Quebec Marches to Its Own Electoral Drummer

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

In his column published recently in the Guardian, Richard Gwyn remarked, in commenting on the federal election, that "Quebec acted as if completely disengaged from the national political process."

The Bloc Québécois won 50 of Quebec's 75 seats last week, leaving the three major federal parties (and the Greens) in the dust. The Liberals got 13 seats, mostly around Montreal, the Conservatives 10, the NDP one, plus a single independent.

Though Stephen Harper "showered money and favours and attention on the province," Quebec's response was "to yawn." Gwyn added that, when it comes to federal politics, "Quebecers, it now seems, look exclusively at themselves."

Globe and Mail writer Jeffrey Simpson analyzed the results in the same vein. "Bloc voters obviously feel comfortable with the party," he wrote. "Some are separatists; others are not. They apparently welcome a party that wants no part of governing Canada while continuing to demand more and more from it."

The party, he observed, wants more money and jurisdictional power, plus a larger international presence, for the province. These are all "way stations to the Bloc's eventual goal of an independent Quebec."

Canada, concluded Simpson, "is no longer a country they wish to participate in governing, but one from which they wish to withdraw cash, like an automated teller machine."

Remember, the Liberal Party, which in the past had a hammerlock on Quebec, has been unable to win a majority of Quebec's 75 seats since 1980, even when led by francophone Québécois such as Jean Chrétien and Stéphane Dion. And of course the Tories have been toast since the days of Brian Mulroney.

The Bloc's strength also weakens Canada's national parties. With Gilles Duceppe winning upwards of 50 seats per election, as he did on October 14, it becomes very difficult for any other party to reach the 154 seats needed to form a majority government.

We achieved our objective, Duceppe told supporters. Without the Bloc Harper would have formed a majority government.

And this suits the Bloc just fine. It gives the party, which is in effect a Quebec nationalist lobby, more power to extract money and other goodies from those who govern in Ottawa, lest the government fall.

So guess what, mes amis. While you've all been monitoring the state of the Quebec sovereignty movement, wondering whether it remains a viable option for francophones, the game is practically over.

This is the sixth election since 1993 where the majority of francophone votes and seats in Quebec have gone to the Bloc Québécois. This can't be written off as a series of "accidents" or "sour grapes," with the Bloc simply taking advantage of miscues by the leaders of the other parties.

Quebec is already a "nation within a state." Even the provincial government of Jean Charest, nominally Liberal, acts like a national government, making demands on Ottawa little different from those of the separatist Parti Québécois.

Becoming independent one day will for Quebec be little more than a formality. Most people, either there or in the rest of Canada, will hardly notice the difference.