In the Québec City area where Stephen was hoping to consolidate his 2006 gains (he got most of his 11 Quebec MPs from there), it does not look good for the Conservatives. It would seem that finally, the good ‘pure-laine’ from this sleepy but beautiful city and the semi-urban ridings around it has discovered, after all, that the right wing ‘revolution’ is not a good thing for them. It remains to be seen however what will happen on October 14.

Canadians should know that reactionary politics have dominated that sub region for the last while. This is where the left and the social movements, partially because of their own blindness, are the weakest in Québec (the province). The left has not been able to make the alliances at the municipal level, leaving the place for a very rightwing takeover in the municipality of Québec (it was the opposite in the 1990s). The rift between the Nationalists (PQ and Bloc) and the left has widened, whereas the left discourse is dominated by an absolutist, take-it-or-leave-it discourse. Not very clever. In this electoral campaign, local prominent leftists have denounced the Bloc and called for supporting the NDP. Intellectually speaking, sane, politically speaking, stupid, in a context where Bloc and Conservatives are neck to neck. My friends from Québec solidaire in that part of our ‘village’ would of course disagree.

There is a bit of sociology in that setup. The public sector, traditionally the main employer in Québec City, has dwindled under the impact of neoliberal cutbacks, including those initiated by Lucien Bouchard during the dreadful PQ government in 1995-96. Public servants were not happy. The ‘rest’ of the social fabric is around small and very small businesses, where naturally, people have a shopkeeper mentality and see the public sector as ‘THE’ enemy. They went on the side of Stephen and at the provincial level of ADQ, not because they agreed (or understood) the Conservative project, but by default, by opposition. Instead of working with these sectors and defending their social and economic rights, the left has abandoned them to the wolves. So the twist has not been a surprise.

Now times are changing because the same very people who were caught into that loop have seen and heard Stephen, his abandonment of local regional development programs (hurting badly peripheral regions), his contempt for culture (a big ‘industry’ in Québec City) and his generally rightist policies on everything else, including the management of the economic crisis and the war in Afghanistan. In other words, Stephen made the ‘mistake’ of making himself known.

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Pierre Beaudet

Pierre was active in international solidarity and social movements in Quebec, and was the founder of Quebec NGO Alternatives, and Editor of the Nouveaux cahiers du socialisme. He blogged on rabble.ca in...