Electoral Earthquake in Quebec

Quebec's new premier, Francois Legault.

The recent provincial election result is very good news for Quebec and for Canada. Not especially for this or that proposed policy of the new majority government, the Coalition Avenir Quebec. For the fact that Quebec politics has returned to normalcy, to a left-right ideological contest, instead of every election being about separation.

I'm old enough to remember the last time that was so: 1970, when the old Union Nationale fell to third place, and the separatist PQ rose to second. That's almost fifty years ago now. And it left an awkward dynamic: both main parties, the PQ and the Liberals, were left of centre. There was no voice for the right. The only issue on which anyone was voting, for those fifty years, was on whether to remain in Canada. For the rest, all policies were going to lean left.

It has not been a good fifty years for Quebec. Given that Quebec used to be Canada's industrial heartland, it has not been a good fifty years for Canada either. High taxes, high regulation, policies hostile to the English language and so to international business in order to prove everyone's nationalist bona fides, and the ever-present risk that in the next few years Quebec might separate. In 1970, Montreal was Canada's largest city, the centre of Canadian culture both Anglophone and Francophone, and still a rival to upstart Toronto in business and finance, although it had lost its previous dominance in that sphere. It was still “Canada's metropolis,” Canada's world city.

It has lost all that since, and become a backwater.

Now perhaps Quebec may rise again.

This is very good for Canadian unity. So long as Canadian culture and commerce in both languages is centred in the same city, they are more likely to stay in touch and develop together, more aware of one another's concerns.

This also seems to confirm a general shift to the right in Canadian politics. It comes soon after Ford's PC win in Toronto: Canada's two biggest provinces now ideologically align on the right. And it comes even sooner after the recent result in New Brunswick, which, if it did not produce a clear winner, certainly represented a swing to the right.

This is not necessarily a worry for the federal Liberals; it is typical of Central Canadians to vote opposite ways federally and provincially. But it may signal something in the air. The fizzling recently of NDP support may be part of the same trend. It is short-term good news, by all electoral logic, for the Liberals, as they are the natural inheritors of loose NDP votes. But at the same time, the NDP was the left's ideological ginger group, pushing the general conversation in that direction. Its decline may represent a decline in the left's ideological vitality. Nobody has any new ideas, or any that impress the public. The interesting new ideas may now be all over on the right. That will make a difference over time.

Speaking of ginger groups, it might say something about the prospects of Maxime Bernier's new People's Party. They're a good match federally with the CAQ. This might be a tide they could ride to a strong result next federal election inside Quebec.