The federal Tories have only five seats in Quebec, but their current levels of support could see them as much as triple their seat-count in the province, according to projections released by Bryan Breguet, a political polling analyst and blogger for the Journal de Montréal. That could mean the difference between maintaining power or being ousted after nine years in office.
To boost their appeal, the Tories appear to have added a few new items to their age-old pitch of sound economic management that could help them pick up disaffected sovereigntists, nationalists and voters in the rural regions, particularly around Quebec City.
Reuniting ‘les bleus’
The Quebec coalition that former Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney assembled to win majorities in 1984 and 1988 disintegrated over constitutional fights and the defections when the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois was founded.
But it was more than one politician’s nostalgia when Gérard Deltell held up his old PC card to announce that he was quitting provincial politics to seek a seat with Harper’s Conservatives in a fall election.
“For me it was a clear signal to all the people of Quebec that those who worked for Mulroney or worked for (PC leader Joe) Clark that we can feel good with the Harper Conservatives,” Deltell said in an interview.
That includes those who may have spent the last two decades fighting for Quebec’s independence.
“Everybody is welcome,” he said.
Tory Infrastructure Minister Denis Lebel, Harper’s Quebec lieutenant, was once a card-carrying member of the Bloc Québécois while Maxime Bernier, a junior minister for small business and tourism, once worked for then-Parti Québécois finance minister Bernard Landry.
Other star Quebec candidates set to run for the Conservatives in the next election include the longtime director of Quebec City’s famous winter carnival, Jean Pelletier, Victoriaville Mayor Alain Rayes, former Atlanta Braves baseball player Dominic Therrien, and, according to reports, Canada’s ambassador to France, Lawrence Cannon, who served in the Harper cabinet from 2006 to 2011 before he was defeated by the NDP candidate.
Banning the niqab
When the sovereigntist Parti Québécois government proposed a Charter of Values in 2012 that would have banned religious symbols from public service workplaces like hospitals, schools and government offices, the Harper government was outraged.
Such a move was unconstitutional, they said, vowing a legal challenge if the charter ever passed into law (it didn’t) because it violated the Charter of Rights.
It was surprising, then, that after years of permitting the practice, the federal Conservatives recently decided to ban Muslim women from wearing the niqab (a full face covering that reveals only the eyes) at Canadian citizenship ceremonies. The government was taken to court for its niqab ruling and the government lost its case. Harper announced at a campaign-style stop earlier this year in Quebec that his government would appeal the ruling.
As the Conservatives put it in a petition on the party’s website, “That is not the way we do things here.”
Deltell said the Conservative position just a common sense approach that would be backed by all provincial parties in Quebec. Others see a distinctly populist Tory turn, a tactic taken from the Parti Quebecois and from Deltell’s upstart Action démocratique du Québec (now known as Coalition Avenir Québec) before them.
In all three instances, the parties were targeting the same block of voters: white, Catholic, proudly rural and terribly afraid that immigration is threatening their culture and lifestyle.
“It’s not a coincidence that the first time Harper really made a public speech about it was in Quebec,” said Breguet. “The tricky part for the Conservatives is how they can talk about this in Quebec and not in Toronto. They don’t want this to backfire when they talk about this in the rest of Canada.”
Dropping bombs and tackling terror
Quebecers have surprised pollsters and historians with their strong backing of Harper’s military campaign against the Islamic State and the beefed-up anti-terrorism measures at home. In the wake of the terror attacks last fall in Ottawa and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., it’s not a surprise that Canadians are open to additional measures to prevent or penalize terrorist acts.
What was unexpected is the level of support in a province often written off as a pacifist haven. A February poll by Leger found 74 per cent of Quebecers backed the new powers for the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Six-in-10 said they supported the military mission, which has since been extended and expanded into the Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold.
If the support holds, Harper can be confident that even if the military mission is not a liability — given the reticence of the NDP and the Liberals to back the mission — it may even help Harper’s re-election effort.
Putting a slug in the gun registry
You might not think it, given the strong positions taken by all provincial political parties, but not everyone in Quebec condemned the Harper government’s decision to abolish the federal gun registry.
While the move has helped define the Tories in a province that still holds solemn ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the December 1989 shooting rampage École Polytechnique de Montréal, the love of hunting is as Québécois as loving poutine.
Deltell, who followed the party line and voted to condemn the Conservatives for abolishing the long-gun registry, said he personally believed such a log of gun owners was an unnecessary measure that punished hunters and legitimate gun users.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com/
Author: Allan Woods
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