The results of
the March 26 provincial election in Quebec
are being hailed as a victory for federalism in general and for Stephen Harper
in particular. The election ended in the first minority government in Quebec in 130 years, as
each of the three mainstream parties – the Liberals, the Parti
Quebecois (PQ) and the Action Democratiquedu Quebec (ADQ) – received just under a third of the votes.
The Liberals took 48 seats (down from 76 in the 2003 election) and the PQ
dropped to 36 seats (down from 45 in the last election), while the ADQ emerged
as the official opposition with 41 seats (up from 5 in the last election).
Quebec Solidaire (QS) and the Quebec Green Party each
received just under four percent of the total votes
cast.
In fact, the Quebec election result has little to do with the issue of
sovereignty, which has really not been on the agenda in Quebec since the defeat of the 1995
referendum. Rather, it is an indication that the political disequilibrium gripping
Canadian federal politics has now emerged in Quebec provincial politics. This, in turn,
is a reflection of the growing divisions within the capitalist ruling class and
the marginalization and isolation of the working class movement within Canadian
and Quebec
politics.
While all three
mainstream Quebec parties have embraced the policies of neo-liberalism since at
least the early 1990s, they have somewhat different approaches to implementing
those policies based on the constituencies they draw their support from and the
specific monopoly capitalist interests that they represent, The ADQ favours the “shock therapy” approach of former Ontario
premier Mike Harris, while the PQ wants to provide neo-liberalism with a “human
face” a la Tony Blair and others. For
its part, the Quebec Liberal Party, like its federal counterpart, wants to
present itself as the voice of moderation while aggressively pushing the
neo-liberal agenda.
While, on the
surface, the fact that all the seats were won by neo-liberal parties would tend
to indicate an overwhelming victory for neo-liberalism, the deep divisions
within the neo-liberal camp portends a growing crisis in those policies.
Historically,
the success of the PQ hinged on its ability to link sovereignty with social
democracy and to champion the interests of the state monopoly capitalist
sector, especially Hydro-Quebec. This was in no small part due to the
consistent failure of the CCF/NDP to take a principled stand in support of
sovereignty for the Quebec
people, which resulted in a niche that the PQ could occupy. However, the global
collapse of social democratic economic policies during the 1980s left the PQ
adrift. In order to convince the Quebec
bourgeoisie that it could be relied upon to govern Quebec in the interests of the monopoly
capitalists, during the 1990s the PQ was forced to pledge its loyalty to the
new global polices of neo-liberalism. This created serious problems for the PQ
because neo-liberalism is incompatible with sovereignty. As a result, a rift
developed between the PQ and the trade unions in Quebec, while the youth abandoned the party
in droves. The Quebec Solidaire, a coalition of
several leftist parties and social action groups, and the Green Party have both
succeeded to some extent in attracting those disaffected by the PQ’s shift to
neo-liberalism.
The Liberal
Party has always represented the interests of big Anglo-American-Canadian
capital in Quebec and its dramatic drop to
minority government status means that the section of monopoly capital that it
represents is facing difficulties in Quebec.
The ADQ, while a relatively new political party, continues a very old political
tradition in Quebec
dating back to the early nineteenth century, the tradition of “blue” or
conservative nationalism. The government of Duplessis
and the Creditiste Party were also part of that
tradition, as is a section of the Bloc Quebecois, which came out of the split
in the Conservative Party following the collapse of the Meech
Lake Accord and the rejection of the Charlottetown Accord. Rene Levesque was
able to forge an alliance between the social democratic “left” and the
conservative “right” within an overarching nationalist/sovereigntist
movement, leading to the demise of the Creditistes. A
section of the conservative nationalists also joined the Quebec Liberal Party,
particularly in the late 1990s when Jean Charest became leader of the Quebec
Liberals. However, the pressures of neo-liberalism and the growing
inter-monopoly contradictions that it engenders has shattered those former
alliances and resulted in the re-emergence of a conservative-nationalist provincial
party in the form of the ADQ. As has been the case since the time of the
British conquest of Quebec and the uprisings
of 1837, this section of the Quebec nationalist
movement seeks to profit by the open sell-out of the Quebec nation to the foreign colonialists
and imperialists. Despite Stephen Harper’s proclamation that the success of the
ADQ represents a “victory for federalism”, one of the features of this section of
the Quebec
bourgeoisie has historically been an attempt to cut out the Bay Street middlemen and deal directly
with foreign finance capital. Therefore, the rise of the ADQ represents the
growth of tensions within the Canadian federation and not their reduction.
There are some
who still cling to the illusion that the PQ is the “true” representative of the
aspirations of the Quebec
people for sovereignty and democracy, just as in the rest of the country there
are those who cling to the illusion that the NDP (or the Liberals) can play
that role. However, the fact is that none of the parties of the monopoly
bourgeoisie is capable of representing the interests of the people of Quebec. The significance
of the Quebec
elections cannot be determined by looking at the results of any of the
mainstream neo-liberal parties. The real significance of these elections is
that they have exposed the underlying weaknesses of the bourgeois political
system, the inability of any section of the monopoly capitalist class to consolidate
its grip on Quebec
society and a new phase in the ongoing crisis of representative democracy. In
other words, it presents an opportunity for the working class movement and the
political forces advocating an end to neo-liberalism and to capitalism, itself,
to break out of the marginalization and isolation imposed on them for the past
two decades. Those who advocate an alliance with the PQ are seeking to block
the working class from taking an independent path and condemn it forever to
being the tail of the “progressive” section of the monopoly capitalist class.