François Legault is at the very heart of the current tearing of his party. His political experience somehow prevents him from believing that Quebec will obtain the necessary full powers in immigration to ensure a future for the French language and culture.
In summary, Quebec, which receives more immigrants than France and the United States, cannot harmoniously integrate more non-French-speaking immigrants.
Trudeau’s Canada dreams of a million newcomers a year. And he would like the Canadian population to reach 100 million before the end of the century.
The painful PQ
The PQ has become a shadow of itself. By voting NO in the 1995 referendum, Quebecers should have known that they were taking the long-term risk of stripping Quebec of its ability to achieve sovereignty that René Lévesque, the ultra-moderate, could not imagine without association with Canada. However, this accommodation made the English-Canadian and French-Canadian federalist elite laugh in their beards.
Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Prime Minister in 1980, restrained his joy on the night of the defeat. In memory of his French-Canadian paternal family, no doubt. Because even the French-speaking federalists took the hit. But he alone could assess the extent of this victory against the nationalism he abhorred after having flirted for some time in his youth with the writings of Canon Groulx among others.
In 1995, the YES’s second defeat was a crushing blow for 60% of French speakers, who had voted for a dream that had become, with a few thousand votes, a nightmare.
François Legault, disappointed and wounded in his convictions like so many sovereignists, took up the torch by creating the CAQ in 2011, a hybrid party to tell the truth, a party made up of pragmatic nationalists, devoid of the romanticism and lyricism of the Parti Québécois, led over the years by flamboyant personalities.
François Legault won his bet. His election confirmed him in his determination to defend Quebec interests through the National Assembly within the limits defined by the Canadian Constitution.
New referendum?
We can lend him all the intentions, but without proof. Only one thing seems obvious. François Legault did not make his political leap with the idea of triggering a new referendum in mind. The man is a realist who adapts to constraints. Even if his passion for Quebec is vibrant, his temperament, his training and his psychological and social proximity, one would say, with Quebecers are not likely to lead him into high-risk paths.
A part of the Quebec nationalist left manhandles him and the nationalist right which finds itself in the Conservative Party of Éric Duhaime does not give him much of the gifts. The upcoming election period will be tough despite the huge support indicated by the polls.
What will François Legault do in the face of the scathing refusals of Justin Trudeau, more arrogant than ever, but also more brutal with the CAQ leader than with all the leaders of the ethnic, religious, racialized, sexual and indigenous communities of Canada today? Without forgetting the premiers of all the Canadian provinces.
