Pierre-Karl Peladeau

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A few months after claiming that the PQ “will survive the storm,” Bernard Drainville is jumping ship. The Parti Québécois representative in Marie-Victorin officially confirmed he was resigning from all political functions on Tuesday. As if the news of his departure weren’t bewildering enough, he also announced that he would replace Nathalie Normandeau as a co-host on Éric Duhaime’s salacious lunch hour program on FM 93.

Tuesday morning, Drainville claimed that his decision had been well thought through since the party’s last chief, Pierre-Karl Péladeau, resigned in May. “I won’t deny that Pierre-Karl’s departure was a hard blow,” he said, “it cut my legs out from underneath me.”

Drainville has been Marie-Victorin’s MNA since 2007. He also handled the Ministry of Democratic Institutions under Pauline Marois and held the role of parliamentary leader. He was a candidate to be Marois’ successor in 2014, but abandoned the race in favour of supporting Pierre-Karl Péladeau’s campaign. Péladeau’s resignation after barely a few months at the head of the PQ left Drainville at a dead end.

Bernard Drainville is most remembered for pushing the controversial Charte des valeurs, but during his brief time as a minister, he also fathered several democratic reforms. Most notably, he allowed students to vote on campus and restricted the funding of political parties to $100 per person.

Shock in the PQ

While the party is in the middle of another leadership race, Bernard Drainville quit halfway through the mandate he was elected for. There is certain irony there, considering how vehemently he reprimanded those who did the same throughout the years. In his own words, “a representative who chooses to resign before his mandate is fulfilled does not respect the moral contract he signed with his electors.”

Agnès Maltais, another Parti Québecois MNA, expressed similar sentiment to Énergie Québec 98,3 on Monday: “he is leaving mid-term. I’ve never liked that.” Even if Maltais is apparently the only member to express anything more than deep respect and regret at Drainville’s decision, she certainly isn’t the only one to feel that way. The partial elections in Marie-Victorin will cost $500 000$ in public funds.

To his credit, Drainville won’t receive any severance bonus. This is thanks to a law banning bonuses for MNAs who resign mid-term which Drainville championed and the assembly finally passed last year.

The loss of one of its most prominent figures is bleak news for a party that is struggling to convince the population that it isn’t agonizingly decomposing. It has indeed been a rough couple of years for the PQ, starting with a brutal electoral defeat after only six months in office. Pauline Marois, Pierre-Karl Péladeau and Stéphane Bédard have all resigned since then.

Although there is no denying Drainville’s influential role in the past, his future in the party didn’t hold much promise. He didn’t enter the current leadership race (reportedly for family reasons) and none of the candidates aligned naturally with his views like Péladeau did.

Drainville on FM 93

Maybe the end of Drainville’s political career shouldn’t have been so surprising, but his next step was rightly met with more than a few raised eyebrows.

A politician recycling himself as a commentator or host is hardly a shock. What is bewildering is that Drainville chose to do so on Quebec City’s infamous “Radio-poubelles” in the company of an icon of aggressive right rhetoric.

Duhaime’s lunch hour program, like most of FM 93 shows, is notorious for its routine attacks on immigrants, unemployed citizens, students, feminists and just about every minority. During the last few months for example, Duhaime’s favourite topics included how feminism oppressed men, how state-funded kindergartens were a communist plot and why Marine Le Pen is an outstanding politician.

What makes the whole thing even more ridiculous is that Bernard Drainville will not be the first politician to take on the job. In fact, liberal ex-minister Nathalie Normandeau co-hosted Duhaime, le midi right up until she was arrested by the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC) in March. She is currently facing charges for fraud, corruption and breach of trust for her actions as a minister under Jean Charest.

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For decades, the political scene in Quebec has been in a quagmire. The national question has dominated the discourse, replacing the left-right axis found almost everywhere else with a sovereigntist/federalist one.

Two parties have benefited both greatly and equally from this setup – The Parti-Quebecois (PQ) and the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) have been in power since the 1960s.

At first, many progressives felt they had no choice but to park their vote with the PQ, knowing that a better and more just world would always take a backseat to sovereignty, language and national identity. Federalist progressives, on the other hand, could either vote PQ and hope there wasn’t a referendum or hold their nose, push their ideals to the side, and vote Liberal.

Recently, other options have emerged, most notably Quebec Solidaire (QS) and a re-born provincial Green Party. Unfortunately, the two-party system seems too powerful to break. If there was ever a time for someone to come along and prove, once and for all, that the PLQ and PQ were just two sides of the same coin, neither being a place for progressives to park their vote, now would be that time.

Looks like the savior of Quebec politics may have just arrived. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Pierre-Karl Péladeau, or PKP as his friends, enemies and pretty much everyone else knows him.

A Short Honeymoon

Since becoming PQ leader, at least officially (as if it was really a contest), PKP has enjoyed some positive numbers. Support for the PQ is up and so is support for sovereignty.

Not surprising, really. A party that was down in the dumps after losing badly now has a leader with name recognition beyond the political sphere. He’s an avowed sovereigntist, too.

pkp je veut un pays

Who can forget him almost shouting “Je veux un pays!” It is, after all, the moment that pretty much derailed the Marois campaign.

He is a businessman, known for getting what he wants. He wanted a national right-wing cable news network, he got one. He wanted to raise our cable and internet rates, he did that, too.

You can see how some have faith that this businessman who wants to make Quebec a country can achieve that goal, too. They can ignore the fact that their new savior of Quebec is famous for creating a network accused of Quebec bashing on many occasions as long as he gets the job done.

The honeymoon, however, may be short-lived, and cracks in his armour may begin to show sooner rather than later.

Not a Great Business Man

One of the issues the PQ has had to deal with constantly over the decades is that their nationalist ideals were out of touch with economic reality. And an independent Quebec would spell financial catastrophe. In the early days, the party took an approach that opposed the capitalist system, so unconventional economic ideas were possible. Things have changed.

The PQ now wants to show that separating from Canada is possible and good for business. Who better to lead this initiative than a businessman with a proven track record, right?

pkp sun news canadian flags

Well, if you look at PKP’s track record as a businessman, it’s really not that great. Sure, Quebecor is a powerhouse, but it’s the house Pierre Péladeau, PKP’s father built. Since PKP took over, Quebecor has underperformed most major media companies in Canada and failed at international expansion with Quebecor World. Not to mention the fact that Sun News is no more, after just under four years in operation.

Is this what the PQ is basing their pro-business future on? At this rate, he’ll get his country, but it will only last three years and a bit.

Not a Union Man

The PQ has always relied on union support to win power. Not only does their new leader lack any pro-union cred, his name is as reviled in union circles as the Trudeau name is hated in sovereigntist ones.

No matter how corrupt Quebec politics may be, selling the man who locked out workers for over a year to union membership is just a non-starter. This is when the recognition factor starts to work against Péladeau.

The unions really don’t have many other options. The Liberals, the party of austerity and pension cuts are out of the question. Will they actually bite the bullet and back QS, a party with only three seats? Time will tell.

Without union support, the PQ will be desperate to pull any type of progressive allies they can. PKP is also the man who directed his media outlets to discredit the student protests in 2012. So a Marois-style appeal to more radical elements of Quebec society is out of the question.

One Issue Party

René Lévesque was first elected on two promises: to make Quebec a better place to live through progressive social policies and to hold a referendum. He delivered on both.

rene levesque

He wanted to show just what kind of a country Quebec could be before giving people the chance to make it his dream a reality. Lévesque must now be rolling over a homeless man in his grave.

PKP wants a country, too, but it’s the same sort of country Quebecers already have through Harper. His nationalism is purely ethnic and linguistic with no hint at being progressive on any other fronts.

A Smaller Base

The PQ has always had two main bases of support: progressive sovereigntists and conservative nationalists. Marois clearly favoured the latter and risked alienating the former, but PKP has no chance with the former to begin with. The only support he will get from progressives will come from those who want a country at all costs.

It is a much smaller base to pull from. If the union support is out, he’ll just have to wrap himself in the Quebec flag and pray for a miracle. The best he can hope for is opposition or maybe a minority government if the Liberals really screw up bad.

But where will all that formerly potential PQ support go? It won’t be to the Liberals for sure. Progressives may just not turn up to vote, or possibly it will galvanize behind another party, one that puts actual societal change at the forefront, leaving the national question on the backburner.

If that happens, and the discourse in Quebec politics shifts to a new axis, people will have one man to thank: Pierre-Karl Péladeau.