On the 12th of December, the executive of the floundering Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ) voted 85% in favour of a formal merger with the newly formed Coalition pour l’avenir du Québec (CAQ) of ex-PQ minister François Legault. Contingent on acceptance by the ADQ membership, this means that the CAQ will have nine members in the National Assembly — the four remaining ADQ MNAs, as well as four independents (two ex-PQ and two ex-ADQ), and ex-PQ MNA François Rebello who just joined the CAQ in January. The CAQ will now have official representation in the National Assembly and therefore greater visibility and resources. This is a warning to the working class of Quebec. Over the last few years, the Quebec bosses have been scrambling to find a party that can do what they so desperately need — to form a strong stable government that can successfully put through austerity measures so desperately needed to make Quebec capitalism more competitive on the world market. What can the labour movement do to not just defeat Charest, but also block the attempts to install a right-wing populist government?
For over a year now, François Legault has been front and centre in the news in Quebec. After quitting the PQ in 2009, he has since moved to create a political formation that puts the national debate aside and deals with the “more pressing issues”. His critical attitude towards the Liberal government and the PQ, along with his general message of “change”, has resonated with Quebec voters who are disillusioned with the main political parties and the status quo federalist-sovereigntist debate. Up until recently, Legault had no party. In spite of this, for much of the year, polls have consistently showed his “party” to be far ahead of the PQ or the Liberals, and even polling in majority territory with around 40% support. What does Legault stand for and why is he popular?
The crisis of nationalism
In an article that we published in early 2011, titled “Crisis in Quebec Society: Which way forward for Quebec solidaire?”, we wrote, “There is immense turmoil in Quebec society. This has clearly manifested itself in the deep political crisis the province currently finds itself in. Dissatisfaction with the hated Liberal government has reached an all-time high, yet none of the opposition parties have been clearly able to capitalize on this massive discontent.” In our 2011 political perspectives document from April, we also wrote, “The working class in Quebec is tired of the status quo federalist-nationalist back-and-forward. Polls show that a near majority find themselves ‘in-between ideologies’ when it comes to this question, meaning not that they don’t care, but that they increasingly seek a class solution to the national question.” Looking back now, this perspective was confirmed very quickly with the NDP’s surge in the federal election, and now, Legault’s popularity provincially. In both instances, people are looking for ideas that do not revolve around the national question. Unfortunately, the propositions of a multimillionaire like Legault are definitely not in the interest of the workers of Quebec.
Many of the reasons explaining the rise of the CAQ are the same as those behind the rise of the ADQ in 2007, which at the time, almost over took the Liberals and relegated the PQ to third place for the first time in its existence. The discontent with the Charest Liberals, especially since the economic crisis of 2008, has reached an all-time high. The general disgust for both the main political parties has reached such a height that people are desperately seeking something different. The inability of the PQ to oppose the Liberals’ agenda of austerity has been shown recently through the crisis in nationalism. The bourgeoisie (and their politicians), nationalist or federalist, have realized for some time now the gravity of the economic situation for Quebec capitalism. Many different notable sovereigntist leaders like Bouchard and Legault have, in effect, been advocating for capitalist unity across national lines. Even as early as 2005, in the manifesto titled “Pour un Québec lucide” (in English, “For a clear-eyed vision of Quebec”), a coalition of politicians and intellectuals headed up by ex-PQ leader (and Bloc Québécois founder) Lucien Bouchard stated, “Some members of our group are in favour of sovereignty, others believe that Québec’s future will be better ensured within Canada. Despite these different points of view, we are all certain that whatever choice Quebeckers make, the challenges facing us remain the same.” This is essentially the same as the position that Legault has taken on the matter. Legault states, “For 40 years, the debate in Quebec has been between sovereigntists and federalists. Our advantage was that we saw the change coming, but we are also benefiting from the vacuum. For at least the next 10 years, it will not be a federalist-sovereigntist debate. It will be a debate of status quo versus change.” He has even been calling on Liberal MNAs to leave the government for his new party. The CAQ is just the most direct manifestation of this trend.
The working class seeks an alternative
Just like the ruling class, the Quebec working class has become less and less interested by the typical political discourse between the PQ and the Liberals regarding independence. Concretely in the eyes of working people in the province, the differences between Jean Charest’s Liberals and the previous PQ governments are very small. Both the Liberals and PQ have overseen a decrease in the standard of living for working people. They both agree with the need to raise tuition, privatize healthcare, and attack public sector workers. Any “opposition” to austerity that comes from the PQ is solely done from an opportunistic position. In power, they pursue the same course and this is recognized concretely by workers and students in Quebec through their daily life as things are getting worse and worse.
With Jean Charest’s continued lack of popularity, one would assume the PQ would be on the doorstep to capturing power. However, the opposite is true. Over the past ten years, the PQ has proved itself incapable of providing an opposition to the Liberals. Today, the PQ is disintegrating. Federally, the Bloc Quebecois was nearly annihilated by the NDP’s surge during the federal election. This has allowed for Legault to emerge as an alternative to both the Liberals and PQ. Legault has been able to assume this position largely by positioning himself as someone who believes that the national debate is a distraction from tackling the real problems that the province faces. This has struck a chord with the majority of the working population of Quebec who have been feeling the sting of the economic crisis and the austerity measures from successive governments. This is the main reason for Legault’s popularity. He is getting attacked from all sides for either being both a separatist and a federalist, much like what happened with the rise of Mario Dumont and the ADQ.
It would be wrong to attribute Legault’s popularity to his right-wing policies. So far, Legault has been fairly vague about his program and has relegated most of his proclamations to criticizing the Liberals and the PQ. This same phenomenon of popularity is almost exactly what happened to the ADQ in 2007. After their rise, the spotlight was on the ADQ and it became clear what they stood for — raising tuition fees, privatizing Hydro Quebec, eliminating social services, etc. Once the true face of the ADQ was exposed, their popularity dwindled, the party was decimated in the following election, and leader Mario Dumont had to step down. We can expect the same to occur with Legault’s CAQ, whose popularity rests on the desire for change, not on the popularity of Legault’s policies.
A poll of Legault’s supporters was conducted on 21st November, which found that 32% supported the CAQ because of a “desire for change”; another 19% supported the party because of “disillusionment towards other political parties”; a further 17% favoured it for “the novelty”; and 6% of CAQ supporters believed in “the strengths of François Legault.” Only 9% of respondents actually supported the CAQ because of the party’s program — not exactly a ringing endorsement of support. The merger of the CAQ with the ADQ may seem like a bad thing to most labour activists, but this may serve to expose Legault and concretize the debate. After the merger was approved by the ADQ executive, ADQ leader Gerard Deltell stated that Legault had agreed to 80% of the ADQ’s program.
The right-wing populism of the ADQ and the CAQ can enjoy a certain amount of popularity because of its anti-government nature. Working-class Quebeckers see governments of every political shade imposing cuts and austerity, all while politicians and senior bureaucrats continue to waste workers’ hard-earned tax dollars on perks and benefits for themselves. In this environment, the call for “less government” and “more efficiency” can have resonance. But, what the ADQ and the CAQ envision is doing away with school boards and social services; any remaining government departments and services should be run like businesses, or sold off to the private sector. They wish to completely submit the education system to the needs of the market, which means increased tuition and more corporate infringement into academia. In many ways, this political trend is a mirror image of Toronto mayor Rob Ford’s movement against the so-called “gravy train”, or the short-lived Tea Party in the US. The popularity enjoyed by these formations, however, is inevitably fleeting — once they shed their ambiguity, or worse, once they take power, they become absolutely reviled by the working class as they see in whose interests they are actually fighting for.
The tasks of the labour movement
The creation of the CAQ and Legault’s present popularity is a threat to the entire labour movement. Under their populist guise, the CAQ will begin the gutting of public services and the mass layoffs of public-sector workers. What may also follow is a wholesale attack on the ability of workers to organize to confront the bosses’ agenda, as we have seen in the recent struggles by Air Canada and Canada Post workers.
The main challenge which exists here is that the workers see no viable alternative to the parties of austerity. This is why the political crisis is so severe. The International Marxist Tendency is a recognized collective within the left-wing party Quebec solidaire. Ever since we started our participation within the party, we have explained that what is needed more than ever is a party of the working class of Quebec. This is something that has never existed in the province and it is paramount that we create it in order to throw out Charest and block Legault. Given this situation, there are especially huge opportunities for Quebec solidaire. For us to capitalize on these opportunities, it is necessary to focus on counter-posing a concrete socialist program, which benefits the working class, to the austerity measures being proposed by the bourgeois parties. We need a program that presents concrete reforms, such as a liveable minimum wage, free public transit, free education, and the need for nationalization of the main levels of the economy under democratic control.
The austerity measures being implemented don’t have anything to do with “neo-liberalism” or the nature of the “bad men” who are in power (or those who wish to be). It is no coincidence that every government, regardless of political stripe, has been pursuing fundamentally the same economic policies. We have just seen the so-called “socialist” governments in Greece and Spain get thrown out of power due to their unpopularity resulting from the cuts they implemented. This is because the capitalist system itself has failed, and the ruling class need to impose harsh austerity measures in order to restore the economic equilibrium. Therefore, any political party that does not reject this system and put forward a clear socialist program, only ends up being forced down the road of right-wing economic policies.
One thing that Legault and company have realized, and which has made them so popular with ordinary Quebeckers, is that the fundamental issues on the minds of millions of voters are not issues surrounding the national question, but concrete issues affecting their day-to-day lives as they face austerity and the worst economic crisis in 80 years. Any party that places its focus on the national question at this time is getting punished by voters. Legault is seen as a courageous, honest politician who is not in it for the money and is free of corruption. He left the PQ long before the crisis in the party. This past year, the authority of not only the Bloc and the PQ, but of nationalism in general, has been damaged greatly. This is seen by the fact that neither Quebec solidaire nor the failed Nouveau mouvement pour le Québec (NMQ), created by Jean-Martin Aussant and ex-PQ people, have been able to garner any increased support in the middle of the biggest political crisis in the province in 40 years. Why has the support gone to a politician who has openly stated that the national debate is a distraction?
No coalitions with the capitalist PQ! For a united front against austerity!
Unfortunately, Quebec solidaire has thrown a lifeline to the disintegrating PQ. In late October, QS leader Amir Khadir stated,“We [the QS and the PQ] can agree. If the PQ doesn’t want François Legault and the Liberals, Québec Solidaire doesn’t want them either. We say [in those electoral districts] where there are Liberals now, we should try to do something.” This is because the QS leadership, confused by the national question, sees the PQ as “more progressive” than the Liberals and therefore, counter-poses them as a better alternative. This is despite the fact that at the Quebec solidaire congress in March 2011, the membership voted down an attempt by the party leadership to pass a resolution proposing an electoral pact with the PQ or the Greens.
At the height of the #Occupy movement in Montreal, while the PQ was decomposing, Françoise David was seen, locked arm-in-arm, with the politicians of the PQ and Bloc in a march “for independence”. The fact is that focusing on the national question and the courting of the PQ has hurt the authority of Quebec solidaire who seem to be no more than a left rump of the PQ to most people in Quebec.
The orange wave of the NDP and the rise of Legault both prove that people in Quebec are looking for a solution outside of the debate about independence. There is a power vacuum and the possibilities for Quebec solidaire are huge, if we can provide the proper alternative. The International Marxist Tendency has been proposing a united front of the NDP, QS, and the unions, with the primary goal of a QS victory in the coming provincial election. As we wrote in our letter “For a United Front Against Austerity” which we published in August 2011, “All three forces must work towards a QS victory and a defeat of the right-wing parties. Union activists, QS activists, and NDP activists must work together to re-create the orange wave provincially.” The threat of Legault is extremely serious for the working class of Quebec. The labour movement must organize to defeat Charest and block the attempts of the right wing populists to take over.
