for being either Italian or "Québécois de souche", has now become very multicultural and faces many problems formerly more common to the urban core.
I don't see what we can do about the CAQ but fight them; they are ecocidal (like Drug Ford) for one thing. But the Liberals have inflicted austerity on the population; especially poorer and more vulnerable people. I'd never vote for either of them.
Mainstreet:
(Aug. 19-20): 32% CAQ, 26% LIB, 18% PQ, 14% QS, 4% GRN, 4% CON, 3% OTH
It's going to be harder and harder for the old-line Quebec trade unionist leadership to justify staying with the PQ instead of switching to QS if this trend continues. A four-point differerence in the polls, with the party that's four points ahead hopelessly out-of-contention, can't possibly justify the "we have to stay with the PQ, because they're ELECTABLE" argument.
You'd think they'd notice that the PQ has spent thirty-eight years now punishing labour for the 1980 referendum result.
It also leads to a real question as to whether the "Con" vote will simply bleed over to CAQ, given that CAQ has a chance to form government and the Cons, whatever their objections to the caquistes, doesn't.
https://electionsquebec2018.gcmedias.ca/Mainstreet-GCM.pdf
Ipsos/La Presse (Aug 18-21): 36% CAQ, 29% LIB, 18% PQ, 11% QS
Very different posters from Québec solidaire - you can view them, there is also a video.
https://monaffiche.quebecsolidaire.net/ The "teeth" one seems to be very popular around here.
The clowns are still at it!
Québec solidaire clarifies: French is Quebec's only official language
Parti Québécois leaders expressed outrage after Québec solidaire said on Twitter that English was also an official language in the province.
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-solidaire-clarifies-f...
Why is ANYBODY staying with the PQ? It can't win this election and it no longer stands for anything.
Good question. Their support has plummeted in the past 5 or 6 years. Free binders for school kids is not going to cut it. They are a party without vision and they are a party without a real plan or clue. Just sovereignty and le Québec Français nastionalism is just not resinating with the majority of voters anymore. Where do the PQ stand on the issues? They offer none. This is why they are political bottom feeders. They need a purpose -- well beyond sovereignty. The same can be said about QS except for the fact that all their billboards popping up in town emphasise the issues they stand on. On the surface,their policies are really,really good. But the sovereinty angle. It's the death nail of any party in Quebec now. This is why Legault keeps his mouth shut about it except when he's in campaign mode and he's this sudden federalist. Anyone familiar with Legault know that is a lie. It's sad that it fools so many people. CAQ has hinted in the company of some would be francophone voters that they would not bring up sovereignty until the right conditions are there. Make no mistake,Legault is a sovereigniost and the CAQ is just an ambiguous pro- sovereignty party. This clown will say ANYTHING to get elected whatever the wind blows that particular day..
I agree that QS has yoked itself too much to sovereignty. It should probably focus more on fighting a libertarian-socialist Quebec within which francophone culture is preserved,with constitutional arrangements be damned. And I think QS would probably have done that if it weren't for all the fussy, sanctimonious federalists who keep treating sovereigntism as a heresy that must be renounced, who keep demanding some sort of official surrender and renunciation on that question rather than just accepting that it's a dead letter for the forseeable future and allowing it to fade back naturally, as it was clearly in the process of doing.
The NPD-Q has likely made itself irrelevant in this election by making a big point of presenting itself as well to the right of QS, by sounding like a parody of all those right-wing "anticommunist social democrats" that cared more about proving that they weren't "left-wing" then they do about actually presenting an agenda that would help the allophone and "left-federalist" voters they claim to be representing...an agenda which, to be worth anyone supporting, would pretty much need to be "QS minus sovereigntism". This isn't the 1950s, and nobody is going to be impressed by a "left-federalist" party which focuses more on "respectability" than on standing for anything.
What amazes me is that the PLQ doesn't seem to even be willing to consider moving away from austerity/privatization and start offering at least some restoration of the cuts in social benefits, doesn't make some real effort to address the economic issues of working-class allophones who could be brought to the polls to vote PLQ in large numbers if only the party would stop putting low taxes for corporations ahead of all other considerations. You'd think they'd realize that a return to Quiet Revolution policies on spending and workers' rights might save them from defeat.
You're right. It's not the 1950's or 60's or 70's I'm not taking a crap on sovereignty.I'm just suggesting the interesting pattern with parties who aggressively seek sovereignty. Just look at the PQ. Just look at Legault. The PQ's main issue is sovereignty,they are at 15%. The LIberals are at 36% and Legault lies about being federalist and the CAQ are at 38%. See the pattern?
Other than sovereignty, how is the NDP-Q distinguishing itself to the right of QS?
Are you saying that QS would have likely back-burnered sovereignty, if it weren't for non-QS-supporters not supporting sovereignty??
That's like saying "McDonald's would have abandoned the Big Mac years ago, if it weren't for so many people telling them they should abandon the Big Mac".
It's simply not worth actively trying to "end" sovereigntism anymore...it will fade away on its own if it's simply left alone as an issue.
There's no need to insist on surrender.
I dunno, Ken. Demand that I renounce the link between vaccination and autism. I'll fold faster than Superman on laundry day. Because I don't believe in that link.
If QS believes in sovereignty then they should stick to it. Totally their right. But not because someone else doesn't like it. Behaviour like that is probably common among individuals ("The food guide says eat broccoli? Fuck that, I'mma eat five pounds of deep fried bacon!!") but it doesn't really make as much sense for representatives.
That's splitting a pretty fine hair.
How can we expect flat-earthers to admit that the earth is pretty much spheroid, while never alluding to the fact that they used to think it was more like a checkers board?
If you had honestly supported the "checkers board" model, I'm not sure how you could then embrace the "more like a marble" model without feeling in any way sheepish about the checkers board. But if you KNOW that the checkers board model is wrong, are you going to hold out just to save face? Dig in your heels just to spite the "marble" people?
QS could walk away from sovereignty without having to do it on their knees, or beg forgiveness, or mumble new oaths.
If anyone would continue to give them grief over such a choice, I don't think it would be the federalists rubbing it in.
It's effectively a moot point whether they formally walk away from it or not. It's off the table and would be off the table even if a QS government was elected.
And, as I said, NPD-Q has denied themselves any chance to make major gains by presenting themselves as "center-left", a place on the spectrum that no longer means anything-it's inhabited solely by Blairites and the sort of European Social Democratic parties that are just as pro-austerity as the right-wing parties they supposedly oppose-rather than a "radical, but federalist" option. They should have offered what NOBODY has offered in this election in Quebec: the chance to vote for a clearly Left program, but without sovereigntism. Instead of that, they fell into the "we're 'moderate', we're 'respectable' " trap the center-left has kept falling into since the Eighties...the place on the spectrum which holds no votes.
Also, "the flat earth" and "anti-vaxxer" analogies don't work; those positions are anti-empirical; to hold them, you have to be delusional. Sovereigntism is simply a valid reaction to events in Quebec in the Seventies but is far less useful now. There's no reason to believe that an independent Quebec, or even a sovereigntist-associationist Quebec, would have any greater freedom to implement egalitarian policies than a federalist Quebec, or even, necessarily, to do anything more to protect the francophone heritage/culture/community of communities today.
If the world were flat, cats would have pushed everything off of it by now. This would be the best explanation for a flat-earther.
I live in the Quebec riding of the disgraced Sklavanos, which had left us with no MNA for quite some time. So I am happy I will now have a real MNA from a real party, even if it is the feces-like PLQ. The PLQ, the CAQ, the PQ, QS, and the NDP-Q have all hit the ground running with signs. The PLQ, CAQ, and QS candidates do not look very trustworthy to me. I would like to punch them all in the face. So it is between the PQ and the NDP-Q for me on the basis of candidates. The PLQ have said on their signs that they would make life better for us if they got re-elected. They did not do that for me in the last 4 years, so I have no reason to believe they will do so again in the next 4 years. Thus in terms of incumbency I have to vote for one of the ones who are there to replace the PLQ. One of the PQ signs has the fleur-de-lys as little birds, which presumably represents money flying out of Quebec once they get elected. However the PQ gets the most marks for an imaginative ad campaign. QS wants free post-secondary education for everybody, however with what little I am left after paying for various Quebec taxes I am not too sure I can bear any more. And I am making barely more than minimum wage. Manon Masse also said that life should not be about working, which was a real blunder so far as I could see. If I did not work, I could not pay my rent, and I would be homeless. When I work, I can buy the things I need like food.
My agency told me I have another week's work, so I have some job security for the next week.
I understand the Bloc Pot may be running a candidate, which might be a good home for my vote.
What a wretched group of choices!
First of all, Manon's name is Massé, not Masse (which is also a name common here). I have known Andrés Fonticella for many years, at least since 1990, working in groupes populaires in Villeray, where I lived at the time, just a few blocks from where I live now. I have absolutely no reason to doubt his integrity and commitment to improving life for people in the riding. He was co-ordinator of the Solidarités Villeray table for many years, and responsible for many initiatives "making people's lives easier", to quote the ridiculous PLQ slogan. He is the son of Chilean refugees, and also committed to international solidarity.
The little birds are QS, not PQ, and represent "writing" Québec and creativity.
And frankly, are you really unable to understand what Manon says about life and work? She has also worked in community groups and women's groups for many, many years, including with homeless and street people. Try looking her in the eye and say she doesn't care if people have jobs and a decent place to live. The idea that life should not be only about work goes back to the earliest days of socialist, mutualist and anarchist movements, and also spurred a great interest in continuing education in the labour movement.
Sorry, my current keyboard does not do French accents. I am sorry if my technological disability offends you.
And whatever climbdown you want from her statement saying that life was not about work, as a worker I found it incredibly offensive. Even in hunter-gatherer societies, we had to hunt and gather in order to eat. We had to make or seek shelters, and make clothes and bedding. Human beings cannot survive without real physical work being done. Perhaps there are some who are so far removed from real physical work that they think it is a curse. This kind of ridiculous idealism can only lead to starvation and death, ironically from your own socialist dicator.
If you are lacking a letter or character needed to write a name already used in a thread, you can simply copy the name (or the letter or other sign) and then insert it in the text.
Manon is not at all removed from physical work. She comes from a small town near Sherbrooke and her parents were both manual workers and she definitely did hard physical work (both for wages and subsistence farming) before she was an adult. You are assuming a lot of things about people you don't know, and just in general being rather insulting to many people on the board. And putting the PLQ (CORRUPT!) on the same level as QS and judging candidates from their photos.
Wow. Babble is now being inundated with Trumptards. Isn't this a progressive board? That was a real right wing comment. Not like the fake ' right wing' comments I may have made in the past. Kind of assholish if you ask me.
I'd like to associate myself with Alan's sentiments here(though Alan and I have BOTH now agreed that the use of the " -tard" suffix was inappropriate).
Weren't hunter/gatherer societies socialist? Aren't modern day capitalist societies like Canada producing excessive amounts of products? It seems to me that our capitalist culture that stresses our need to quench unending desires is leading to global human destruction. It seems to me that hunter/gatherers lived in much greater equilibrium with each other and the earth. Anthropologist also say that they had much more recretional time than we do!
All true. And against, the thing progressive17 too offense to was never an attack on working people at all, nor was it a call for people to simply cease to work. It was a call for a world in which most people wouldn't have to live lives of work, respiration, reproduction, a few hours of sleep, and nothing else.
Likewise, access to abortion. But if some party, or even a caucus within a party, starts making that kind of noise, we seem to think they're committed enough to it to be worth our notice. And no, I'm not saying that opposing reproductive rights is the same as being a sovereigntist. Just that "don't worry, it will never happen, so ignore the people promising to make it happen" is uncomforting.
Again, not trying to equate sovereigntism with flat-earthers. But if people holding silly ideas only dig their heels in harder if someone thinks they're silly ideas, what are we left with?
"I cannot challenge this flat-earther, because to do so would only force him to believe even harder in a flat earth".
If something makes sense to you, then it should make sense to you even if someone you don't like thinks it makes sense too.
You might make an exception for "Trumptards".
Well, you just said "Trumptards". If that's OK here, then... no.
Some capitalists might not like it but working people also have basic human requirements that include fraternity, recreation and, spirituality.
I was once called a "WinTard" -- by a former poster who was very emotionally invested in Linux.
Meanwhile, if riffs on "retard" are OK here now, I'd like Meg to tell us that, officially. And then we'll have another shitball to throw at each other and that will be awesome.
Yeah. That would be awesome. I can't wait.
Looking good!
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/mobile/quebec-solidaire-choose-environment-as-its-top-priority-in-election-1.4066003
You didn't.
North Report, while I suspect they have a driver, both those venues would be a short cycle ride from Gouin. These are densely populated urban ridings.
I do agree that the tard expressions are offensive, even when they address cats.
Great!
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-solidaire-calls-third-link-between-quebec-city-and-levis-an-idea-of-old-parties
I know it’s a big leap but any possibility of QS becoming the official opposition?
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