Duceppe’s strategy for failure

PUBLIÉ PAR VINCENT GELOSO DANS THE FINANCIAL POST
As soon as the word “election” started buzzing in everyone’s ears, Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe adopted the refrain that Stephen Harper was a pawn of George Bush who was dying to tear apart the “Quebec Model,” otherwise known as the welfare state in Quebec.

Duceppe’s campaign will be about finding every word possible to describe Stephen Harper as the leader of a vast right-wing conspiracy. His message aims at young voters who hold social-democratic views. This must seem to be a good strategy to Duceppe but on two counts it is arguably the worst strategy for the Bloc Québécois.

First, Duceppe assumes that the Quebec Model is generally well accepted. Universal social programs, subsidized industries, high unionization rates and current welfare policies — in Duceppe’s mind these are the object of a consensus. Sadly for him, that is not the case. In the last 10 years, voices calling for radical reforms have multiplied and backers of the Quebec Model have faced increasingly strong criticisms. Support for two-tier health care polls in the high 60s, two-thirds of Quebecers want to reduce corporate taxes and cut subsidies and nearly 40% of Quebecers support privatizing the state-owned alcohol monopoly. The elections of 2003 and 2007 both saw around 60% of Quebecers vote for a right-wing party. The Action démocratique du Québec even formed the official opposition using a strong message that linked economic freedom — i.e., privatization, deregulation, tax cuts — and a strong national identity.

Attacking Stephen Harper from the left can muster at best 40% of Quebecers, with virtually no traction outside Montreal. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister makes hay by targeting soft nationalist voters from the ADQ and the Quebec Liberal Party.
As underlined by former Parti Québécois minister Jacques Brassard, the Bloc Québécois could as well be a Quebec version of the NDP. After all, the Bloc is trying to package a separatist version of the most boring and common clichés associated with the Canadian socialist left (anti-Americanism, environmentalism, egalitarism, etc.).

On top of this, the Bloc puts its hopes in the hands of young voters, who gain the least from the Quebec Model. Since its inception, the Quebec Model has tried to hand out everything to everyone, all courtesy of the state. Who ultimately foots the bill? You guessed it, young Quebecers.

With an ageing population, high spending levels, some unaffordable social programs and badly designed public policies, there is a need for sweeping reform in the province. But that means some people will have to squeeze their belts for prolonged periods of time. Since several generations of Quebecers benefited from government handouts without paying the price, those who will have to pay are the ones who came too late to the party. The more time wasted before enacting reforms, the more expensive the price of reform will be when it becomes unavoidable.
If Gilles Duceppe was right to put his fate in the hands of young leftists, we would have seen thousands more students protesting the recent hike in tuition fees. Instead, we saw campaigns for deregulating tuition fees and raising them to allow universities to boost the value of higher education. We would also not be seeing strong support for right-wing ideas among voters between ages 25 and 35, who created a conservative beachhead in Quebec in 2006.

Gilles Duceppe may not be a member of the Communist Workers’ Party anymore, but he still has some leftover ideas from that period. He should discard them quickly if he does not want to end up with fewer than 30 seats.