“The beginning is half the work”, said Plato. Jean Charest knows a lot about it. His entry into Quebec politics in 1998 was a moment of anthology. His refusal to leave the leadership of the then Progressive Conservative Party, which he had increased from 2 to 20 seats the previous year at the cost of incessant labor, was not feigned. But all the federalist forces urged him to take the head of a PLQ that then leader Daniel Johnson had rendered inert. Once convinced that he had to take the leap, Charest let the pot of desire simmer for weeks. So much so that even before he uttered his first word, the polls gave him a lead over Lucien Bouchard. Then advisor to the Prime Minister, I was dumbfounded, appalled and admiring all at the same time.
His first word was a masterstroke. Accepting the leadership of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ), he declared that the Parti Quebecois (PQ) would want to hide its independence option before the next election. I cracked a note advising our spokespersons not to take the bait. I was immediately going to attend, incredulous, a festival of states of mind of ministers and deputies putting us on the defensive. He had, as they say, hit where it hurts.
It is therefore with the curiosity of the informed spectator that I observe the political comeback of the champion of the beginnings. Camped for the moment behind the curtain, like the Wizard of Oz, he deploys his scriptwriting. First there is the rumor that he is in demand. Then the noise signaling that he’s thinking about it, but doesn’t really need to. He has just been appointed director of CN, where the average salary is $400,000 a year, which is added to his other income.
Next comes the expression of the request of the suitors. A scout, the deputy Alain Rayes, appears in front of the microphones to say how much the retiree would be the man for the job. Then we move on to writing. Rayes and other figures from Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes write in The Press to implore his coming. “Canada needs you,” they plead, in prose that was — I’m willing to bet the amount of my subscription to the Homework on this presumption — reviewed and corrected by the aspiring leader himself. The next day, the invocation comes from the other side of the country: the former Premier of British Columbia, Christy Clark (nominally Liberal, but in fact Conservative), joins Jean Charest’s concert of the thirsty.
Do they like his program? He does not have it. Do they applaud his recent political positions? He remained silent. Are they excited about a recent policy speech about his vision for Canada in the world? This discourse does not exist. Are his opinions on the blocking of Ottawa, the vaccination obligation, the carbon tax, the law on secularism the cause of their enthusiasm? We have no idea what he thinks of these questions.
With hindsight, do they admire the constancy of his conservative ideological positioning in the face of economic storms? It would be surprising, because the man who came to Quebec in 1998 to dismantle the Quebec model and impose on the State a reengineering from which he drew his source in the pure conservative program of Ontarian Mike Harris has renounced all his initiatives of origin. Rather, he slipped into the Bourassian mold of the position of least resistance. With the exception, it is true, of his confrontation with the students.
Stephen Harper is therefore right to make it known that Jean Charest is not the “true Conservative” that the party, in his view, needs. In other circumstances, it would not have been impossible for the former leader of the PLQ to go over to the enemy, to the Liberal Party of Canada. Charest may have already been an ideologue. He is now a chameleon.
This is precisely why he is so attractive in the eyes of those who are in the Conservative Party to seize power rather than to implement ideas. Where Pierre Poilievre and his gang have the ideological flexibility of a CN tower, Jean Charest follows the curves of the Olympic Stadium.
If in 1998 I admired the zenitude of the one who said “choose Quebec”, with regret, but with skill, we have some indications that the 2022 version is certainly not less seasoned, but more embittered.
Twice, in the past 10 days, he has taken the counterproductive actions of a man with scars that still torment him. The rumor of his return would, it was certain, revive all the accusations relating to the ethical abyss into which he plunged Quebec while he was in business. A zen Charest would have arched his back and let the wave pass. But he called his ex-minister Lise Thériault to come to his rescue, giving the image of an ex-prime minister quick to plunge back into a fight that can only harm him.
At the time of the 10e anniversary of his confrontation with the youth, he sent to The Press a note wanting to demonstrate that students are, roughly speaking, as heavily taxed for their studies today as if they had cashed the 82% increase that he wanted to impose on them at the time. The fact that he doesn’t seem to understand demonstrating in this way that the hard way—his own—was not the right way to gradually come to a similar result is beside the point. It is more bizarre that a man who hopes to represent Canada at the G7 soon (I believe that this objective weighs extremely heavily on his motivation) makes the mistake of reminding his potential voters of the darkest episodes of his last transition to power.
The spectator that I am is therefore still dumbfounded, but a tad less admiring.