Quebec Election

Looking a bit more at the Quebec election

A bit on some of the polling and once again competing messages from the polls.  

With Forum there has been minimal changes in popular support, in fact when one accounts for rounding to the nearest whole number, there may have been no change at all.

When one looks at CROP it all looks there has been a significant rise for CAQ and the PQ has a decent lead over over the Liberals now.  
Forum
          Lib PQ CAQ QS ON Vert Oth
August 13  31 35  25  6  0  2   0
August 7   32 34  24  6  0  3   0
Change     -1 +1  +1  0  0 -1   0

CROP
          Lib PQ CAQ QS ON Vert Oth
August 13  27 34  25  7  2   3   0
August 8   29 32  21  8  2   3   0
Change     -2 +2  +4 -1  0   0   0

Meanwhile, issues in the election, I honestly do not think anyone of the three major parties has an actual agenda for what they would do as government.  

Francois Legault has come out with some "interesting" things to say such as his comments about Quebec students should look to Asians and work harder.   It once again highlights the subtle racism within franco-phone Quebec.  The thought process is that Asians can not be Quebecois.

He has also said there need to be more language police in Quebec.  I can not fathom the thinking behind this when the government of Quebec is not well of financially.  It is part of the rather big spending increases from CAQ announced so far.  CAQ is clearly not a conservative small government party or federalist party.

All I can say about the PQ is why?  The party does not seem to be interested in giving any sort of timeline for progression towards independence which is in part why CAQ and ON have come into existence.  Though CAQ is clearer on a timeline, nothing for ten years.

Then there is this secular charter for civil servants Pauline Marois is suggesting.  Once again that underlying franco-phone racism comes to for as it is clearly aimed at observant Sihks, Hindus, Muslims and Jews.  These are people that can never be Quebecois and the PQ is targeting them to drive them out of the Quebec to elsewhere.  It is interesting that crucifixes around necks would be OK.

This quote from a Globe and Mail article highlights it all:


The PQ’s Pauline Marois embraced the issue this week by reviving a pledge to create a Charter of Quebec Secularism that would ban civil servants from wearing obvious religious signs such as turbans or hijabs.

But then a star PQ candidate, Djemila Benhabib, said that for consistency, she would also like a PQ government to remove the crucifix that hangs in the National Assembly. She added later that she supports her party’s position that the religious icon should remain as a symbol of Quebec’s cultural heritage.

The mayor of Saguenay, Jean Tremblay, waded in during a radio interview on Wednesday. “What’s outraging me this morning is to see us, the soft French Canadians, being dictated to about how to behave, how to respect our culture, by a person who’s come here from Algeria, and we can’t even pronounce her name,” Mr. Tremblay said.

Even after host Paul Arcand interjected that his comments smacked of racism and xenophobia – and helpfully told him how to pronounce Benhabib – Mr. Tremblay pressed on. “They’re making our culture and religion disappear everywhere. You don’t realize that,” he said.

The PQ is a nationalist and somewhat racist party that is left of centre at the same time.   How can someone left of centre support a party that is racist by nature?

Meanwhile Jean Charest and the Quebec Liberals seem to be mired in the world of Quebec corruption and is only in the race because of a couple of factors.  About 25% of the population is not franco-phone and only sees the Liberals as their only option.  Federalists in Quebec have no other choice for whom to vote for.

If I were in Quebec I have no idea who I would be voting for as none of the choices are appealing.