It has been a long time since a premier of Quebec took such a strong position in a federal campaign.
François Legault warned voters against the Liberals, New Democrats and Greens. “Dangerous” parties that “scare” and make him “very worried”. He called on the whole nation to vote against them. The message to his flock: support the Conservatives or the Bloc.
Mr. Legault even named Erin O’Toole, praising his “good approach”. He did not reserve this favor for Yves-François Blanchet.
The firmness of the support is surprising.
The Conservative leader had just unveiled his financial framework. Wednesday at 6 p.m., just before the televised debate and without a press conference. A ruse to go unnoticed.
We discover that Mr. O’Toole’s “contract with Quebecers” contains a lot of fine print.
During their next term, the Conservatives would add $ 51.3 billion in new spending. That is $ 27 billion less than the Liberals. This gap is precisely the expected cost of the Liberal national child care system.
The Conservatives would abolish it. And everything indicates that they would also tear up the check for 6 billion in Quebec.
This sum was used to compensate for the money invested in the other provinces. If the program is abolished, so will the compensation.
The Conservatives have made no more promises. Despite everything, Mr. Legault hopes to recover an equivalent amount. It won’t be easy.
To have a good balance of power, he wants a minority Conservative government with a Bloc that holds the balance of power.
It is one possibility among many others.
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The Caquist leader has two priority demands for the federal government: to increase health transfers and to repatriate the family reunification program to add French requirements to this category of immigrants.
For transfers, the conservative financial framework is less generous than expected. Quebec wanted the envelope to be first increased by $ 28 billion, and then indexed by 6% per year.
For the initial increase, Mr. O’Toole promises a negotiation, without guaranteeing the result. He is only firm about the subsequent 6% indexation. However, the gain for Quebec will be less than is claimed. Under the current formula, transfer growth is pegged to economic growth, which will be high in 2021 and 2022. In total, Mr. O’Toole would add less than $ 1 billion a year for the entire country. Nothing huge. Most of the increase would come after 2025.
As for immigration powers, Mr. O’Toole undertakes to renegotiate the agreement, without compromising on the result.
Mr. Legault is not completely won over by Mr. O’Toole’s program. His flirtation is explained otherwise. By his anger against Justin Trudeau.
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I do not remember such a virulent exit since the constitutional crises.
In December 2005, Jean Charest said that Stephen Harper’s promises were “in line with what Quebec wants”. This had made the headlines of Press.
Mr. Legault’s support is even stronger. Imagine the outcry if Mr. Trudeau had done the same thing in a Quebec campaign!
Still, Mr. Trudeau cannot be surprised. He looked for it …
The federal Liberals see it as a negotiating tactic. This is a bad read.
For months, Mr. Trudeau has been promising to interfere in the jurisdictions of the health provinces. Quebec is telling him not to cross this red line. But he does it, does it again and welcomes it.
MM. Trudeau and Legault already had few hooks. The first is multiculturalist and liberal. The other is a nationalist, and if he does not want to call himself a conservative, he is certainly not a liberal.
It didn’t take much for the disagreement to re-emerge.
The Caquista government feels humiliated. As if he’s too foolish to know that seniors shouldn’t be abused, and as if creating national standards would be enough to address the labor shortage and other structural issues.
Mr. Trudeau couldn’t help it. For him, the temptation was too great. The pandemic has exposed serious flaws in our health systems. Fixing it itself is a more concrete and profitable election promise than offering a transfer to the provinces. Especially since in the rest of the country, this federal intrusion does not arouse so much passions.
Mr. Legault is right to make health transfers a national issue. This affects the ability of the Government of Quebec, regardless of its color, to fund services. But he stretches the sauce by applying this logic to issues such as the third Quebec-Lévis link or the Law on State Secularism.
The current project for a new highway is supported by one party: his own. We are moving away from “the interests of the nation”… After all, a Quebecer can be both a nationalist and an environmentalist, and thus attracted to the Greens, the New Democrats or the Liberals.
As for secularism, Mr. Legault fails to say that the law is already contested. The effect of federal intervention is difficult to predict. It might make little difference.
In these files, Mr. Legault confuses his interests with those of the nation. But in health, his exasperation is understandable. And in such a tight campaign, Justin Trudeau could pay the price. Yet he had been warned.