Column: Paul St-Pierre Plamondon struggles to convince voters

by time news

A year after his election to the leadership of the Parti Québécois (PQ), many activists are bitterly disappointed with Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, reported The duty at the end of last week. The agony of this great party which marked the history of Quebec and carried so many hopes is painful to see.

The latest poll credited the PQ with 11% of the voting intentions, 5% less than the same date last year, but the year has been difficult for all opposition parties. During the same period, the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) gained two points, and Quebec solidaire (QS) lost two.

The difference is at the level of the chef. Only 3% of Quebecers see the PSPP as the best potential prime minister, half less than for the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, Éric Duhaime. Of all the party leaders, he is the only one not to be the favorite of the voters of his own party, who immediately prefer François Legault. QS does not collect more voting intentions, but its leader, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, is three times more popular than that of the PQ.

If the majority of the members lined up behind him in the leadership race, it was largely because they saw him as the best suited to bring back the young people who have deserted over the years. Yet barely 3% of 18-34 year olds believe he would make the best prime minister and 4% find him the friendliest leader.

Even if the third opposition group has reduced visibility, its absence from the National Assembly causes a serious deficit of notoriety. When we asked the coroner Géhane Kamel, who investigated the death of Joyce Echaquan, how she reacted to the negative reception he had reserved for her report, she could not remember the name of the “gentleman”. of the PQ ”.

The leader is undoubtedly wrong, but the decline of the PQ, well before his arrival, is above all due to the disaffection with the independence project. Unlike QS, which is also seen as the party of social justice and the environment, the PQ remains identified almost exclusively with sovereignty.

He would have liked to take advantage of the debate on Bill 96 to recall that he has always been the party of language, but his voice was lost in the multitude of those who demanded long before him the extension of law 101 at the college level.

It is true that the arrival of the new leader has not changed much in the discourse on independence. Some reproach him, like many of his predecessors, for giving into “provincialist governance”, but a political party cannot completely disregard reality.

Whether we like it or not, Quebec is and will remain, for the foreseeable future, a simple province with limited fields of jurisdiction and which it must defend step by step. The PQ may well promise all imaginable “breaking gestures”, it must also be concerned about the present in which the voters have chosen to live. In reality, the failure of the PQ is the result of our collective resignation. For this, PSPP cannot be responsible.

By the next election, however, he promises to “talk more about our vision to land independence.” We have been hearing this for years. “The message is the medium,” said Marshall McLuhan. If the messenger does not inspire, it goes without saying that the message will not get through, but even Lucien Bouchard had resigned because he felt unable to shake the apathy of Quebecers.

She is also criticized for being too controlling and leading the party like a ” business “. The pandemic was undoubtedly not a very favorable period for consultation, but from the moment when the activists agreed to “simplify” the functioning of the bodies, during the 2019 congress, they cannot be surprised to see reduce their influence on the orientations of the party. It was precisely the objective, so much the PQ sometimes seemed ungovernable.

At a time when he needs his activists more than ever, the time was not right to demotivate them. If the party had the wind in its sails, we would live more easily with the faults of the leader, but we do not forgive a man who is 3% in the polls.

The good news for PSPP is that there can be no question of changing leaders again before the next election. Until then, the hardest part will probably be convincing the handful of MPs who survived the 2018 election to stand again and recruit worthy candidates ready to go to the slaughterhouse. We can only wish him good luck.

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