From bore to bombshell

Adam Daifallah
National Post

Monday, June 06, 2005

QUEBEC CITY - On policy matters, the federal Conservative Party and the Parti Québecois have little in common. But when it comes to internal politics, they share a crucial characteristic: a penchant for cannibalizing their leaders.

The Tories voted to overthrow John Diefenbaker in 1966 and did the same thing to Joe Clark in 1983. The péquistes liked to kick Rene Levesque around once in a while, forced out Pierre-Marc Johnson in 1987 after just two years at the helm and humbled Lucien Bouchard with a borderline result when he faced his first confidence vote.

In fact, Bouchard earned a 76.7% approval rating at that 1996 convention, just a half-percentage point more than Bernard Landry got here Saturday. But unlike Bouchard, who stayed on to fight -- and win -- the next provincial election, Landry threw in the towel.

What a shock. Delegates were crying and hugging each other. No one expected Landry to step aside with that level of support, not even his closest advisors or caucus loyalists. He had previously stated 76% was enough to stay on -- he had cited that very number -- and before the convention it seemed he had consolidated his grip on power.

Those who had been openly questioning his leadership, such as former finance minister Pauline Marois and current finance critic Francois Legault, had recently laid down their arms. The PQ is 15 to 20 points ahead of the embattled Charest Liberals in opinion polls. And support for Quebec sovereignty, fuelled by anger over Adscam, is as high as 54%, according to some polls (although their meaning is disputed). Barring an unprecedented turn of events, Landry would have likely become Premier again in two or three years, which makes his decision that much more mysterious. I suppose he just decided it was the honourable thing to do under the circumstances.

The convention was a complete bore until Landry's surprise announcement. But though the bombshell put the party on to the front pages, it also created a number of problems. One, it left convention organizers scrambling to decide whether to continue voting on the policies the PQ would use in their next platform. In the end, officials decided to forge ahead, even though they have no clue who will be leading them in that election.

The party is united on policy. As André Pratte noted in Saturday's La Presse , the PQ is now a pure separatist party. They are no longer promising "sovereignty-association" or a "partnership" with the rest of Canada. The PQ is also squarely behind the notion that a solo Quebec can be a European-style, social democratic outpost in the middle of a more capitalist North America. The party once had a right-wing flank, but any remnants of it appear to be gone.

Landry's bomb also ruined the message the party had hoped to impart to the Quebec electorate. The PQ, which has looked grey and awfully tired in recent years, tried to portray this convention as a re-launch. They adopted the slogan Un projet de pays. Un nouveau parti ("a national project. A new party"). All anyone is talking about now is leadership.

This may actually be a blessing in disguise for the separatists. If this convention was supposed to be about renewal, the pequistes weren't too convincing. The old-guard separatist warhorses were out, including perennial rabble-rouser Yves Michaud, who was championing an ultimately defeated proposal that would have forced immigrant students to attend French-language junior colleges (known as CEGEPs in Quebec). For a party trying to reach out to ethnic communities, few visible minorities were present. And it would have been pretty tough to spin the birth of a new party by keeping the same leader -- a 68-year-old battle-scared grandfather at that.

The current situation also creates somewhat of a dilemma for the man many think is the separatists' white knight: Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe.

The issue is timing. The PQ leadership convention will more than likely occur this fall. A federal election may not occur until the spring. Does Duceppe quit before the next federal election?

The PQ leadership is likely to be the first contested one since 1985. (Jacques Parizeau, Bouchard and Landry were all acclaimed.) Marois wasted no time yesterday in announcing her intention to run. Legault, author of a recent fantasyland economic study that showed an independent Quebec would rake in billions more in surpluses, will probably run. Andre Boisclair, a former PQ youth prodigy and cabinet minister who's just finished a master's degree at Harvard, may jump in, too. Duceppe would almost certainly wipe the floor with all of them.

But no matter who takes over, the party will almost surely grab power when Charest calls an election in 2007 or 2008. And then, the péquistes will begin the march toward yet another referendum.

Adam Daifallah is a Quebec City-based writer.

© National Post 2005