Electorates are fickle. They punish politicians who make tough decisions, and when change is in the air they reward inexperienced parties that have no track record. In the recent Quebec election, this is what happened both on the centre-right (Liberals vs Coalition Avenir Québec) and the centre-left (Parti Québécois vs Québec Solidaire). On the centre-left, a key moment came when PQ leader Jean-François Lisée, who was the most articulate participant in the debates, attacked QS spokesperson Manon Massé for her party’s unrealistic program. This attack on a party assumed to be nowhere near power seemed unfair and, in combination with Massé’s exceeding the (low) expectations in her debate performance, resulted in QS taking enough votes to give the PQ fewer seats than in any election since 1973.
On the centre-right, the CAQ was expected to win, but no polling firms anticipated a CAQ majority. It turned out that, with sovereignty off the table, francophones who were tired of the Liberals had an alternative in the CAQ, while many non-francophones stayed home rather than, as before, voting Liberal to stop the separatists. This even though the CAQ, which was largely absent in English-speaking Quebec, was frequently mischaracterized in the English media as antiminority because of its secularist position on religious symbols worn by public servants in authority.
In his article, Eric Montigny suggests that the implications could be long-lasting and the October 1 vote could prove to be what political scientists term a realignment election, with new forces emerging and old ones fading. This will surely be the case if the CAQ respects the commitment it made, together with the PQ and QS, to bring in an electoral system based on the mixed-compensatory Scottish model.
Click to read A Realignment Election? by Eric Montigny.
The election analysis is accompanied in this section by two important discussions by highly informed observers of major issues facing Quebec and beyond. Ruth Rose follows up her article in the Summer/Fall 2018 issue, setting out the advantages and disadvantages of the “basic income for individuals with severe employment limitations program” adopted unanimously by the Quebec National Assembly this past May, comparing it to recent such legislation in Ontario and elsewhere. And Geoffrey Kelley, who was Quebec minister responsible for Indigenous affairs in the Liberal government defeated in October, lays out the challenges facing the new government in its relations with the First Nations of Quebec and the Inuit of Nunavik.
Click to read Guaranteed minimum incomes: Are they the answer to poverty? by Ruth Rose and Indigenous Policy in Quebec by Geoffrey Kelly.
— Henry Milner
