Quebec: I don't need to outrun the bear
On the eve of a provincial election, François Legault's rivals target one another
If nothing else, fixed election dates are a boon for campaign planners.
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois had about 80 campaign workers come out to join him in a park in southwestern Montreal on a hot summer morning last weekend. Plus a decent knot of journalists. The election campaign wouldn’t even begin for another week — it starts this weekend, on Sunday. Premier François Legault is seeking re-election for the first time since he won the job in 2018.
In the old days, a tied-for-third-place party couldn’t expect to bring out so many enthusiastic volunteers before a campaign even begins. But these days everyone knows what’s coming, and when. So Nadeau-Dubois, who leads the upstart urban lefty Québec Solidaire party — sorry, he’s not the leader, he’s the co-leader — sorry, he’s not the co-leader, he’s the co-spokesperson, with Manon Massé — anyway, Nadeau-Dubois, who’s, um, arguably a prominent figure in Québec Solidaire, had plenty of company for a day knocking on doors.
Québec solidaire is no juggernaut. The party was formed in 2005, around a sort of manifesto written in response to a prominent centre-right manifesto signed by some prominent Quebecers. QS, as the new party is sometimes called, won a single seat in the 2008 election, two in 2012, three in 2014 — and, at last, 10 in 2018. On its way up, it met the Parti Québécois on its way down. The two parties won an equal 10 seats each, in the PQ’s worst performance in 50 years. They have fought for table scraps in the National Assembly behind Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec and the Quebec Liberals, historic bastion of non-francophone support, lately also hurting: 31 seats, but still the official opposition party.
Every poll shows Legault mopping the floor with his assorted opposition parties and winding up with an even bigger majority.
But on this particular morning, Nadeau-Dubois’ business wasn’t with the Legault juggernaut. It was with the Liberals.
The leafy park where the campaign volunteers had gathered is in the St-Henri-Ste-Anne riding. The incumbent member of the National Assembly for St-Henri-Ste-Anne is Dominique Anglade. She’s the leader of the provincial Liberal party.
Which explains my headline today. It’s one of my favourite jokes. Two campers poke their head out of their tent to see a bear coming at them. One sits down and starts pulling on his running shoes. “Are you crazy?” the other one says. “You can’t outrun a bear!”
“I don’t need to outrun the bear, the one with the shoes says. “I just need to outrun you.”
Legault is the bear in this scenario. Nadeau-Dubois is pulling on his running shoes. We’ll see how fast Anglade runs.
Nadeau-Dubois scrummed for reporters. “The message I have this morning for the people of southwest Montreal is: In the last year, who’s pushed François Legault on the housing crisis? Who’s pushed him on the climate crisis, on public transit, on going green? It’s Québec Solidaire that’s done this work.”
Already 300 people have signed up to go door-to-door for QS’s new local candidate, Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, a prominent immigration lawyer who favours substantial increases in immigration, with housing starts to match.
“The Liberals haven’t delivered the merchandise on housing,” Nadeau-Dubois said. “Where was the Liberal Party during the terrible housing crisis we’ve been living with for years here?”
A reporter asked the obvious question. If he’s running in the Liberal leader’s riding against the Liberal leader, does that mean he’s given up on the Herculean task of knocking Legault out of power?
Nadeau-Dubois put on a brave face. “I’m not just in politics to do corn roasts,” he said. “We are a team that is ready to be the next government of Quebec. That being said, if the people give us the mandate to be the official opposition in Quebec, we are ready to deliver.”
Translation: Yes, he’s basically given up on Legault. But he’s got his running shoes on. “The Liberals have failed on immigration,” he said. “They are responsible for the unbelievable mess that is our immigration system today. And they have also failed to meet the climate challenge. They are responsible for the fact that we are late, unbelievably late, in our fight against climate change.”
Philippe J. Fournier of the 338Canada polling aggregator depicts an extraordinary scenario, based on current polls: Legault’s CAQ in a position to pick up 20 or so new seats, with every other party that currently holds seats likely to lose some. That probably won’t hold, campaigns always change things, usually in unpredictable ways. But the early tidings are grim if you’re not in the CAQ.
“I see the same polls as everyone,” Nadeau-Dubois told me. “But I also know that in every election campaign in its history, QS improved its score. At this point in 2018, the polls had us winning four seats; we won ten.”
On the two Legault laws that get the most attention outside Quebec — Bill 96, increasing protection for the French language, and Bill 21, which forbids public servants from wearing religious signifiers at work, and as a practical matter mostly affects women who wear Muslim head scarves — QS has complex positions. “In both cases, our position is pragmatic. We’ll keep what works and change what doesn’t,” Nadeau-Dubois said. That means voting for the language law, but saying they’d scrap an unworkable and widely criticized requirement that newcomers receive government services in French only, six months after arriving. That came in for some criticism within the party.
As for Bill 21, QS would substantially dismantle it. “Keeping women from teaching in Quebec schools because they wear a religious symbol, because they practice a religion — that’s not our vision of Quebec, it’s not our vision of Quebec pride,” he said. “We’ll fix that injustice.”
Except no he won’t, not soon, because it’s pretty clear Legault will still form the government after Oct. 3. The current fight is over who gets the lead in standing up to Legault. Who gets to defend complexity against simplicity, Montreal against the rest-of-Quebec. And even reduced to that modest a set of goals, the field is cruelly divided. Nadeau-Dubois has a modest advantage on perception issues. He is, for instance, the leader more Quebecers would want to have a beer or coffee with. After Legault, that is. Maybe it’ll help him grow in the five weeks he has left. The bear remains the bear.
Last month I profiled Éric Duhaime, the leader of Quebec’s. Conservative party.
On Sunday, when François Legault launches his campaign, I’ll be getting on his campaign bus. I’ll spend a week traveling with the CAQ leader. I’ll write about it, en français, for the magazine L’actualité, as part of their formidable election reporting and analysis team. You can sign up for their free election newsletter (en français) here; everything I write for them will also appear in the French-language section of your favourite Substack newsletter. I’ll write more from the Quebec campaign trail, plus entries on my usual array of other subjects, here on the Substack.
And then, quite soon, I’ll launch my new podcast. Announcement here, if you missed it. Details imminent. I don’t plan to make this project hard to find. Thanks to everyone for following and supporting all these projects.
Great column — very illuminating about what’s happening in Quebec. We’ll follow the election bus, through you!
Thank you for the valuable insight into Quebec Politics. I'm looking forward to the podcast.