Quebec provincial elections are less than two weeks away and there is a lot to learn before we go to the polls. There are four major political parties to choose from: the incumbent Liberal Party (PLQ), the Parti Québécois (PQ), Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), and Québec Solidaire (QS).
There are smaller parties running too and I’ll be writing about them next week, but today I’m focusing on the four parties that participate in the debates and the ones most likely to get seats in the National Assembly and therefore a say in how our province is governed at the top. That said, deciding on the party that will best suit your needs can be difficult.
I’m here to help.
This article will give you a rundown of where the four major political parties stand on some key issues. I’m going to limit this article to key aspects of their stances on healthcare, employment and education, the environment, and Quebec culture and how it fits into broader discourse about immigration, language, and secularism.
Let’s get started.
Healthcare
All four parties agree that something is amiss – a view that is shared by patients and workers within the provincial healthcare system. A social worker told me that resources are scarce. The news is filled with reports of insane wait times and nurses burning out due to mandatory overtime and ludicrous patient-to-nurse ratios.
The Liberals have sustained the brunt of the critiques and here’s how they plan to fix it:
- Improve access to pharmacist services, particularly vaccines and consultation services
- Open 25 more super clinics to offer primary health services that will be open twelve hours a day, seven days a week
- Offer more health services via telecommunication such as teleconsultation and tele-support
- “Take necessary measures” to help GPs and specialists meet patients needs and expectations
The Parti Québécois approach is a little different – their plan focuses on giving more autonomy to health professionals:
- Giving more discretionary power to local health care professionals
- Guaranteed access to nurse-practitioners in CLSCs seven days a week until 9 pm
- Allow for autonomous clinics consisting solely of nurse-practitioners
- More funding and support for community organizations dealing with health and social services
The Coalition Avenir Québec‘s plan is simpler but succinct in what they feel the province needs:
- Allowing patients to make appointments online
- Better access to first line care without appointment in CLSCs and clinics in the evenings and weekends to alleviate ER wait times
- More full-time positions for nurses with no mandatory overtime and a revision of nurse to patient ratios
- Deal with unnecessary medications and diagnoses – a possible attempt to address the opioid crisis
Québec Solidaire is focused on prevention and fighting discrimination, including:
- A mandatory study of the effects of mines and hydrocarbons on public health, the results of which will be publicly accessible
- Fighting discrimination against those with HIV and Hepatitis C
- Reinforce and increase financing to existing CLSCs to offer a complete network of multidisciplinary clinical services such as disability support, help with addiction, homelessness, and psychiatric care
- Universal pharmaceutical coverage
- Support research into women’s health care
Employment, Education, and the Economy
I lumped the three Es together because they are all linked. Quebec has a labour shortage that is only getting worse as the population ages and birth rates remain low.
In addition to a lack of natural growth, the province is failing to attract people due to fewer opportunities for professional and personal development, low growth prospects, a lack of flexibility in existing jobs, and a disparity between the available labour force and the kinds of jobs up for grabs.
Here is how the parties plan to deal with it:
CAQ:
- Encourage older workers to stay active as long as possible and offer fiscal initiatives to support this
- Reduce red tape for entrepreneurs and self-employed workers to get their activities off the ground
- Promote cooperation between businesses and universities to create programs that better reflect the current job market
- Introduce a policy that would promote private and foreign investment, innovation, and job creation
PLQ:
- Abolish tuition fees for students registered in part-time professional training programs leading to a DEC
- Create forty more workplace-based training programs over four years – whether or not students will be paid for their work is suspiciously absent given the growing concern about unpaid internships, something working-aged adults have rightfully identified as a form of slave labour abused by would-be employers
- Adapt professional training programs to the modern workforce and regional needs
- Provide the municipalités régionales de comté (MRCs) with funds and support to help them attract and retain foreign workers
- Ten million annually to support francization services
PQ:
- Gradually introduce free-post secondary education
- Encourage “teletravail” which would allow more people to work from home
- Updating the Labour Code to forbid employers from hiring external services or goods during strikes
- Create a detailed national registry of the workforce needs of businesses according to their declaration of revenue
QS:
- Free public education up to and including the first five years of university
- Improving student financial aid and paid internships – of all the parties, QS is the only one to address this issue
- Establishing a guaranteed basic income pilot project in several municipalities
- Fight tax evasion and establish taxation that is more reflective of people’s income
- Revise business taxation rules to make sure they are paying their fair share
The Environment
All the political parties agree that climate change is a problem and our reliance on fossil fuels is expensive and unsustainable. Sadly while all the parties address this issue, only Québec Solidaire does it in any detail.
QS:
- Strive for a 95% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050
- Improve public transport and the adoption of electric vehicles in public transit
- Improve transportation between municipalities and in less populated areas – presumably to reduce the need for cars
- Have Hydro Quebec spearhead programs for energy efficiency, the production and distribution of clean energy, and research
- Institute a National Water policy to find and protect sources of freshwater
- Investigate the risks of activities that affect water quality
- Encourage the repairing of goods and equipment rather than throwing them away
- Improve existing recycling practices in the province
- Make the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) independent from the National Assembly
- Give citizens are more participatory role in environmental policy
PLQ:
- Provide financial incentives for people buying electric or hybrid vehicles and setting up home charging stations for them
- Invest a hundred fifty-five million over three years to establish a fast public charging service for electric cars
CAQ:
- Increase energy exports of clean hydroelectric power to the rest of Canada and the US to reduce their dependence on coal, gas, and nuclear power
- Updating sorting and recycling plants to reduce waste with Recyc-Québec having a say
- Revise the Provincial Building Code to ensure the use of energy saving products and methods
- Promote the environmental sciences, green technologies, and the development of cleaner alternative energy sources
PQ:
- Encourage the switch to electric forms of transportation
- Encourage researchers and entrepreneurs via the « Baie James de la transition énergetique » project for green energy with the hope of not only improving the environment, but creating jobs
- Cooperation with different industries to promote greener business practices
Quebec Culture, Immigration, Sovereignty and Language
I saved this topic for last because it is the one that distinguishes the parties the most. It is on these issues that words like racism, xenophobia, and Islamaphobia get thrown around so they need to be addressed. The parties’ attitudes about language can be seen in part in their websites.
Of the four major parties, only PLQ and CAQ have English translations of their platforms available online. Since all parties are courting the English vote to the point of sending their leaders to debate in English and clearly have the resources to pay for a translation, not doing so only hurts them.
Here is where all the parties stand.
Couillard’s Liberals have come out in support of encouraging people in Quebec to know French. With regards to immigration, they support the status quo of a fifty to fifty-three thousand limit on new arrivals. They have been mostly silent on the issue of identity, a fact that makes them attractive to voters that do not want a PQ or CAQ government. However, this is also the party that introduced Bill 62, a religious neutrality law that would forbid the wearing of religious symbols when receiving government services – a clear attempt to pander to PQ voters. The law is currently being challenged in the courts.
The Parti Québécois are sovereigntists and hardcore secularists. Though they are pushing for the rights of LGBTQ+ people, they are also pushing aggressive state secularism, a measure that cost them the last election. Their platform champions the arts, but they have also come out in support of Robert Lepage, whose latest works have outraged Quebec’s Indigenous and black communities with their whitewashing and cultural appropriation. With regards to immigration, they claim to want to depoliticize the issue and go with the recommendations of the Auditor General.
Coalition Avenir Québec is easily classified as the anti-immigration party. They want to see immigration to Quebec reduced by twenty percent and new arrivals evaluated on whether or not they adhere to “common values”. Though they want Quebec recognition as a nation, they want that recognition within Canada. Like the PQ, they are pushing for aggressive state secularism with the banning of religious symbols worn by people in positions of authority – a measure that will limit the job prospects as well as the societal integration of people whose faiths require wearing religious symbols.
Québec Solidaire is sovereigntist, and like the other three parties, they want people in the province to learn French. They are also the only party to call for the establishment of a commission to investigate systemic racism and want police statistics on hate crimes publicly accessible. They also want to improve conditions for migrant workers, domestic helpers, and other new arrivals in Quebec. Unfortunately, they also want to push French as the official language of signage in Quebec, a measure that usually comes at the expense of religious and cultural minority business owners.
The election is on October 1, 2018. Vote wisely.
* Featured image from Elections Quebec via YouTube screengrab
