Understanding Brush Fires

Chantal Hebert doubts that the NDP's hold on Quebec is permanent. She points to dwindling support for the party:

Ten months after the fact, the so-called Quebec orange wave feels more like a devastating flash flood for Quebec’s federal representation than the precursor of a lasting New Democrat tide in the province’s politics.

With 58 MPs, the biggest Quebec membership drive in the party’s history underway and two candidates with strong local roots in the race, the party did not come close to filling the 500 seats of a downtown Quebec hall.

Much depends on who the party chooses as its leader.  That leader will have to convince Quebecers that he or she knows who they are, while convincing the rest of Canada that it matters as much as Quebec does. It's not an easy task -- particularly, as Lysanne Gagnon notes, because the two solitudes are getting more solitary:

Quebecers have lost the thin interest they had about the rest of Canada, where, on the other hand, there is a growing feeling of irritation mounting against Quebec – Quebec and its fat equalization payments that serve to finance fancy programs like $7-a-day daycare. This anger is still muted and expressed in rather polite terms – this is English Canada after all – but it is bound to increase as the centre of gravity moves to the West.

In Ottawa, the powers-that-be are unconcerned.They are convinced that recognizing Quebec as " a nation within a nation" has done the trick. The province, they say, has decided to exist in its own parallel universe and will not impede the Harper juggernaut.

That notion comes straight out of the George A. Custer Handbook On Leadership. The Harper government has gone out of its way to antagonize Quebec --by appointing a unilingual spokesman for the prime minister and a unilingual Supreme Court Justice. Worst of all, it has ignored Quebec's concerns about the omnibus crime bill, while insisting that the province bear its share of the costs.

The Harper Party assumes that, because no charismatic champion is presently on the scene, sovereignty is dead. That issue is never dead. And the charismatic leader is always there, although not immediately recognized. All he or she has to do is strike the match. The Harperites have produced all kinds of combustible material.

They don't, however, understand how easy it is to start a brush fire -- and how hard it is to put it out.

Quebec Awaits

It has been remarkable how sanguine political commentators have been about the place of Quebec in Stephen Harper's Canada. Back in August, in the Globe and Mail, John Ibbitson wrote:

The fading of Quebec in federal politics is not a temporary event. It has been going on for years and will continue for years to come.

If the federalist answer to Quebec separatism is to enmesh Quebec within the federal fabric, that answer is failing.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that the province will settle into its own parallel universe and quietly let the rest of Canada -- read  "the Harper government" -- go its own way.

But Robert Asselin writes that Quebec is a land of unfulfilled expectations. Even though a new provincial party, the Coalition pour l'avenir du Quebec -- the Coalition for Quebecs's Future (CAQ) -- and an official NDP opposition promised a brighter future for Quebec, not much has happened:

Under the weak political leadership of Nicole Turmel, the inexperienced NDP caucus fumbled, offering a mediocre parliamentary performance. On the most important issues, the NDP was unable to get traction on most attacks they launched against the government, leaving Prime Minister Harper almost alone on the ice.

On issues that were crucial to Quebecers, they were invisible. To make sure Quebec’s opposition to the Conservatives’ omnibus crime bill (C-10) was heard, Quebec Justice Minister had to come to Ottawa to denounce it. On the appointment of unilingual anglophones to the Supreme Court and Auditor General positions, the NDP was remarkably inefficient. People who thought this new cohort of NDP MPs would bring some edge and renewal in Ottawa are now perplexed.

As for the CAQ, Asselin writes that the party's leader, Francois Legualt, is more of a beancounter than a leader. His "accountant’s instincts outshadow his visionary pulses."

So the powers-that-be have concluded that Quebec has gone back to sleep. Those who have reached that conclusion are profoundly ignorant of life in la belle province. It is precisely when Quebec is "sleeping" that revolution is brewing.

Those who ignore Quebec do so at their peril.

Just a brief postscript. My wife and I will be gone for the next couple of days to attend our son's wedding. I'll be back posting in the new year. Happy New Year to all. Bonne annee a tout le monde!