"Legault could have said, “Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, who’s a notorious socialist.” Or “Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, who’s so woke I don’t know what he’s talking about.” Instead he went with calling his rival a Montrealer. Legault, of course, grew up in Montreal and ran an airline there. But he hides it well. "
Another home run, Mr. Wells. There's a lot of parallels between what you describe and what's happening in Alberta.
In the UCP leadership race, Danielle Smith is openly saying that her proposed Sovereignty Act would allow Alberta to have the same kind of status in Confederation that Quebec does. There's also the split between Edmonton and most of the rest of the province, with Edmonton being a provincial NDP stronghold that's seen by many other Albertans as having the same left-leaning disdain for them that Montreal does to the rest of Quebec. Edmonton even used to be nicknamed "Redmonton" in previous decades because it was one of the few places in Alberta where Liberals had a good chance of getting elected. And just as people in Rouyn wouldn't want Montrealers telling them how to live but have no problem doing the opposite, it's arguably the same with Edmonton in some circles in Alberta.
The perception of Legault is he does what he said he would do and is willing to admit mistakes. So people vote for him. Speaking plainly is a gift and helped Ford also win. The Federal players would not do that.
I don't keep up to date on Quebec politics the way that I should, considering that the Atlantic Provinces rely on Quebec for the land connection to the rest of the country. The dynamics here are quite interesting, as you've summarized in your post. It's not a fair comparison but I can't help but draw some parallels to some of the tactics and realities used by our neighbours south of the border, particularly the affluent insider switching to an outsider script. And obviously it can work well to win elections. And, who knows, maybe it's just the way politics always is.
You don't mention the terrible turnout, but this definitely illustrates why it's there. I think we all felt it was a, how do you say, fait accompli? ;)
And Pontiac is the only Liberal holdout in west Quebec. They lost Hull and got smoked in the Gatineau riding that includes Chelsea and Wakefield. Part of their problem was candidate Caryl Green.
West Quebec still has a lot of anglophones, really Ontarians and descendants of English settlers who stay for the beauty of the region. Pontiac has a large number of die-hard descendants of British settlers. See a lot of Canadian flags in that area on a Canada Day and even some unilingual stop signs. I spent about 6 months there at the beginning of Covid.
The tension between Montreal and the rest of Quebec (Quebec City and les regions) goes back to the nineteenth century. It was papered over at times, but never resolved. This was partly religious and linguistic, but it went much further. Briefly, the population outside of Montreal was less welcoming of strangers. By that I mean, not only immigrants, but Quebeckers from other parts of the province (as it was then styled). Today, there is still deep suspicion of the metropolis and its inhabitants. M. Legault played on that like a maestro.
Of course, the sense of superiority is reciprocated, in large part. But then I'm un p'tit gars de la Cote des neiges.
Yet it was Montreal intellectuals who drove the creation of the PQ, and I think of those working class baby boomers filling the Paul Sauve arena in their youth as quintessentially Montreal. (Difference today is that those boomers have all moved to Chambly and Bois des Filion; anglos and allophones buy up the outdoor-staircase homes of Villeray and HoMa)
Yes, the PQ was born in Montreal. It had the intellectuals to articulate a program in the 1960s. But the roots are everywhere in French Quebec. I recall the movement being especially strong in the Saguenay-Lac St Jean and in the bas St. Laurent. I think that the origins of Rene Levesque and Lucien Bouchard were no coincidence.
I really like this story because it's a real world manifestation of what I have lived for a very long time.
I live in NE Ontario and I can say with absolute certainty that the Big City Animosity is real. Not just as a identity conversation piece but as a grass root belief that we would be better off without their meddling.
George Pirie is the first Conservative to be elected in NEO since the Mike Harris days, and to achieve that a special Timmins only riding had to be created, where George was the mayor and a fairly popular one. Not even Harris, being from Nippissing, could convince the NEO residents that Toronto is running Queen's Park and is stacking policy in its favour, and to our detriment. The last time NEO didn't elect a plurality of NDP was when David Petersen was Prime Minister. It's been largely NDP since Bob Rae, as though we identify only with people who don't get elected in Toronto.
I think what's different about Ontario, is that you can't win without winning part of Toronto, even when the rest of Ontario votes for you. Also, Montreal is a lot more centralized and isolated from it's regions. There's not a lot of regions around Montreal that would truly suffer with Montreal's demise. On the other hand when you look at the GTA and it's surrounding communities, it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. That makes it a lot easier to aggregate seats outside of Toronto just by catering to Toronto.
Quelle belle analyse! Paul Wells a mis en mots ce que les Montréalais ont vécu pendant la campagne électorale. Cette forme de rejet de Montréal, ce n'est pas digne d'un premier ministre, mais c'est quand même ça qui se passe. Lors de la première élection de Legault, j'ai pensé que la CAQ allait gouverner sans Montréal. Maintenant, je me dis qu'avec le discours ambiant, nous serons chanceux s'il ne gouverne pas contre Montréal.
"The L left-of-NDP Québec Solidaire have almost no presence outside Montreal." well, there are those two seats in central Quebec City which surprise me. Quite different versus how they vote federally.
Those two QS seats roughly line up with Duclos’ riding, and (notably excepting Boulerice in Rosemont), the other areas where people voted QS generally went for the Liberals federally in 2021. Of course, the Liberals won quite a few seats in Quebec outside Montreal in 2021, and voters in most of those places went for the CAQ -- while I wouldn’t say that QS and the federal Liberals are anywhere near a perfect ideological match, to me the more striking divergence is where voters support the federal Liberals and the CAQ (i.e. all over the place, outside Montreal).
It was even more confusing when these same voters were electing Trudeau Senior and Levesque, though.
While Justin has been pushing the wokery hard, I think of QS as really being out there on a radical fringe. But perhaps to that Quebec City bourgeois bohemian voter, the overlap with green and LGBT policies is enough to keep them happy at both levels of government.
Trudeau-Caquistes probably see Trudeau as no threat to Quebec autonomy and a more effective way than the Bloc of keeping western Conservatives out of power.
We see the same things here in Alberta too. Almost all of the province is rock-solid blue Tory country federally, including our biggest cities, but if you look at us provincially our NDP is mainly focused on and around Edmonton and Calgary.
"Legault could have said, “Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, who’s a notorious socialist.” Or “Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, who’s so woke I don’t know what he’s talking about.” Instead he went with calling his rival a Montrealer. Legault, of course, grew up in Montreal and ran an airline there. But he hides it well. "
Nailed it.
“Legault wasn’t just engaging in transit policy with his project. He was wearing a $6.5 billion Nordiques jersey.”
Masterful
Another home run, Mr. Wells. There's a lot of parallels between what you describe and what's happening in Alberta.
In the UCP leadership race, Danielle Smith is openly saying that her proposed Sovereignty Act would allow Alberta to have the same kind of status in Confederation that Quebec does. There's also the split between Edmonton and most of the rest of the province, with Edmonton being a provincial NDP stronghold that's seen by many other Albertans as having the same left-leaning disdain for them that Montreal does to the rest of Quebec. Edmonton even used to be nicknamed "Redmonton" in previous decades because it was one of the few places in Alberta where Liberals had a good chance of getting elected. And just as people in Rouyn wouldn't want Montrealers telling them how to live but have no problem doing the opposite, it's arguably the same with Edmonton in some circles in Alberta.
The perception of Legault is he does what he said he would do and is willing to admit mistakes. So people vote for him. Speaking plainly is a gift and helped Ford also win. The Federal players would not do that.
I think that most contemporary Canadian politicians have a healthy level of comfort with hypocrisy but Legault pulls it off with real aplomb.
I don't keep up to date on Quebec politics the way that I should, considering that the Atlantic Provinces rely on Quebec for the land connection to the rest of the country. The dynamics here are quite interesting, as you've summarized in your post. It's not a fair comparison but I can't help but draw some parallels to some of the tactics and realities used by our neighbours south of the border, particularly the affluent insider switching to an outsider script. And obviously it can work well to win elections. And, who knows, maybe it's just the way politics always is.
But damn, that's an expensive jersey.
You don't mention the terrible turnout, but this definitely illustrates why it's there. I think we all felt it was a, how do you say, fait accompli? ;)
And Pontiac is the only Liberal holdout in west Quebec. They lost Hull and got smoked in the Gatineau riding that includes Chelsea and Wakefield. Part of their problem was candidate Caryl Green.
I'm really surprised about the Outaouais! Don't know it as well as I thought I guess. Hull seems like such a die hard Trudeau seat
Federally, it’s Liberal.
West Quebec still has a lot of anglophones, really Ontarians and descendants of English settlers who stay for the beauty of the region. Pontiac has a large number of die-hard descendants of British settlers. See a lot of Canadian flags in that area on a Canada Day and even some unilingual stop signs. I spent about 6 months there at the beginning of Covid.
The tension between Montreal and the rest of Quebec (Quebec City and les regions) goes back to the nineteenth century. It was papered over at times, but never resolved. This was partly religious and linguistic, but it went much further. Briefly, the population outside of Montreal was less welcoming of strangers. By that I mean, not only immigrants, but Quebeckers from other parts of the province (as it was then styled). Today, there is still deep suspicion of the metropolis and its inhabitants. M. Legault played on that like a maestro.
Of course, the sense of superiority is reciprocated, in large part. But then I'm un p'tit gars de la Cote des neiges.
Yet it was Montreal intellectuals who drove the creation of the PQ, and I think of those working class baby boomers filling the Paul Sauve arena in their youth as quintessentially Montreal. (Difference today is that those boomers have all moved to Chambly and Bois des Filion; anglos and allophones buy up the outdoor-staircase homes of Villeray and HoMa)
Yes, the PQ was born in Montreal. It had the intellectuals to articulate a program in the 1960s. But the roots are everywhere in French Quebec. I recall the movement being especially strong in the Saguenay-Lac St Jean and in the bas St. Laurent. I think that the origins of Rene Levesque and Lucien Bouchard were no coincidence.
I really like this story because it's a real world manifestation of what I have lived for a very long time.
I live in NE Ontario and I can say with absolute certainty that the Big City Animosity is real. Not just as a identity conversation piece but as a grass root belief that we would be better off without their meddling.
George Pirie is the first Conservative to be elected in NEO since the Mike Harris days, and to achieve that a special Timmins only riding had to be created, where George was the mayor and a fairly popular one. Not even Harris, being from Nippissing, could convince the NEO residents that Toronto is running Queen's Park and is stacking policy in its favour, and to our detriment. The last time NEO didn't elect a plurality of NDP was when David Petersen was Prime Minister. It's been largely NDP since Bob Rae, as though we identify only with people who don't get elected in Toronto.
I think what's different about Ontario, is that you can't win without winning part of Toronto, even when the rest of Ontario votes for you. Also, Montreal is a lot more centralized and isolated from it's regions. There's not a lot of regions around Montreal that would truly suffer with Montreal's demise. On the other hand when you look at the GTA and it's surrounding communities, it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. That makes it a lot easier to aggregate seats outside of Toronto just by catering to Toronto.
Quelle belle analyse! Paul Wells a mis en mots ce que les Montréalais ont vécu pendant la campagne électorale. Cette forme de rejet de Montréal, ce n'est pas digne d'un premier ministre, mais c'est quand même ça qui se passe. Lors de la première élection de Legault, j'ai pensé que la CAQ allait gouverner sans Montréal. Maintenant, je me dis qu'avec le discours ambiant, nous serons chanceux s'il ne gouverne pas contre Montréal.
"The L left-of-NDP Québec Solidaire have almost no presence outside Montreal." well, there are those two seats in central Quebec City which surprise me. Quite different versus how they vote federally.
Those two QS seats roughly line up with Duclos’ riding, and (notably excepting Boulerice in Rosemont), the other areas where people voted QS generally went for the Liberals federally in 2021. Of course, the Liberals won quite a few seats in Quebec outside Montreal in 2021, and voters in most of those places went for the CAQ -- while I wouldn’t say that QS and the federal Liberals are anywhere near a perfect ideological match, to me the more striking divergence is where voters support the federal Liberals and the CAQ (i.e. all over the place, outside Montreal).
Yes indeed. A confusing voter to us anglos!
It was even more confusing when these same voters were electing Trudeau Senior and Levesque, though.
While Justin has been pushing the wokery hard, I think of QS as really being out there on a radical fringe. But perhaps to that Quebec City bourgeois bohemian voter, the overlap with green and LGBT policies is enough to keep them happy at both levels of government.
Trudeau-Caquistes probably see Trudeau as no threat to Quebec autonomy and a more effective way than the Bloc of keeping western Conservatives out of power.
We see the same things here in Alberta too. Almost all of the province is rock-solid blue Tory country federally, including our biggest cities, but if you look at us provincially our NDP is mainly focused on and around Edmonton and Calgary.
I am chastising myself for not signing up for this newsletter earlier Paul!
Excellent analysis of the electoral situation in Quebec.