Party supporters say Quebecers generally agree with the Conservative government’s economic policies, but the problem comes from personal attacks and criticism directed at Harper that rarely draw a response from the government.
“People hate the guy,” said Peter White, a veteran Conservative organizer from Quebec’s Eastern Townships region. “They really hate him. They think he’s got horns and a tail and eats babies, and I’m sure Harper has no idea that this is the case.”
Harper is scheduled to appear this weekend in the Quebec City-area riding of Conservative MP Jacques Gourde, one of only five Tory MPs in the province, to celebrate Quebec’s Fete nationale holiday on Sunday as part of what some Conservatives have suggested will be a new offensive in the coming months.
“Well, it’s a challenge,” said Maxime Bernier, junior minister of tourism and small businesses, who also represents a riding south of Quebec City. “It’s always been like that and we know what we have to do.”
Bernier said Conservatives would be out in force to explain what they are doing for Quebecers in government and that he would also continue to do this in his own riding this summer, as in previous years.
White has been warning party officials for months that Harper’s approach to Quebec has been giving ammunition to Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois, who upset Premier Jean Charest’s Liberal party by capturing a longtime Liberal stronghold in a byelection on June 11.
White has suggested that some of the policies and perceptions among the Quebec population have been creating “winning conditions” for Marois in the next election, which must be called within the next 18 months, potentially launching a new referendum to weigh Quebec’s separating from Canada.
Most recent public opinion polls from Quebec suggest that NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, a former provincial environment minister in Charest’s government, continues to dominate the province’s political landscape, with support levels near 50 per cent, while the Conservatives are hanging around the mid-teens.
But Conservative MPs took aim at some of the younger members of the NDP Quebec caucus this week by challenging them to declare their support for Charest’s anti-protest law, adopted recently to quell social unrest after months of violent protests linked to a battle between students and the provincial government over post-secondary tuition-fee increases.
While Mulcair has suggested the government is playing games with the issue, Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney seized on the matter during an end-of-session news conference by slamming the New Democrats for “scoffing at the sovereignty of the National Assembly” to adopt its own laws.
“I found this behaviour troubling and it’s the same behaviour we saw here in the House of Commons when the New Democrats aren’t satisfied with parliamentary procedures and sulk and obstruct,” Blaney said. “We are privileged to be living in a democracy, and I think that on the eve of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste day (holiday), the least the New Democrats could do is to respect the sovereignty of the National Assembly.”
White said he believed the tactic was a smart way to appeal to Conservative supporters in the province outside of the island of Montreal that support tuition-fee increases and who are fed up with the ongoing protest movement.
Transport Minister Denis Lebel has also recently garnered positive media headlines in Montreal for suggesting that a new link to the island of Montreal to replace the aging Champlain Bridge could be named after Montreal Canadiens hockey legend Maurice (Rocket) Richard.
But White has also urged the government to recognize the importance of defending the French language, noting that the government could suffer if it fails to support legislation introduced by the NDP to require all officers of Parliament, including the auditor general, the ethics commissioner and the head of Elections Canada, to be functional in both of Canada’s official languages.
He also said the party needs to be more active in countering media reports about “idiotic caucus members” who say “something dumb” that winds up characterizing the party as a bunch of social conservatives.
White said he recently submitted a report from a Quebec Conservative meeting to party headquarters that highlighted the experience of one organizer from a town near the island of Montreal who witnessed the Harper backlash firsthand.
“He said: ‘I do a lot of door to door, and wherever I go, I’m astonished at the degree to which people support our ideas and our program and our philosophy,’” White said. “They do agree with us. But then they say: ‘Your (expletive) Harper.’ So I put that in the minutes, and I’m told that the minutes (of the meeting) went up to the highest levels (of the party).”
He said it’s not surprising when the Quebec media only appears to mention Harper with a negative slant in a market where it has become socially acceptable to “dump on” the prime minister.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Mike De Souza
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