He wants this fight over so-called “identity issues.” Not content to conflate immigrants with violence and extremism, he goes on to say that people who don’t speak enough French when they arrive will damage Quebec’s cohesion, even if their children are required by law to attend a French school. You almost forget that Quebec had the worst record of deaths per 100,000 population during the pandemic. Or, is that the purpose? Change channels… Legault woke up on Thursday, debate day, to the news that he had lost significantly at the polls. Léger reduced him from 42% to 38%. Post-debate polls show the Liberals, the leftist Quebec Solidarity and the Conservatives in a dead heat, with the Parti Quebecois not far behind. This split between the opposition parties meant that, at least for now, Legault still held the majority. But he wasn’t taking any chances. Over the weekend he blew the whistle on a simmering dispute with a Quebec First Nation community. You can never have enough dads. It’s not like there’s nothing else to talk about. Quebec schools are in a state of absolute disaster. The school year began with hundreds of unqualified teachers being given jobs due to a woeful lack of planning since Legault abolished French school boards. While education, for example, has been the subject of proposals from all sides, there are some important issues that have been orphaned. The five-way race at times felt more like an auction than an election with parties trying to outdo each other. If a subject requires more thought than sound and fury, it is sometimes neglected. There has been more talk of a hypothetical tunnel between Quebec City and Levis than of the province’s broken judicial system. One is a dream, the other becomes a nightmare. Last week the normally tight-lipped Quebec Bar Association made a rare public call for increased spending on justice. As it happened, in the midst of an election campaign, this appeal was noticed. They were asking for a 100% increase in spending, from 1.1% of the provincial budget to 2.2%, and the request was not excessive. All had experience of the health system, either for themselves or a loved one. Almost everyone has some first-hand knowledge of the education system either as a student or as a parent. The justice system is different. We more often see the results of this analysis in the news, not firsthand. In Quebec it has become commonplace for notorious criminals to go down because the system could not organize their prosecution in time. Victims and other witnesses are forced to return to the Court again and again because there was no stenographer or other court officer available. These cases sometimes make the news, but then there is no follow-up. Even Quebec’s small claims court system is hopelessly bogged down with inordinate delays. A simple dispute can now take years to adjudicate. Justice delayed now, regularly, Justice denied. No surprise, given that Quebec’s justice minister has spent his time punishing anti-minority legislation such as Bill 21 and Bill 96, which discriminate against religious and linguistic minorities, respectively. Quebec prosecutors are paid pitifully compared to their Ontario counterparts. Recruitment is not as difficult as retention. Hiring a young lawyer with decent starting conditions is relatively easy. Once they know the level of stress and difficulty compared to their salary level after a few years, many begin to gravitate to the private sector. Experience and know-how are lost and society as a whole, not just the judicial system, pays the price. Record numbers of shootings in Montreal have led to a political war of promises…about the future. Right now, the reality is that a young police officer will be offered a lot more pay in one of the outlying suburbs than in Montreal. Getting them to put their lives on the line in the metropolis is a challenge, and improved working conditions are an obvious prerequisite. The ultimate responsibility is provincial and a legislated intervention is long overdue to correct the indolence at Montreal City Hall. Advanced home care is an area where Quebec has unfortunately also fallen behind, and it is not for lack of capacity or infrastructure. It’s very poor design and execution. Well-implemented, more extensive home care could ease the burden on the system, as about two-thirds of patients could avoid hospitalization. Dr. Geneviève Dechène is a leading expert in the field who works with a pioneering home critical care team who provide incredible services through existing local community clinics. This kind of care was supposed to be generalized, but Legault never provided it. Now, midway through the campaign, Legault says he has a better idea. Dechène recently wrote a thoughtful piece exposing the glaring flaws in Legault’s silly proposal. For campaign purposes, all he wanted was the announcement. The results didn’t seem to matter. So, after four years of inaction, Legault claimed he would send doctors from Quebec’s gritty hospitals to somehow spread across the province and provide that care at home. Like his tunnel proposal, it was written on the back of an envelope and was completely fictitious. He’s used to bluffing about anything after 2 ½ years of softball questions from a flexible medium during the pandemic. He seems to have been unprepared to consider his proposals, and, Oh! Horror!, it was actually disassembled and examined. It does not go well.
REVIVAL OF CONSERVATIVE PARTY
This campaign produced a unique surprise: the revival of a viable Conservative Party for the first time in a century.
After participating in the debate, Conservative leader Eric Duhaime organized the largest event of any party so far in the campaign, filling a large arena in Quebec City. Legault is supposed to own this whole area, but now the Conservatives have several of his ministers running scared.
That’s why Legault doubles down on identity issues. Conservatives ate his lunch on smaller government and fiscal responsibilities. Targeting minorities is a safe harbor for Legault, but the public is growing tired of it.
During Thursday night’s debate, Legault (who is 20 years older than the average age of his four opponents) appeared equal parts tired and bored.
Legault expected to win this thing in a flurry. Instead, the Conservatives nibble on his right heel while the very progressive Quebec Solidarity (QS) nibble on his left.
Legault also believed that recruiting a few high-profile separatists would allow him to keep that electorate in the fold. Miscalculations as the bold new leaders of the QS and Parti Quebecois are confident cramming their mainstream stuff, leaving Legault looking like a windfall.
LIBERAL LEADER WAS ‘EXCELLENT AT DEBATE’
The Quebec Liberals, after a very difficult organizational start, have settled in behind Leader Dominique Anglade. She was cast during the pandemic, and Legault’s monopolistic control of every microphone and camera made it difficult for her to get noticed. Daughter of Haitian refugees (her dad was imprisoned by the Duvalier regime) she shone at the highest levels of business before entering politics with Legault. When Legault took issue with a football association’s discriminatory decision to ban a Sikh boy because of his head covering, Anglade left the CAQ (“My parents would never forgive me,” he once told me) and went on to become a senior Liberal minister with key portfolio of economic development. She’s clearly doing well in her business and investments because her net worth topped the nominees list at $12.5 million. Anglade was excellent in the debate that, for many Quebecers, was their introduction to it. She should have no trouble maintaining official opposition status for her party, but hopes to do even more. With less than two weeks to go, everything will depend on voter turnout and the effectiveness of each party’s machine. This election is turning into more of a horse race than anyone first expected. Tom Mulcair was the leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017
