Mar

27

Dumont!

March 27, 2007 |

On this night, Mr. Dumont’s party shook the traditional two-party system. ADQ, which had a slim five seats at dissolution, had jumped to 40. The party saw its popular support soar about 12 percentage points from the last election.

Mr. Dumont’s party made significant inroads outside the Greater Montreal Area, snagging seats in Mauricie, Chaudiere-Appalaches and the Monteregie, drastically changing the make up of the 125 seats up for grabs in Quebec’s National Assembly.national post

Dumont is being touted as a small government politician. Which, in the relativistic world of Quebec politics, he no doubt is.

However, he may well have cinched his breakthrough simply by mentioning the hitherto unmentionable subject of mass visible minority immigration. Lysiane Gagnon writing in the Globe says, “Mr. Dumont gave voice to a widespread, yet relatively hidden, resentment against visible minorities.” He did so by bringing into question the notion of “reasonable accommodation” for religious minorities.

What this effectively means is “Muslims” and the beginning of a backlash against the increasingly strident demands of this group and the perceived willingness of Quebec political elites to embrace those demands in some weirdly asymmetrical version of multi-culturalism. (”We will refuse the English minority their rights; but, hey, Muslims of course we will provide female only bathing hours at public pools…least we can do.”)

This might give Harper pause in his non-stop embrace of this same multi-culturalism at the federal level. Quebecers are not the only people in Canada waiting for a politician to stand up and represent their views.

Update: CTV has the popular vote as:

The popular vote breaks down as follows:

* Liberals - 32.8 per cent
* ADQ - 31.0 per cent
* Parti Quebecois - 28.4 per cent
* Other - 7.8 per cent

One way to read this is as a 60% rejection of the separatist position. Another way is to recognize that the ADQ came within 2 points of the Liberals and that this suggests a strong steak of populism is alive and well in La Belle Province. Either way, it is not going to be politics as usual in Quebec starting tomorrow.

UpDate II: KMG pointed out that the vast majority of Charest’s support was concentrated around Montreal and in the Outaouais - that is near Ottawa Hull. Of course these regions are significantly Anglo and Allophone - which is to say immigrant. So, assuming that Charest retains the Premiership - which makes little sense but seems to be the way things are shaping up - does he have any plausibility as the leader of French Canada?

Update III: A look at the Montreal ridings won by the Liberals underscores how difficult it may be for Charest to claim a mandate from French Quebecers. Where he won he won big. I have 9 ridings in the Montreal area where the plurality over the second place contestant was greater than 10,000 votes. Which means that the popular vote totals are more than a little misleading when it comes time to measure Francophone support for the Liberals. 80% support in Anglo-Allophone ridings means that combined ADQ/PQ support in Francophone ridings has to have been huge for the popular vote to be so close.

I don’t expect the MSM to pay much attention to this in its usual rush to declare the death of Separatism. But i suspect that if Jacques Parizeau has a few tonight he might repeat his remark as to the “Anglos and the ethnics”.

I also suspect that Harper might be wondering if backing Charest (to the point of defeating him but that is another story) loooks quite so bright. And I suspect that if you were to map tonights results on the last Federal election’s results you’d find that Charest’s support follows the outline of the federal Liberal Party’s support in that election while the CPC’s support - both elected and close - will conform to the outlines of the ADQ’s near win tonight. It is just a hunch but one which the Tory brain trust may want to consider carefully.

At this point Charest is the putative Premier of Quebec, but he is the leader of the regions of Quebec which are least French. Having M. Dumont for a slap up dinner at 24 Sussex might be a good idea. Maybe Harper could give him a cat.


Comments

1 Comment so far

  1. Ben (The Tiger) on March 27, 2007 8:16 pm

    Even nation-wide, he would be a small gov’t politico — his platform included a flat tax last time out.

    Interesting to see that this is your read, Jay — John Ibbitson agrees with you, and called most of Quebec racist today in the Globe and Mail. :-)

    I’m still trying to sort it out in my head, myself.

Name

Email

Website

Speak your mind