Politics: Canada: Province of Quebec vote for its National Assembly set for March 26

CBC News carried word of the long-anticipated Quebec provincial election, "Quebec election set for March 26" (Feb21,2k7)

Premier Jean Charest has called a provincial election, sending Quebecers to the polls on March 26.

Charest met with Lt.-Gov. Lise Thibault just after 11 a.m. Wednesday to ask her to dissolve the national assembly and allow elections in the province's 125 ridings.

North America > Canada > Quebec

For the first time since [separatist] René Lévesque was first elected premier in 1976, the election is shaping up as a three-way race, with the Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ) set to challenge the Liberals and Parti Québécois.

Charest has his election team picked, his Liberal party is flush with money, and even Prime Minister Stephen Harper has come to his side with a $350-million boost to the province's environmental projects last week.

In the Federal election that may take place if the Conserv minority govt falls on a Budget vote scheduled for March 19 (should all 3 Fed opposition parties reject the financial plan and/or the politics behind it), only a week prior to the now-scheduled Quebec election, the Conservs must set a new Federal election and could set that date as close behind the Quebec vote, as close as possible.

A bad showing for the Quebec separatist party, the Party Quebecois (PQ), could then affect the vote for the Federal separatist party of the Bloc Quebecois (BQ). It is expected that the PQ will not do so well, since its leader is a dashing, unmarried, chldless, homo who used cocaine while he was a cabinet minister in a previous BQ govt. Why the BQ elected such a nincompoop to be its leader is unfathomable, a real come-down from the days of previous leaders Rene Levesque and the financial whiz but anti-Semite Jacques Parizeau. Andre Boisclair just isn't fit to govern, altho recently he won at least a temporary truce among rival factions pulling his provinical party apart, and now has only a month to make up for its well-deserved misfortunes.

Charest may well be expected to win, tho Boisclair will pound him with an unfriendly frenzy of hyped-up rhetoric. But the real surprises may be expected from Democratic Action of Quebec (ADQ) led by Mario Dumont. A number of ADQers ran federally for the Conservs in the last election and sit with that party in the Federal House of Commons. The ADQ may be expected to increase its number of seats now in the provincial National Assembly. I think both Charest's Libs and Dumont's ADQ will increase their votes; the Libs may increase their seats, but I think the ADQ increase in seats in the National Assembly to a greater extent. A trend in the BQ is out, either to Libs or ADQ.


Canada Press's Jonathan Monpetits "After years on the sidelines, ADQ'S Dumont ready to come in from the cold" (Feb21,2k7):

Recent polls suggest Dumont, 36, is the most popular leader on the provincial scene. However, those same surveys also indicate the ADQ is running a solid third behind the governing Liberals and the Parti Quebecois.

The ADQ is notorious for polling well, only to see its support evaporate come election day. After riding high in the run-up to 2003 campaign, the party ended up with only four seats and was left toiling in the political wilderness for another four years.

"During the last election we made campaign mistakes," Dumont admitted recently. "I think people see that we have learned from our mistakes."

But if there is a sense of optimism in the buildup to the March 26 provincial election, it may be because Dumont has no choice.

"This is the time to break out," said Andre Lecours, a political scientist at Concordia University. "It's now or never for the ADQ."

Lecours says recent debate in Quebec about "reasonable accommodation" for racial, ethnic and religious minorities has given Dumont an issue that allows him to appeal to a "silent minority" of Quebecers.

Dumont's hardline stand - calling for "gestures which reinforce our national identity" - has indeed struck a chord with many. In a province where the political spectrum is tilted heavily towards the left, he has carved a niche for himself as Quebec's only staunchly conservative leader.

"There are people with conservative social opinions in Quebec," Lecours said. "I think for Dumont the job is to get these people to follow him."

A provincial realignment with Charest still at the helm, a real Quebec social conservative party making a definite contribution, and a reduced separatist party will have a great impact outside Quebec.