2022 Provincial Election in Quebec

[500channelsurfer]

There is going to be a 2022 provincial election in Quebec.

Some of you will not care but the some of us that do care do not need that comment.

The political parties running are all a bit of a disappointment. The CAQ is going to run on its reputation of pulling through the pandemic even though it did not do much better than most other jurisdictions and has recently been throwing pre-election goodies around such as direct subsidies to drivers' license fees and electric bills. The Quebec Liberals are now headed by an ex-CAQ high-up who has not been very inspiring and flip-flopping for votes. Québec Solidaire and the Parti Québecois might be competing against each other for the most sovereigntist votes but that does not matter very much anymore because even that combined vote would not result in a large breakthrough. The Conservative Party of Quebec on the other hand seems to have a chance at garnering enough support from disenfranchised and far-right voters to make an impact with a few seats up from non-existence.

In a way this feels like a return to the Maurice Duplessis era.

[August1991]

On 8/16/2022 at 7:44 PM, 500channelsurfer said:

,,,,

In a way this feels like a return to the Maurice Duplessis era.

WTF?

Duplessis was a Roman Catholic premier elected in... (500channelsurfer, when exactly were you born? Are you one of those lost reserve kids?)

====

Make no mistake: the CAQ will win a majority.

But everyone in the twitter/plateau world wonders/fears what the PCQ will do.

PCQ? Next post.

The election is Monday 3 October.

Edited August 26, 2022 by August1991

[500channelsurfer]

If we could put religion aside for a moment, Legault and Duplessis both win based more on rural ridings, Quebec nationalism, and openly handing out goodies for votes (inflation subsidies, Quebec City 3rd bridge or tunnel). Of course the CAQ will win handily. The Quebec Liberals are grasping at straws that are blowing in the win. 

FYI I am not old, I just read about history a lot.

The only questions are how many progressive urban ridings will the QS take and will the Qc Cons take enough if any rural ridings to scare the CAQ.

[August1991]

Quebec Solidaire has this as a slogan:

"Un pays pour tout le monde".

=====

Irony is truly the measure of so-called modern western civilsation.

[August1991]

On 8/28/2022 at 9:19 PM, 500channelsurfer said:

If we could put religion aside for a moment, Legault and Duplessis both win based more on rural ridings, Quebec nationalism, and openly handing out goodies for votes (inflation subsidies, Quebec City 3rd bridge or tunnel).

...

As they say, correlation is not causation.

Good post, 500.

[August1991]

Let me explain:

Sarcasm is when someone says something false and knows it's false - and everyone else knows too it's false: You spill milk and your teenager says, "Smart move!" (Teenagers love sarcasm - I'm no longer a child.)

Irony is when someone says something false but doesn't know it - yet everyone else does. Irony requires an audience. "Good thing I didn't leave the milk on the table."

Irony - like sarcasm - is a result of civilisation.

When people like George Bush and Robert Redford say that they care about the world, they are being ironic.

Donald Trump is not ironic. Nor is Putin. Trump and Putin are often sarcastic, but never ironic. Obama OTOH was often ironic.

====

Lenin, Stalin...

I have often thought that the one thing the Soviets taught the thick-headed Slavs is irony.

 

Edited September 1, 2022 by August1991

[August1991]

In my experience, a defining feature of humanity is sarcasm - you say something but you mean the opposite.

Sarcasm is the basis of modern Ashkenazi Jewish humour.

Jews? Sarcasm? What about irony? Surely we owe the Greeks of some 2500 years this idea.

Irony - wtf?

Irony requires self-awareness. A theatre. An audience.

IMHO, the most striking places in the world are ancient Greek theatres.

=====

John Cleese

 

Edited September 1, 2022 by August1991

[August1991]

Sorry for my rant. I was not born in Montreal. It is my city of adoption - like the DPJ.

======

The Quebec legislature has 125 seats. Make no mistake, the CAQ will win more than 63 of those seats and form a majority.

(Quebec has a FPTP for each riding - circonscription.)

There are three parties in electable seats: Québec solidaire, Parti Libéral, CAQ - no one really cares about which seat goes where. (In my riding, I'm curious whether it goes CAQ. My daughter's may go QS.)

But everyone is looking at what the percentage the Parti conservateur does overall. Trust me.

Edited September 4, 2022 by August1991

[August1991]

In Quebec, the Green Party has this as a slogan:

Le Parti vraiment vert.

====

It has always struck me that Leftists often want to have a single system where experts decide a good way - yet Leftists themselves often argue, splinter and have different parties.

Edited September 4, 2022 by August1991

[Michael Hardner]

10 hours ago, August1991 said:

 

It has always struck me that Leftists often want to have a single system where experts decide a good way - yet Leftists themselves often argue, splinter and have different parties.

I think that it's because leftists think Economics is a hard science like physics.  

They think they can DESIGN a market system.  They think that the surplus value of labour is a number they can calculate and pay to each worker. And they believed that the Soviet system was redeemable.

They abhor the chaos that is part of every vital and living system.

They are critics and analysts.  They're not interested in the mundane details of economics and management.  That's the stuff of petit bourgeoisie.

[August1991]

On 9/4/2022 at 7:33 AM, Michael Hardner said:

...

They abhor the chaos that is part of every vital and living system.

.....

Obama took Massachusetts RomneyCare and wanted to make it a federal system.

Why not leave it for each State?

Trudeau Jnr wants to make Quebec's daycare system a federal system.

Biden wants to make Canada's pharmaceutical purchases a US system.

====

I reckon that Leftists want to control.

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, August1991 said:

Obama took Massachusetts RomneyCare and wanted to make it a federal system.

Why not leave it for each State?

Trudeau Jnr wants to make Quebec's daycare system a federal system.

Biden wants to make Canada's pharmaceutical purchases a US system.

====

1. I reckon that Leftists want to control.

1. Well, you're not wrong but I think that could differentiate between how the vanilla politician, the Rupert Murdoch, the Charles Foster Kane, the Nixon etc. want to control.

That's what I started to say: they abhor the natural human chaos and want to regulate things like selfishness out of existence.

[August1991]

On 9/8/2022 at 6:47 AM, Michael Hardner said:

1. Well, you're not wrong but I think that could differentiate between how the vanilla politician, the Rupert Murdoch, the Charles Foster Kane, the Nixon etc. want to control.

That's what I started to say: they abhor the natural human chaos and want to regulate things like selfishness out of existence.

Tip O'Neill famously said: All politics is local.

Clinton famously said: It's the economy, stupid.

=======

To return to the Quebec election:

-in my riding, the debate seems to be between money for a bridge/tunnel or money for schools.

 

[August1991]

On 9/4/2022 at 7:33 AM, Michael Hardner said:

I think that it's because leftists think Economics is a hard science like physics.

....

I disagree.

Leftists want control.

(What is "power"? To me, power is a synonym for control.) 

====

Returning to the Quebec election, I live in a riding with a three way race: QS, CAQ, PLQ.

Whatta country!

Edited September 13, 2022 by August1991

[August1991]

I looked at Charest's numbers across Quebec to see if they had any ability to predict provincial results.

None.

Poilieuvre has support across Quebec. Charest "won" in predictable places - urban.

=====

IMHO, the federal Conservative leadership results provide no way to predict the provincial result.

The CAQ will win a majority.

The QS may be the opposition - but it's an urban Montreal party.

Everyone is looking at Duhaime.

==============

Let me add this.

Poileuvre's numbers are striking in Quebec. He won everywhere. Charest did well in a few places but PP basically won. True, some of the ridings (such as mine) only had a few hundred voters but Poilieuvre still did well.

BTW, I was inundated by emails. I voted first for Charest, second for Poiieuvre - no other choice.

Edited September 13, 2022 by August1991

[Michael Hardner]

54 minutes ago, August1991 said:

 

1. Leftists want control.

(What is "power"? To me, power is a synonym for control.) 

====

2. Returning to the Quebec election, I live in a riding with a three way race: QS, CAQ, PLQ.

Whatta country!

1. Both sides want it.  Conservative Texas billionaires fund political groups that push for changes in the social contract and education.  They want children to be taught their ideology.  This is control.

2. Don't you think it's odd that the rest of Canada is oblivious to these changes in Quebec?

[August1991]

I met a few of these people: Jean Chretien, Brian Mulroney, Michael Wilson, Joe Clark, David Dodge.

I never met Jean Charest. I certainly never met Pierre Poileuvre.

======

JFK referred to the passing of a torch.

=========

Sorry for misspelling his name: Poilievre. As I say, I never met him in person. I met Lucien Bouchard in a coffee shop on the 40 - he was driving a Saab.

No joke, I don't know why, Poilievre reminds me of Bouchard. 

Edited September 13, 2022 by August1991

[Jack9000]

looking like the CAQ to win another big majority so far by the polls.. not a party I would ever vote for but tbh  0 partys in quebec politics would interest me..

[500channelsurfer]

I simply have trouble believing the polls that the CAQ has such high urban support. It could be that the majority of Quebekers are still living in April 2020. But it also could be that urban CAQ voting intentions are exaggerated by the CAQ's popularity in the regions in the polling. The CAQ will still probably win, but the Liberals and QS will do better than expected.

The continuing series of debates might also continue to raise PQ support, which would vote-split in a way to also encourage my previous hypothesis.

[Jack9000]

looks like the  conservative quebec party has moved into a solid 2nd place behind the caq coming off the  tv debates.. 

[500channelsurfer]

I am about to go watch some of these debates. If the Quebec Conservatives are able to pull a substantial number of votes, those votes will most likely come from CAQ and PQ, so that CAQ majority that is "guaranteed" in the polls might be thinner than expected. Any way this goes, the opposition parties will be very opposed in terms of ideology, region and supported socioeconomics.

Maybe Quebec election 2026 is now making out to be very exciting.

Edited September 23, 2022 by 500channelsurfer

[Benz]

CAQ won a strong majority of seats and 41% of the votes. Clear win, no doubts about that. Better than we all expected since they did the worst campaign of them all. The results were like the polls said. Well, like Léger Léger did say. Qc125 was off.

Although QLP finished second in seats, they go a terrible 14%. All the anglos voted Liberals, almost non of the francos voted Liberals. The division between english and french is greater than it ever was so far. I do not know why Anglade bothered to speak french after her defeat, only anglos voted for her.

QS and PQ are fighting each others and the result is, only the hard core of both sides are still voting for both. All the prospects are still voting CAQ. QS is no longer as independentist as it use to be. They are evasives on the matter.

The QCP did an impressive 13% of the votes but, got no seats. However, most of the new supporters for Duhaime are coming from those who were mad at the sanitary measures. Anti-mask, trucks convoy, conspirations, etc... he could gather those people on his side. But most of them are no conservatives. They don't even know what conservatives are. I think the QCP will stay alive for one or 2 other elections but, that's about it. It will eventually melte at the same speed it melted for the federal NDP in Québec after Layton. Unless Duhaime is more talented than I expect and he manages to turn them into real supporters of the Conservative party as is.

Some interesting stats...

Votes:

CAQ = 41%

PQ+QS+QCP = 43%

QLP = 14%

 

Seats:

CAQ = 90

PQ+QS+QCP = 14

QLP = 21

 

Bottom line, QLP and CAQ get more seats than they deserve. The 3 others get almost the support of half the population but, they got only 11% of the seats. I am not a fan of the proportional, but a hybride would avoid such disparities.

 

[Jack9000]

caq deserved the most seats but 41% of the vote and 72% of the seats is a yikes.. we really need a new system in canada  that is not demacracy in my opinion when its that wide a difference in  vote % and seat  %.. happy to see the QS who i would support if i was in quebec finished with 11 seats though

Edited October 4, 2022 by Jack9000

[500channelsurfer]

I wonder if anyone finds intriguing that the one and only media-covered story of elections law disobedience was a QS candidate caught specifically on-camera removing a PQ pamphlet, where the result was QS withdrawal from the riding race entirely, and the PQ, the only other major pro-independence party, leader winning, in an unlikely-to-win riding?

Edited October 4, 2022 by 500channelsurfer

[500channelsurfer]

Very good analyses, Benz and Jack9000. ?

This problem of first-past-the-post is nothing new, and time and time again the issue comes back every provincial and federal election, and no governing party does anything about it. Except that one time in B.C. where a referendum was held to "fix" this problem, and the proposal was defeated. A similar proposal was also defeated in Australia's first-past-the-post system.

I watched the debate closest to the election as well as the Tout le monde en parle in which all leaders were present, and in reflection, despite the seat results admittedly being questionably undemocratic, the quality of the leaders and their debating was top notch. All the leaders, Legault, Anglade, Duhaime, Plamondon, Nadeau-Dubois, displayed respect towards each other at a level that has not been seen in any recent Canadian or US election. As well, the polls were overall accurate, even the less accurate ones. At least Québec's democracy has this going for it.

This should make for an exciting 2026 Québec election.

Edited October 4, 2022 by 500channelsurfer