Québec voters tend to give their governments two-term mandates so, with only disjointed opposition at home and the not-subtle support of the federal government, Premier Jean Charest seemed secure in calling a spring election in pursuit of a second term. Now, with that election only hours away, polling suggests the results are utterly unpredictable with all three parties hovering near 30% support. Within the margin of error, any one of the Liberal Party of Québec, la Partie Québécois or l’Action Démocratique du Québec could be predicted to form a minority or majority government.
Certainly, Charest’s performance in government has been less than stellar. Québec, faced with the highest per-capita debt of all the provinces and a desperately weak economy, has replaced Newfoundland and Labrador as the basket-case of confederation such that even former PQ Premier Lucien Bouchard told Québecers last summer that they needed to pull up their socks and work harder or risk putting the survival of a French society in North America in jeopardy. But Charest’s government has failed to grow the economy or reduce the debt, permitting the province to slip further towards the abyss. Like too many past premiers, he has been content to blame a shortage of funds from the rest of Canada for all Québec’s financial woes and hyperventilate about a supposed fiscal-inballance in confederation.
Along came Stephen Harper, desperately seeking more Québec seats to form a majority government and only too happy to bribe Québecers with other Canadians’ money. The so-called fiscal-inblance was elevated to national myth and became the raison d’étre of certain federal politicians. Charest went into the election with a pledge of millions of dollars from the federal government, promised for delivery days before the vote, as a demonstration that federalism works for Québec. That, and Charest counted on PQ leader André Boisclair’s image as a somewhat flaky, drug using homosexual and Mario Dumont’s repeated failures – two challengers who were unlikely to win the support of a large number of voters.
The campaign has been mostly downhill for Charest as support for the Liberals continued to slip even amidst gaffs by its opponents. Charest compounded the problem when, within hours of the announcement of the 2007 federal budget and nearly $3.0 billion for Québec (to resolve the fiscal imbalance), he used half of the money to cut provincial taxes. Normally a tax reduction would be popular with voters but not this time. Both Boisclair and Dumont, not politicians with whom I would normally find myself in agreement, recognised that the tax cut portrayed Québec in the worst way. After decades of arguing that the province gets a poor deal within confederation and finally getting a major cash infusion to fund social, health and education services, Charest used the money instead to cut taxes. Boisclair and Dumont rightly asked what would Canadians say the nest time Québec came calling asking for more.
Certainly, I don’t want to see federalism suffer in Québec, or the uncertainty that minority government will entail. But there will be a certain satisfaction in seeing Harper and Charest hoisted on the pétard of their self-interested deal on a provincial subsidy.
Certainly, Charest’s performance in government has been less than stellar. Québec, faced with the highest per-capita debt of all the provinces and a desperately weak economy, has replaced Newfoundland and Labrador as the basket-case of confederation such that even former PQ Premier Lucien Bouchard told Québecers last summer that they needed to pull up their socks and work harder or risk putting the survival of a French society in North America in jeopardy. But Charest’s government has failed to grow the economy or reduce the debt, permitting the province to slip further towards the abyss. Like too many past premiers, he has been content to blame a shortage of funds from the rest of Canada for all Québec’s financial woes and hyperventilate about a supposed fiscal-inballance in confederation.
Along came Stephen Harper, desperately seeking more Québec seats to form a majority government and only too happy to bribe Québecers with other Canadians’ money. The so-called fiscal-inblance was elevated to national myth and became the raison d’étre of certain federal politicians. Charest went into the election with a pledge of millions of dollars from the federal government, promised for delivery days before the vote, as a demonstration that federalism works for Québec. That, and Charest counted on PQ leader André Boisclair’s image as a somewhat flaky, drug using homosexual and Mario Dumont’s repeated failures – two challengers who were unlikely to win the support of a large number of voters.
The campaign has been mostly downhill for Charest as support for the Liberals continued to slip even amidst gaffs by its opponents. Charest compounded the problem when, within hours of the announcement of the 2007 federal budget and nearly $3.0 billion for Québec (to resolve the fiscal imbalance), he used half of the money to cut provincial taxes. Normally a tax reduction would be popular with voters but not this time. Both Boisclair and Dumont, not politicians with whom I would normally find myself in agreement, recognised that the tax cut portrayed Québec in the worst way. After decades of arguing that the province gets a poor deal within confederation and finally getting a major cash infusion to fund social, health and education services, Charest used the money instead to cut taxes. Boisclair and Dumont rightly asked what would Canadians say the nest time Québec came calling asking for more.
Certainly, I don’t want to see federalism suffer in Québec, or the uncertainty that minority government will entail. But there will be a certain satisfaction in seeing Harper and Charest hoisted on the pétard of their self-interested deal on a provincial subsidy.
