Charest's defeat is a victory for students

"In politics, the victories are never as bright as you would like. We must make do. But for the moment, we should not be embarrassed to say that we won: the [tuition] increase will be set aside, Bill 12 also... and Jean Charest has resigned." - Former CLASSE co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois

There is so much to say about last night's election, it's hard to know where to begin. Before the results had sunk in came news of a tragic shooting at the PQ's Metropolis party. A clearly deranged man, wearing a bathrobe and shouting, in French, about Anglos waking up, took the life of one man, and left another in hospital. Our thoughts go out to the victims and their families, and, as always, we wonder how a non-automatic AK-47 could possibly be legal. But enough ink has been spilled on the act of a lone maniac, so I'll stick to the election.

Charest has only himself to blame for Quebec election defeat

Jean Charest was not the first political leader, and he will not be the last, to fall in love with his success and to believe that it could continue. Hubris blinded him to his weaknesses such that it took the Quebec electorate to tear the veil from his eyes Tuesday night, defeating his Liberal government. Mr. Charest appeared to have lost his Sherbrooke seat, to add insult to injury.

Nonetheless, the victory of the Parti Québécois was like the proverbial kiss from your sister. The PQ, facing an unpopular government led by a Premier tempting fate in trying for a fourth mandate, mustered only about a third of the vote – hardly a mandate for jubilation. If that were the best result the PQ could harvest, under such favourable circumstances, it does not provide much encouragement for the idea that within the next few years the PQ could organize a referendum and remove Quebec from Canada.

Charest denies interference in police investigation

Jean Charest has denied any intervention in a Quebec provincial police investigation of Eddy Brandone, a former treasurer of FTQ-construction, after a Radio-Canada report revealed a police surveillance operation was abruptly halted.

The Sûreté du Québec surveillance of Brandone was suspended after he was seen speaking with Charest, the French network's investigative program Enquête reported Wednesday, citing police sources.

Quebec election 2012: Charest will not repeal Bill 78 if re-elected

SAINTE-MARIE, QUE.—Two thousand professors in Quebec and around the world have signed a manifesto declaring their support for striking students in the province, a move that forced Premier Jean Charest on Monday to once again defend his controversial Bill 78.

Making a pro-student statement in the midst of a heated provincial election campaign, lecturers from the province’s colleges and universities are criticizing the emergency legislation for forcing students and teachers back to school next week.

Charest calls Quebec election; Marois starts campaign with attacks

Jean Charest has confirmed Quebeckers will vote in a provincial election for Sept. 4 — the day after Labour Day.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mr. Charest had gone to the province’s lieutenant-governor to dissolve the National Assembly and launch his fifth election campaign as the head of the Quebec Liberals.

At 11:23 a.m. on Wednesday, Mr. Charest emerged from a cabinet meeting, holding hands with his wife, Michèle Dionne.

Harper government unilateral decision making unprecedented: Charest

HALIFAX – Canada is going through an unprecedented period of unilateral decision making by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government and it has Canada’s premiers worried, says Quebec Premier Jean Charest.

Charest, a veteran politician whose elected political career goes back to former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s government, said he could not remember a period marked by more unilateral decisions on the part of Ottawa.

Asbestos mine loan gives Charest ‘good reason to be ashamed’

The announcement was described as a national embarrassment, the crass political manoeuvre of a desperate Quebec government trying to hold on to a Liberal seat at the cost of public health.

Critics lined up with speed and in number on the long weekend to blast Premier Jean Charest for green-lighting a $58-million loan to Canada’s last asbestos mine late on the Friday of the unofficial start of summer vacation season.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest defends use of attack ad in attempt to undermine PQ chief Pauline Marois

MONTREAL – Premier Jean Charest is defending his party’s use of negative advertising to discredit Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois.

But Guy Séguin, the man who shot the video used in the campaign, wants the Quebec Liberal Party to withdraw the ads because he never gave his permission for the video to be used in such a manner.

The ad was taken down from YouTube Tuesday night.

In its place is a message informing potential viewers that the video has been removed “due to a copyright claim by (the copyright protection service) Police du Net /Guy Séguin.”

Charest's Bill 78, Harper's Bill 38: It's the same fight

At the time of writing these lines, the very predictable and unilateral rupture of negotiations by the Charest government has just been announced. The faint glimmer of hope brought on by a few days of discussions has vanished. Student negotiators had accepted the government's financial frame. In the name of social peace, they had also considered financing university-funding increases in part by accepting a loss in personal fiscal advantages for students.

However, the government refuses any ending whereby the student associations will not submit completely. The compromise is judged insufficient and Michèle Courchesne must slam the door. Later, Jean Charest repeats that any "solution" to the crisis will need to maintain its initial problematic premise! Arrogance and contempt once more, and since day one. Clearly, the students will not give in.

Students’ new goal: turf Liberal government

MONTREAL - Tuition fees are still very much a concern, but some Quebec students are now turning their focus to trying to unseat the Quebec Liberal government.

The Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec says it plans to continue its mobilization against tuition fee increases this summer, but also has a new goal.

“We want to work on getting a different government to represent us,” said new leader Éliane Laberge. “We are going to work on that transition this summer.”

Jean Charest: The Little Chieftain

Most thought it was over, done with, and good riddance too. What in Quebec was called La Grande Noirceur (The Dark Era), the reign of Maurice Duplessis and his Union Nationale government was to have ended with the death of le Chef (the Chieftain).

Few doubted the 1960s' Quiet Revolution represented a democratic turn, and a new beginning. Under Premier Jean Lesage, with René Levesque championing nationalized electricity, it was agreed the election of a progressive Quebec Liberal party ensured the old paternalist order was gone, forever.

Except that Quebec is now living through La Petite Noirceur (Dark Era Lite). The choice of a failed federal Conservative leader, Jean Charest, to head the Quebec Liberal party, and the 2003 election which carried him to power, ended up turning back the clock. In today's Quebec, Charest is playing Duplessis, and the Liberals are acting as the Union Nationale, complete with alleged scandals in the construction industry Premier Charest was forced to acknowledge by creating a public commission of inquiry (after resisting for two years).

Quebec Premier Jean Charest tells student groups they’re ‘hurting Quebecers’

MONTREAL—Quebec Premier Jean Charest is accusing student groups of “hurting Quebecers” as they take to the streets to protest the recent breakdown in talks with the government.

With Montreal’s Grand Prix weekend less than a week away, Charest expressed concern that student groups would disrupt the international event, which brings millions of dollars to the province each year.

He said students, who have spent almost four months striking against a proposed tuition hike, should leave Grand Prix fans alone given the financial importance of the race.

Quebec student crisis badly mismanaged by Jean Charest’s government

MONTREAL—When crisis management experts dissect the ongoing stand-off between Quebec and its student movement, they will be hard-pressed to find any evidence of a coherent government strategy.

The surprise resignation Monday of Line Beauchamp, Premier Jean Charest’s lead minister on the file, fits that haphazard pattern.

Over the course of three rancorous months, Charest and his ex-education minister have proven unable to talk the province’s way out of a messy confrontation with the students over a planned increase in tuition fees.

Every move of the government has either misfired or backfired. From one resolution attempt to the next, it has become harder to follow the thread of its thinking.

Quebec's Jean Charest questions federal push for environmental streamlining

OTTAWA — Quebec Premier Jean Charest says he's "intrigued" by the federal government's efforts to streamline environmental reviews, explaining that the process is already very efficient in his province.

"In Quebec, we have not had the issue that other provinces have had and I'm not sure why," Charest said after delivering a speech to an environmental conference discussing Canada's role at the upcoming Earth Summit in Brazil.

"Every time this was raised at meetings . . . I've always been intrigued by why it has not worked as well elsewhere and (in) Quebec, it has worked well. Mind you, we believe that the processes need to be effective, predictable and we'll work to that end."

Charest's environment minister, Pierre Arcand, said a few weeks ago that Quebec saw some positive aspects of potential federal reforms, but the premier, who was Canada's environment minister when Parliament adopted the Environmental Assessment Act, noted that the legislation already allows the different levels of government to work together.

"In Quebec, we've very well mastered the ability of doing joint assessments," said Charest.

Charest right not to backtrack on tuition hikes

Premier Jean Charest is right to hold firm on the increase of university tuition fees in Quebec, especially in the face of the rioting in Montreal this week by some of the students who are protesting this change. The higher fees will be moderate, reasonable and still lower than in most of Canada.

Mr. Charest’s offer to phase in the proposed $1,625 tuition hike over seven years, rather than five, is now before students -- and they would be wise to accept it.

One of the student organizations, la Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante, has given an unmistakable degree of countenance to the vandalism by some protesters, inflicted on business premises and automobiles (not to mention a police station). Line Beauchamp, the Minister of Education, was quite right to condemn those “who use violence almost as a method of blackmail.”

Seems even Harper and Charest can't save Canada’s deadly asbestos exports

Despite Stephen Harper and Jean Charest, it appears increasingly likely Canada will export no more Quebec-mined asbestos to countries like India and Indonesia, where it could bring misery and death to those who come in contact with it. Almost all those affected would be very poor workers and their families. But to the bitter end, the two leaders have been determined to preserve Canada’s shameful record of knowingly exporting a carcinogen.

In the face of denunciations of asbestos exports by virtually all health authorities, the Prime Minister made it a point during last year’s election campaign to visit the riding held by Christian Paradis, home to one of Canada’s two last remaining asbestos mines. Both mines are now closed, but Mr. Paradis wants them re-opened. He has long been a proponent of asbestos exports, dismissing out of hand all the proven health risks as well as all the Canadians who have died hideous, prolonged deaths from exposure to the substance.

Mr. Harper has since promoted Mr. Paradis to be Industry Minister. And last June, a month after forming his majority government, he chose to celebrate St. Jean Baptiste Day in his young minister’s riding – and in the town of Thetford Mines itself, the actual home of the asbestos mine Mr. Paradis wants to see re-opened.

Harper budget will hurt provinces, premiers say

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cash-strapped government will try to balance its books on the back of the provinces, the premiers of Ontario and Quebec said Monday.

The leaders of Canada's two most populous provinces say they fear more responsibilities will be downloaded to the provinces in the federal budget later this month.

The same thing happened in the 1990s under former prime minister Jean Chretien's Liberal government, but it's "nothing but a shell game," said Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.

"When you download responsibilities or costs from one level of government to the next, taxpayers simply pay the same costs to a different government," he said. "In the end, no one wins."

Yet it appears the Harper Conservatives are headed in that direction by passing on the costs of health care and their crime bill to the provinces, McGuinty said.

Don't balance federal budget on our backs, Ontario and Quebec warn

Battered by weak economies and weighted down with debt, the premiers of Ontario and Quebec have united to accuse the Harper government of putting its own fiscal house in order at the expense of the provinces.

With a new federal budget to be tabled in just over three weeks, tensions between Ottawa and many provinces are building as fiscally challenged premiers fret about further erosion in transfer payments for health care and other programs.

Visiting Toronto Monday, Quebec Premier Jean Charest joined his Ontario counterpart Dalton McGuinty in warning Ottawa not to balance its books by downloading costs onto cash-strapped provinces. He also offered a history lecture to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, saying that in times of strong majority government in Ottawa, the provinces can offer an effective check on federal power.

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who is to table his budget on March 29, showed little patience for arguments that Central Canada is a special case.