CAQ Wins Majority in Quebec

Carjosse said:

So the CAQ has won Quebec, for the first time in modern Quebec history neither the PQ or Liberals formed the government. While I am happy the PQ looks like it has been dealt a death blow, I am not happy with the CAQ or the popularity of QS. The CAQ wants to take a reckless approach to the economy, they just want to cut taxes and spending. They also want to cut immigration when there is a massive labour shortage in the province. The CAQ is also bad for Montreal and the Anglophone community, as is evidenced by the fact he only won one seat on the entire island, refusing to take Montreal issues seriously like public transit and wanting to abolish school boards, including the English ones. The QS are even more dangerous, they are full-on socialists that idealize the economies of the Soviet Union and Venezuela.

Read more here.

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Carjosse said:

So the CAQ has won Quebec, for the first time in modern Quebec history neither the PQ or Liberals formed the government. While I am happy the PQ looks like it has been dealt a death blow, I am not happy with the CAQ or the popularity of QS. The CAQ wants to take a reckless approach to the economy, they just want to cut taxes and spending. They also want to cut immigration when there is a massive labour shortage in the province. The CAQ is also bad for Montreal and the Anglophone community, as is evidenced by the fact he only won one seat on the entire island, refusing to take Montreal issues seriously like public transit and wanting to abolish school boards, including the English ones. The QS are even more dangerous, they are full-on socialists that idealize the economies of the Soviet Union and Venezuela.

Read more here.

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Chomsky said:

I don't follow Canadian politics, but have spent time in Montreal, Quebec, and Quebec City. Places I really like. And to me, a Right leaning Quebecois party sounds like an odd combination.

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Surrealistik said:

I hear you on the CAQ, awful party exploiting Quebec nationalism/xenophobia as a smokescreen to serve its wealthy sponsors and interests, but what is this nonsense about the QS idealizing Soviet Union and Venezuela?

"Principles and aims
The aim of QS's foundation was to unify the sovereigntist left of the political spectrum in Quebec by merging the Union des forces progressistes (UFP) party with the Option citoyenne social movement.[12][13] In addition to advocating the independence of Quebec from Canada, the party's platform identifies with the concepts of environmentalism, feminism, social justice, proportional representation and participatory democracy, pacifism, aboriginal rights, and alter-globalism.[14] The party favours aboriginal rights, immigration, and human dignity, and opposes discrimination including racism, sexism and homophobia.[14] QS describes itself as a sovereigntist, green, alter-globalizationist, and feminist party.[15]"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/mont...re-s-platform-and-how-to-pay-for-it-1.4815488

https://globalnews.ca/news/4502222/quebec-election-2018-cheat-sheet-what-did-the-parties-promise/

Not a fan of the QC's francophone nationalism at all, and I think it leans way too heavily on ID politics, but the rest of that sounds decent to great, and not at all like the Soviet Union or Venezuela, or 'full-on socialists'; seems like pretty standard European style social democracy to me.

In all honesty you sound about as disingenuous as the partisan retards who think Bernie is an honest to god communist and wants to bring about a second coming of the Cuban/Venezuelan economy in America.

Also the Liberals lost because they're were governing via the same neo-lib right of centre austerity tripe that is falling out of favour rapidly the western world over, and for good reason; when that isn't working for people, of course they're going to seek out alternatives. If it weren't for Trudeau and a lack of strong leadership among his opposition, I'm sure the Liberals would be in dire straits at the national level as well.

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Evilroddy said:

For the benefit of those who do not follow Quebec politics an explanatory note (and a little shameless editorialising by me):

The CAQ (Coalition Avenir Quebec) majority government is going to be "interesting", to say the least. Many ardent nationalists and separatists joined the party when it was clear that the separatist PQ (Parti Québécois) was spiraling down into oblivion after the Mme. Marois Government made such a shambles of things in the province. Those PQ members whose leftist leanings would not allow them to join a right-leaning, pro-business, smaller-government party joined the QS (Quebec Solidaire) instead. So a weird ad hoc coalition of the CAQ and the QS and the rump PQ could, under the right but very ŵrong circumstances, lead to another sovereignty referendum if the PL (Parti Liberal) are not careful and instead refuse to cooperate with the CAQ, despite their (the Liberals) deep antipathy to the CAQ. So we will live in interesting times for the next four to five years of CAQ governance.

Carjosse:

Cutting taxes a good deal while cutting government spending by more modest margins will cause the already ruinous provincial deficits and debt to sky-rocket. Cutting immigration will stifle economic growth and will play into the hands of the most xenophobic factions in Quebec society. You can also be relatively certain that the CAQ Government will attempt a major shakedown of the Federal Government of Canada for more transfer payments and equalisation payments with the threat of sovereignty being used as a political lever to pry the money out of Ottawa. This will anger other provincial governments and thus make Federal-Provincial relations very difficult for the next few years. Mr. Trudeau (the younger) may not be up to such a task.

Chomsky:

While it is true that for the last 60 odd years Quebec has leaned strongly to the left/progressive end of the political spectrum, that was not always the case. There is a long and deep-rooted right-wing and authoritarian tradition in Quebec society and politics stretching back over four hundred years. For more than three decades from the 1930's to 1960, off and on due to the domestic politics of World War II, Quebec had a very right-wing, pro-business, ultra-nationalist and authoritarian provincial government under the Parti Union Nationale led by a strongman named Maurice Duplessis. This was a bad period in Quebec's history for human, religious, political and labour rights and a great time for foreign business to plunder Quebec's natural resources at rock-bottom costs.

Although not directly connected to the Union Nationale government, there were Quebec home-grown Nazis marching about publicly in blue shirts before and during the early part of the war. Other right-leaning parties have had significant impact on the province including the Social Credit movement which spawned the Parti Creditiste du Quebec, which contrary to other left-leaning populist social credit parties in Canada was a strongly right-leaning business oriented one in Quebec. So a strongly progressive Quebec is an historically new phenomenon which sits atop a much longer and more authoritarian past controlled by large land owners, both domestic and foreign business elites, provincial governments and a once very powerful Catholic Church.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

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ReMarx said:

Blue wave!!

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Carjosse said:

Actually Quebec has the healthiest long-term financial outlook of any province according to the federal budget office, that is thanks to the Liberals, instead of tax cuts they wanted to pay down the debt and save. I imagine there will be some battles, mainly over immigration, but I don't Trudeau will stand for that.

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Carjosse said:

They want to become independent so they can nationalize things, they have said they would want to nationalize banks and the natural resource industries, that sounds like a slide into socialism. They have no grasp on economics at all, in their platform they said they said they would create 300,000 green jobs, that is a ****ton of jobs in a very specific sector, I imagine it has something to do with that nationalization of natural resources. They have also expressed admiration of Venezuela in the past. Stinks of socialism to me. Bernie Sanders is a social democrat, these guys are full-on socialists.

Also the wealthy did not vote for the CAQ, they voted overwhelmingly Liberal.

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Surrealistik said:

Nationalising certain things like say the oil industry worked exceedingly well in Norway's case; I don't think it's a bad idea properly done, and it's probably what we should have been doing since the very beginning in Canada so that we may have had a national equivalent to the $1 trillion+ value Norway Sovereign Wealth Fund ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway ). That having been said, nationalization of certain/limited sectors isn't straight up communism/socialism. Moreover, I don't see evidence that they collectively, per your hyperbole, 'have no grasp on economics at all'. Further, can you cite this alleged admiration of Venezuela? I searched and could find nothing; this may be due to the quotations being in French. Either way this admiration would have to concern itself with very specific aspects of Venezuela's governance to be in any way alarming (like say suppression, its all in approach to oil/failure to diversify, and so on). In its totality, despite an earnest attempt, I cannot find anything beyond said limited nationalism of certain industries that suggests the QS is indeed any more socialist than Bernie or conventional European-style democratic socialism.

As to the demographics of CAQ voters, that the wealthy voted for the Liberals obviously doesn't mean that CAQ's politics, agenda and interests are ultimately aligned with typical people; look no further than the Republicans to the south. The CAQ's tax and spending policies speak for themselves: like Trump, they play up nationalism to mask and obfuscate/drown out policy that is anathema to middle and working class voters and overwhelmingly benefits the rich.

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Surrealistik said:

Nationalising certain things like say the oil industry worked exceedingly well in Norway's case; I don't think it's a bad idea properly done, and it's probably what we should have been doing since the very beginning in Canada so that we may have had a national equivalent to the $1 trillion+ value Norway Sovereign Wealth Fund ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway ). That having been said, nationalization of certain/limited sectors isn't straight up communism/socialism. Moreover, I don't see evidence that they collectively, per your hyperbole, 'have no grasp on economics at all'. Further, can you cite this alleged admiration of Venezuela? I searched and could find nothing; this may be due to the quotations being in French. Either way this admiration would have to concern itself with very specific aspects of Venezuela's governance to be in any way alarming (like say suppression, its all in approach to oil/failure to diversify, and so on). In its totality, despite an earnest attempt, I cannot find anything beyond said limited nationalism of certain industries that suggests the QS is indeed any more socialist than Bernie or conventional European-style democratic socialism.

As to the demographics of CAQ voters, that the wealthy voted for the Liberals obviously doesn't mean that CAQ's politics, agenda and interests are ultimately aligned with typical people; look no further than the Republicans to the south. The CAQ's tax and spending policies speak for themselves: like Trump, they play up nationalism to mask and obfuscate/drown out policy that is anathema to middle and working class voters and overwhelmingly benefits the rich.

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Carjosse said:

So the CAQ has won Quebec, for the first time in modern Quebec history neither the PQ or Liberals formed the government. While I am happy the PQ looks like it has been dealt a death blow, I am not happy with the CAQ or the popularity of QS. The CAQ wants to take a reckless approach to the economy, they just want to cut taxes and spending. They also want to cut immigration when there is a massive labour shortage in the province. The CAQ is also bad for Montreal and the Anglophone community, as is evidenced by the fact he only won one seat on the entire island, refusing to take Montreal issues seriously like public transit and wanting to abolish school boards, including the English ones. The QS are even more dangerous, they are full-on socialists that idealize the economies of the Soviet Union and Venezuela.

Read more here.

Click to expand...

Carjosse said:

Norway just has a crown corporation that competes with other oil companies including other Norwegian ones, Canada is not stranger to crown corporations like Potash Corp. before 1990 and the like. That is different to what QS wants which is to have complete nationalization of the industry sector, that is socialism.

Here is QS sharing condolences for Chavez's death.

In 2008 they sent a delegation to Venezuela.

Here is another article about QS's link to other far-left parties.

Sorry all in French.

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While it is fashionable for the PQ and the ADQ to speak of a Constitution or even of a Constituent Assembly, a Québec Solidarity delegation led by Amir Khadir went to Ecuador and Venezuela to observe the constituent processes under way. these two countries. The objective: to meet social movement actors, politicians and grassroots activists and to try to understand how large sectors of the population - the people from below - could be involved in a real process of social mobilization and participatory and popular democracy...

...In Venezuela
The Québec Solidaire delegation was invited by the Venezuelan Diplomatic Training Institute, Pedro Gual.

After having, at the beginning of the week, at a conference organized by the institute, raised the importance of the damage done by neoliberalism in Quebec, particularly in the health field, the Québec Solidaire delegation will endeavor to measure - through many meetings with the social movement - the advances as well as the current difficulties of the Bolivarian process of social and popular transformation.

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Surrealistik said:

From what I see here per Google translate, the last article attempts to brand QS as Trotskyists by citing certain members/groups within the party that identify as such.

The delegation sent to Venezuela seems pretty benign:



Overall, I don't see anything that suggests they want to convert Canada into an all-in-on-oil petrostate flirting with authoritarianism and hyperinflation. Moreover, the nationalization elements of their platform appears to be partial, not wholesale, with the exception of mining/natural resources, and moreover cannot be said to be the kind of holistic state takeover of the economy that would merit being actually called socialist/communist. You may disagree with the scope/magnitude of their policy as I certainly do with segments of it, but they are absolutely not full blown communists/socialists on the whole. At worst, they might be considered 'far left' by Canadian standards, though I place less stock in them than western/northern European ones.

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Cordelier said:

Aren't they just a re-boot of the Union Nationale?

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Carjosse said:

No, Union Nationale, was pretty much an authoritarian theocracy heavily influenced by the Catholic Church and basically stayed in power through things like voter fraud, arresting journalists who may be a threat, etc.

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Cordelier said:

Under Duplessis, sure... but what about Daniel Johnson, Sr.?

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Carjosse said:

I honestly cannot find much information except for the fact he probably would have sympathized with the CAQs views on nationalism but much more in line with Liberals on reform. Apparently he is responsible for laying the groundwork for Quebec's current education and healthcare system. They seem to have made a very sharp turn to the left towards the end.

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Cordelier said:

Probably because they were feeling the heat from the PQ?

I think the CAQ victory was a healthy thing for Quebec.... it'd good that they now have an effective political voice on the right. For the last 50 years or so, they've been distracted by the whole separatism sham while the economy has been going around in circles as the center-left jostled with the far-left. If you want a boat to move forward, you have to row with both oars, do you not?

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Carjosse said:

But the economy was going really well under the Liberals: lowest unemployment in decades, budget surpluses, very positive economic growth, debt decreasing, savings fund, etc. Also the Liberals are not centre-left and the PQ is not far-left.

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Cordelier said:

If everything was going as good as you say and the Liberals still got defeated in a landslide, then I'd have to say that Philippe Couillard must have all the charisma of a slice of cold burnt toast.

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Carjosse said:

I honestly cannot find much information except for the fact he probably would have sympathized with the CAQs views on nationalism but much more in line with Liberals on reform. Apparently he is responsible for laying the groundwork for Quebec's current education and healthcare system. They seem to have made a very sharp turn to the left towards the end.

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Evilroddy said:

Carjosse:

Daniel Johnson's Union Nationale was only in power for a little over two years. The education reforms from the Parent Commission and Report were largely implemented by the Liberal Lesage Government which held power after the 1960 election until the June 1966 election of Johnson's UN party. The Union Nationale played important roles in Quebec's economic development especially in the Cote Nord (near north) but was not so cutting edge in social issues. It did carry on reforms begun by the Liberals in health care to be fair but also fought with Ottawa and stonewalled over funding Medicare.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

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