We know that Thomas Mulcair, Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition was at his party’s caucus meeting in St. John’s, Newfoundland. We assume he voted in the advance poll in Quebec but it is an interesting question as to which party he voted. Bob Rae and the Liberal Caucus were in Quebec and had ready comment on the Quebec election for the news media. It was a surprisingly shy Prime Minister Harper who was missing on the 10 pm news in Eastern Canada.
But then, Stephen Harper has been playing hide-and-seek with Canadians for most of the summer. In many ways, it added to the enjoyment of the pleasant summer weather.
But other than a comment earlier in the summer that he might launch a provincial NDP wing in Quebec sometime, Mulcair was also among the missing.
What does it say that the Federal Liberal MPs and senators were coincidently gathering at Montebello in Quebec? Timing is everything. Bob Rae, the news grabber that he is, knew to make the federal Liberals the saviours of the nation. The scene just needed appropriate music to give his statement the right drama.
There is no question that the federal Liberal MPs from Quebec are, collectively, far more experienced than the federal NDP members from that province. They continue to run rings around Mulcair’s people and have good access to the news media.
In contrast, Thomas Mulcair has to toe a very fine line in Quebec. His basic problem is that his NDP actually share the core vote in Quebec with the Parti Québécois. The PQ is the left of centre party in that province. There is no comfortable home in Quebec for a left-of-centre federalist. When you add the right-wing Liberal Party’s vote and the CAQ vote on Tuesday, you find that about 57 per cent of the voters opted for a federalist option (even if François Legault’s federalism seems temporary).
Keen observers of the Quebec scene are eagerly waiting for the re-opening of the inquiry into corruption in the construction industry. We expect that we might find that certain trades unions, some contractors and possibly some politicians have been chasing their tails for payoffs. We can all agree that cleaning up the construction industry in Quebec is long overdue.
While it will be very much a step backward, Mulcair will probably find that a cleaned up construction industry can give him a base of union support for a provincial New Democratic Party. It could ultimately relegate the Parti Québécois to the fringe party status that it deserves.
-30-
Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]