Not Pleased about the Liberals, But Glad the PQ Got What It Deserves

Let me say right off, that 18 months ago I was ready to give the Parti Québécois some slack as it won minority government status in a provincial election.  Bringing in a budget at the very beginning was a smart move, since none of the opposition parties were in a position to challenge  it bring on a snap election.  Pauline Maurois and friends were setting themselves up to do some interesting things, I thought.

But they blew it--going back on their promise to cut a per capita health care tax, waffling about mining legislation, moving their economic policy to the right and much, much more.  Then came the disastrous attempt to appeal to French Canadian insularity with their charter on "a neutral state."  The state should of course be neutral--I fought for years to introduce public schools organized on linguistic, not religious lines--but the idea of outlawing the wearing of religious symbols by public servants was  simply terrible.

It's a measure of the incompetence of the PQ leaders that they thought widespread support for state neutrality would translate into partisan votes.  What were they smoking?  Who were their pollstars talking to?  Whatever, they got it all wrong.

Philippe Couillard and his Liberals are only marginally better on most issues, but this is a least worst situation.  Too bad the only party with a platform I can really supportm Québec Solidaire, didn't do better.  But maybe next time: QS just increased the number of its members of the National Assembly  by 50 per cent--from two to three.  That's a hopeful sign, although at that rate it will only take eight more elections for the QS to win a majority of the 125 seats and form the government.