Marois and the PQ: Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory in Québec

I freely admit to being a Francophile. In junior high school, when many of my friends were taking Spanish as their “foreign” language (a decision that makes a lot of sense in New York), I enrolled in French, and continued taking it through high school. Two years ago I took an intensive conversation-immersion class at the college where I teach in January, just to brush up on my skills, skills that come in handy on my annual March vacation in Québec. And in fact, in five days, I will once again be travelling to Montréal, proudly sporting a fleur-de-lis tattoo on my left shoulder, diving into mounds of Poutine and eating myself silly at a Sugar Shack.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I am following the upcoming Provincial elections in Québec with some fascination and interest. Just two years ago, on this blog, I chronicled (and predicted) the rise to power of Pauline Marois and le Parti Québécois, with their vision of an independent Québec (Separatists Poised for Québec Election) And I must admit, whether we are discussing Scotland, Kurdistan, or the Tuaregs of Mali, I sympathize with people-groups seeking their right to self-determination. As the largest and most significant French-speaking and French-cultured people in the entire western hemisphere, Québec sovereignty is something I can support – at least theoretically.

But, with the elections only 16 days away (April 7), it appears that Marois and the PQ will suffer a deserved defeat.
If it is possible to go overboard on a principle, the PQ has found a way to do it.

In their efforts to preserve what is unique about Québec, the Province has won concessions from the rest of Canada on a variety of issues, most notably immigration. Canada scores and rates potential immigrants based on a number of factors, including job skills, education, etc. Québec won a concession that permits that province to give “extra points” to would-be immigrants for whom French is their mother tongue.

One unforeseen consequence of this (being that there are so few places where French is spoken as the primary language) is that Québec has seen an increase in immigrants from places like Algeria, Morocco, and Lebanon, all places where French colonialism’s tentacles established French as the national language.

But, from at least one perspective, that creates an entirely new set of “Un-Québec” problems: these immigrants and students are Muslim. Some were burkas or other religious head gear. And if there is any way to bring out an ugly xenophobia or a parochial mindset, it is to drop immigrant Muslims into the midst of a French culture that already sees itself as “under siege” by a dominant English-speaking Canada.

And so, Marois unveiled the party’s “Charter of Values,” which purports to codify in law the values that identify Québec’s uniqueness. Within that Charter are provisions that make it illegal to wear conspicuous religious symbols (Jewish yarmulkes, Muslim burkas, and Sikh headgear) in government offices or as government employees. In Québec, that means not only the huge government sector, but schools and hospitals as well. In a well-publicized (and ridiculous) exercise in linguistic zealotry, the province’s Language Police went after a Montréal restaurant for printing the word “pasta” on a menu (“pasta” is Italian, and not French, and therefore a violation of new requirements mandating business be conducted in French.) Other PQ candidates have pushed the sovereignty issue way too hard, forcing Marois to concede that the borders would remain open, promising continued use of Canadian currency, and insisting that a Québecker would continue to sit on the governing board of the Bank of Canada, none of which are credible promises that an independent Québec could guarantee.

To be fair, the majority of Francophones support the Charter of Values. However, minorities, Anglophones, civil libertarians, and younger people have begun to roll their eyes at the intolerance coming from the PQ. Protests have sprung up, especially in Montréal. On Tuesday, The Mohawk Council of Akwesasne released a public statement saying Quebec sovereignty would create "very real concerns" for the First Nations community. “If Quebec ultimately chooses to separate, I would advise our Council and community to hold our own vote in order to determine whether we would stay within the borders of Quebec or separate ourselves,” said Chief Mike Kanentakeron Mitchell.


Having defeated all other parties just two years ago, the PQ appears to be heading for crushing defeat in just two weeks. The most recent polls are in significant agreement:

45 per cent of likely voters currently intend to vote for the opposition Liberal Party, compared to just 32 per cent for Pauline Marois’ PQ. A third party, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) was in third place with 13 per cent, though it is likely that the Liberals and the CAQ would form a coalition together to keep the PQ out of power altogether.

Some of the strongest opposition to the PQ is coming from Montréal, long a cosmopolitan crossroads in Québec, and the center of a student uprising against tuition hikes that help defeat the Liberal Party two years ago and catapult the PQ to power (Montréal Students, Labor, Citizens ). It would appear that the PQ has lost this group of voters. In fact, within moments after completing this post, the following news item came across my feed:

"...Some 75.7% of voters in the riding of Sainte-Marie-Saint-Jacques, in downtown Montreal is French. However, since last Monday, more than half of the people who have to get the right to vote for the first time are English or allophones. This is a demographic phenomenon observed in several districts of the metropolis, and a concern at the highest levels for electoral authorities..." (Original: Quelque 75,7 % de l’électorat de la circonscription de Sainte-Marie–Saint-Jacques, au centre-ville de Montréal, est francophone. Pourtant, depuis lundi dernier, plus de la moitié des personnes qui se présentent pour obtenir le droit de voter pour la première fois sont anglophones ou allophones. Un phénomène démographique observé dans plusieurs circonscriptions de la métropole, et qui inquiète au plus haut point les autorités électorales. - Le Devoir: libre de penser)

It will be an interesting visit this year. I expect to be welcoming Liberal Party Leader Philippe Couillard as the next Premier in Québec.

.

NYC Mayor Endorsement: Bill de Blasio

After 12 years under the billionaire mayor Bloomberg (4 more than was legal), the city has undergone massive, catastrophic change. In his drive to create a "luxury city" built exclusively for the wealthy, Bloomberg rezoned nearly 40% of the city's land mass, and much of that was up-zoning--knocking down old buildings, evicting residents and businesses, using eminent domain to steal people's property, so the real-estate developers could erect towers of glass loaded with amenities for the super rich.
Under Bloomberg, we watched our small mom-and-pop businesses struggle and die, while national and global chain stores proliferated exponentially like bedbugs. Many of those small businesses had been in the city for decades, run by third- and fourth-generation families. If you tally up all that history, well over 6,000 years of independent business were lost during the Bloomberg era.
Rents and home prices skyrocketed as neighborhoods were gentrified, and then hyper-gentrified. In Harlem alone, prices went up 222 percent between 2000 and 2012. The cultural heart of the city has atrophied, as artists can no longer afford to live here. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer, as the city's inequality gap is now on par with parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
Vital parts of the city had their souls ripped out. Coney Island was leveled and is becoming a suburban shopping mall. Times Square was turned into a suburban shopping mall. Bleecker Street was turned into an upscale suburban shopping mall. I could go on...

We desperately need the anti-Bloomberg. That is why I am endorsing Bill de Blasio for Mayor of New York City. With a focus on repairing inequality, he's the only candidate who's saying "We need a real break from the Bloomberg years." The rich are afraid of him. He wants to tax the wealthy and "Take money away from big company subsidies," turning it into loans and tax incentives for small businesses. He wants to save our hospitals and create affordable housing. He was the only candidate in last night's debate to say that the real-estate industry is a problem for the city. As he said, "this city has been available to everyone, it's been open to everyone, anyone could make it here. That is now slipping away."

We need a mayor who will stop the bleeding. Bill de Blasio is not perfect, but I believe he's our best choice for the next mayor of New York City, and he's getting my vote. (Also, I'd like to stop writing this blog and if Quinn wins, the vanishings are sure to continue.)


[The above blogpost originally appeared on the Blogsite, "Jeremiah's Vanishing New York" found at

http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2013/08/de-blasio-for-new-york.html .  We repost it verbatim because it succinctly makes the case FOR deBlasio....and against Quinn]

.

Separatists Poised for Québec Election Victory: An Analysis for Confused Americans

  [This article analyzes the 2012 elections; for a blogpost on the 2014 elections, see 2014 Québec instead] In the midst of unparalleled student unrest, a university system that literally shut down for half a year, and a government embroiled in construction-contract scandals, Québec Premier Jean Charest and the Liberal Party appear headed for a major defeat in provincial elections less than a week from today.

The likely victors will be the Parti Québécois and their passionate leader, Pauline Marois.  It will be the first chance that the Franco-centric separatists will have to flex its muscle since it lost an independence plebiscite by a mere 1% margin in 1995.  Whether the Parti Québecois will win a majority of seats in the largely three-way race on September 4th remains to be seen.

The Canadian political landscape – and the Québécois landscape in particular – rests on different paradigms than the more ideological, American race which has dominated the media from Tampa all week.

Three parties are vying for control of the province – none of which are parties that have any significant role on the national level…but the politics of Canadian nationalism (or ‘federalism’) loom large over this race.

The current government of Québec is dominated by the Liberal Party, a political party that lost all significance on the federal level just a few years ago.  The Liberals dominated the national Canadian government under Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien for forty years from the 1960s to the early 2000s; the party was then decimated on the national level, reduced to a mere footnote, winning only 35 of 308 seats in the House of Commons.   

 But in Québec, the Liberals, under Premier Jean Charest,  have managed to hold on to power – until now.

Earlier this year, the Charest government recommended raising university tuition by $1600/year, setting off the largest protests in Canadian history throughout the summer.  Charest responded to the protests by enacting Bill 78, a bill that severely limited the right to protest and included  “pre-notification” requirements.  Initially, the majority of Québec citizens appeared to support the government as against the students, but the enactment of Bill 78 turned much popular sentiment against Charest’s Liberals.  The Liberals were compared to the national Conservative Party (the Canadian version of the Republican Party in the United States, which hardly exists at all in Québec.) The Conservatives are grossly unpopular in Québec. Conservative Canadian Premier Stephen Harper inflamed French Québec this year by openly embracing the British monarchy.  Harper's conservative, pro-British government in Ottawa created a leftist, French backlash in Québec, and Charest's Liberals have lost support because of it. (In the US, Liberals and Conservatives would never be seen as 'allies;' in Canada, that is not the case.)

 If these troubles were not enough for Charest, a long-term investigation of a bribery scandal involving his cabinet members and the construction industry began to hit media outlets during the student protests, further souring even his own traditional supporters.

The Liberal Party’s troubles and a strengthened sense of French culture in Québec have catapulted the Parti Québécois (or PQ) to first place in all pre-election polls.  Lead by Pauline Marois, the party is neither left nor right, as much as it is “French.”  The party has embraced and exalts Québec’s unique French heritage, and, as such, appears leftist (even socialist) on economic issues, while holding to a very conservative line on social issues of a “French” nature.

The PQ  has openly supported the students in their strike, embracing the very French notion of a low-cost, or even tuition-free, university education for all citizens.  It has taken a harsh approach towards miners, announcing it will demand higher royalty payments; some have suggested that the PQ will shut down Québec asbestos industry altogether.  But while liberal on social issues, the PQ insists on a conservative approach towards “French” issues: the PQ wants to tighten language laws to require greater use of French in business and government operations, and stronger laws preventing the purchase of Québec companies by foreign corporations. 

 The PQ recently called for laws outlawing the wearing of muslim head scarves as well as religious symbols such as crosses in government office buildings, similar to the militantly-secular culture found in France.

Ironically, it is in the city of Montréal where the greatest political discordance is found: Montréal is the center of the student protests, which the PQ has embraced; it is also the city with the greatest number of bilingual and non-French speaking people in Québec, who will be impactedthe most by the PQ’s stricter language proposals.

 

Enter the third party: The Coalition Avenir Québec, or “CAQ,” a new party headed by François Legault.  CAQ describes itself as right-of-center (and "pro-entrepreneur") on economic issues, but liberal on social issues. It attempts to stake out a ‘middle position’ on Québec independence, rejecting both the separatist platform of the PQ and the Federalist platform of the Liberals.  CAQ wants to ‘strengthen’ French language laws (especially in Montréal), and limit immigration, while promoting a French culture within the Canadian federation.  Though new, it is outpolling the Liberals on the eve of the election.

Will Montréal voters (and English speakers) continue to embrace the scandal-plagued, anti-dissent Liberals in order to protect their multilingual heritage?

Will French speakers (constituting 80% of Québec’s voters) join the bandwagon to replace the Liberals with a markedly French Parti Québecois?  

 Or with they choose just a “slightly-less-French” CAQ in the hopes of taking a ‘middle way,” even though the CAQ is an upstart, unknown entity?

Can any of the three parties win a majority of seats in the Québec Parliament?

Nous allons savoir mardi.

.

Obama vs. Romney: Electoral Map, June 1 Update

[Updated July 1st,  August 1, September 1, and for the latest check our October 1 Update at
http://www.tullyspage.blogspot.com/2012/09/obama-vs-romney-oct-1-update.html ]

This map is updated just before the first of every month.  This month, we have made several changes based on polling and activities taking place in specific states, as follows:

ARIZONA: Once a red state, we see a backlash happening on several fronts: the zany antics of Sheriff Joe, efforts to define 'personhood' at ovulation, harping on the 'birther' issue, and harsh rhetoric about immigration should cause a perfect stew of resentment against Republicans by Hispanics, women, young people, and independents.  We see this state swinging Blue now.

IOWA: Polls are mixed, and too close to call. Iowa is tough to gauge, and will be close: we give the edge to the organizing capabilities of the religious right combined with the pro-Romney Des Moines GOP machine. Red.

FLORIDA: This should be Blue, but a massive effort by Republicans in the state to purge voting rolls of Democratic-leaning groups is almost certain to throw the electroal votes of Florida into court - again.  We give it to the GOP - again.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Though it went for Obama (narrowly) last time, this is a tight state.  An active Libertarian Party bid in NH that emphasizes peace and an end to the war on drugs will hurt Obama as much as Romney; and an increasingly organized Green Party effort will hurt Obama far more than Romney.  Given the already tight race in this state, we now give it to Romney - though we doubt he will win it with a majority of votes.

NORTH CAROLINA: Democratic convention in Charlotte notwithstanding, there is some Trumphalism among the religious right over the recent vote to ban Marriage Equality in the NC Constitution.  This momentum may just carry them through the Fall.

As for the other "swing" states: We still give Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Ohio to Obama, and Indiana (won by Obama in 2008) to Romney. We do not believe that Obama is in damger of losing Wisconsin, but next month's recall election may tell us more about political organization and voter sentiment.

Overall: Obama over Romney, 304-234

The Republican Party - Which Way Now?

The Republican Party – my party – has just been delivered a well-earned knockout punch. Reliable “red” States in the west and south have been taken by Democrats. Here in New England, there is not a single Republican Congressman and only one Governor left. And in New Hampshire, once a Yankee Republican bastion, you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of state or federal Republican figures left.

Republicans did not lose simply because of large numbers of young people and African-Americans voted. In fact, as a percentage of the total electorate, African-Americans and young people made up almost precisely the same percentage of the electorate as they did four years ago. No, Republicans lost because average Americans from all walks of life, especially self-described moderates and independents, and even some lifelong Republicans, turned to the Democrats.

Where did the GOP go wrong? And what must we do to rebuild?

The party needs a clear philosophy and vision. An entire generation of new voters came to the polls believing that the Bush administration represented Republican ideals. Republicans spent eight years defending sickening deficits, exploding budgets, and “big-government” programs that they would have railed against had they been proposed by a Democratic Administration. We were inexcusably silent as America, the great hope of the world, became represented by images of torture and Guantanamo Bay. Republicans should have been outraged…but instead, we defended “our guy” in the white house, and earned the public’s disdain. They grew tired of the Bush administration’s vision of America.

We must articulate in clear terms positive, pro-active solutions for the problems and concerns that the American people have. Access to health care and secure retirement provisions are national concerns: We cannot simply be ‘against’ universal health care or social security, we must present clear, pragmatic, appealing alternatives.

As these proposals are formulated, we must be careful not to fall prey to the idea that we must choose to side with either the “moderates” or the “conservatives” within the Party. A lukewarm, “me-too” version of the Democrats is not a solution, but neither is cliché-ridden pandering to a shrill religious right. Rather, Republicans must forge a new path, a path that is consistent with both the Republican philosophy and the American spirit, and which resonates with voters of all stripes: we must combine fiscal responsibility and social tolerance. The Republican Party claims to be the party of small government and maximum personal freedom. It’s about time we reclaimed that heritage in a consistent manner.

As we present our alternatives, we must eradicate the mean-spiritedness, the innuendos, the mud-slinging, and the anger from our speech. We must offer vision, hope, and a future to all. If we want young people, minorities, and immigrants in the party, then we need to really want them, not just tolerate them and accept their contributions.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan articulated a clear vision, and spoke in positive terms of hope and freedom for all. Americans responded, as disaffected Democrats and independents swelled Republican ranks. In 2008, Barack Obama rode to victory on those Reaganesque concepts. It should serve as a wake-up call to the party to reclaim its heritage of individual liberty and prosperity for all, delivered with clarity and compassion.