On March 11, Catherine Fournier, MNA for the Marie-Victorin district in Longueuil left the Parti Quebecois (PQ) caucus to sit as an independent. The 26-year-old, who had been elected to the National Assembly in a December 2016 by-election, took several shots at her former bosses as she left.
“By losing so often, the party has become a losing organization,” Fournier is quoted as saying in the Montreal Gazette. “It has lost much of its pertinence. Quebecers say to themselves, ‘Why vote for a party unable to achieve the project it set out to complete?’”
“I ask my PQ friends to be lucid. I am saying out loud what many think privately,” she continued.
In response, party loyalists have struck back at the defector, questioning her legitimacy to represent her constituents, since she ran on the party ticket.
This latest spat of infighting in the separatist movement comes less than six months after the PQ suffered an unprecedented thrashing in the provincial election, dropping from 28 seats to 10, tied with the upstart sovereignist outfit Quebec Solidaire (QS).
With Fournier’s departure last week, the PQ now sit in fourth place with a single-digit seat count. And it’s no wonder.
PQ leader Jean-François Lisée couldn’t even win his seat last October and was forced to resign after effectively running the party into the ground.
Their position on an independent Quebec was decidedly on the fence: Lisée said he would not pursue sovereignty in his first term if the PQ was elected. Contrasted with the softer nationalism of the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) and the separatist idealism of QS, the pequistes found themselves hemorrhaging votes on both sides of the political spectrum.
In the Pontiac riding last election, it appeared that PQ candidate Marie-Claire Nivolon could barely be bothered to run a campaign, as she refused to speak to media and didn’t show up for debates. There’s clearly not much love for Quebec nationalism in this region, but giving up before the race has started is telling.
How far the party has fallen since it surged to power over 50 years ago and dominated provincial politics in the decades leading up to the infamous 1995 referendum.
The independence movement is no longer the same as it was in the 70s and 80s, nor is it as popular. Though the PQ failed in their goal to separate from Canada, they enacted many changes in support of their nationalist cause, such as Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language.
François Legault and the CAQ picked up on the obvious and pushed a “Quebec first” brand of federalism, while QS capitalized on the youth vote with their stance on environmental and social issues.
Without an electorate, a competent leader or even a raison d’être, the future of the PQ is grim and committed sovereignist ideologues like Fournier can read the room.
So long and good riddance.
Caleb Nickerson
