ANALYSIS: CHAREST GAINS FROM OPPOSITIONSQ STRUGGLES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MONTREAL 000067

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/11/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL CA
SUBJECT: ANALYSIS: CHAREST GAINS FROM OPPOSITIONSQ STRUGGLES

Classified By: Consul General Mary Marshall, reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (SBU) Summary: Quebec Premier Jean Charest received
unprecedented support from his party last weekend, giving
cause to predict his budget will pass without inciting a
provincial election. Coupling the relative disarray of
both opposition parties with the election apathy of a
public literally buried in snow, Charest has successfully
bounced back from the grave in time to woo citizens with an
economy-centric message to stay the course. CharestQs
budget needs only one opposition party to support it and
there are no signs that the official opposition party, the
Action Democratique du Quebec (ADQ),will vote against it.
The Party Quebecois (PQ),however, enjoying a resurgence
over the ADQ, appears to be posturing itself to turn down
the budget, despite not having enough seats in Parliament
to force a new election on its own. And yet, if they do
unexpectedly succeed, a new election would give the PQ the
opportunity to win from the ADQ the much needed financial
perks afforded the official opposition party. End Summary.

CHAREST ON TOP, FOR NOW
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2. (U) With the Quebec Liberal PartyQs (PLQ) 97.23 percent
confidence vote for Premier Jean CharestQs leadership last
weekend in Quebec City and the expected introduction this
Thursday of a budget too blasi to provoke a partnering of
the PQ and ADQ against it, it appears Quebec has been
spared a provincial election - for now. More than six
months ago the PQ seemed to be gaining ground while Charest
struggled in the polls. However, PQ and ADQ
identity-centric rhetoric has failed to resound with a
public desperately seeking respite from a recent series of
economic hits to the health and infrastructure sectors and
a general malaise regarding sovereignty.


3. (SBU) PQ leader Marois may be the only one disappointed
by the news. According to a series of opinion polls,
Marois has successfully brought her party from third to
second ahead of the ADQ. One political analyst offered
that the PQ might attempt to force a provincial election by
rejecting the budget simply to take advantage of the
relative weakness of the ADQ and Mario Dumont, and
therefore, benefit structurally and financially as the
official opposition party. Further, a win over the ADQ
would offer the PQ renewed strength and momentum. The ADQ,
on the other hand, is more likely to find common ground
with Charest than risk losing to the PQ. Sources indicate
that the ADQ is unprepared for an election, lacking both
the internal party organization to pull one off and the
necessary public support to maintain its position.
According to a PLQ contact who attended last weekendQs
party conference, if a deal has been made between the PLQ
and the ADQ, it has been kept very close hold. The contact
further added that the Liberals simply Qdid not know what
the ADQ will doQ regarding the budget.

PQ RENOVATES TO REGROUP
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4. (U) PQ leader Marois announced last week a QrenovationQ
of the party, namely, to win back a referendum-wary public
by distancing the party from its long-standing mandate to
hold a sovereignty referendum as soon as possible after
forming a government, should it take power. Marois said
her proposal, one of 248 resolutions up for debate at the
PQ national council meeting later this month, allows the
party time to convince skeptics of the benefits of
sovereignty and begin what she termed a Qnational
conversationQ on the issue.


5. (C) PQ insider and Marois advisor Jean-Francois Lisee
told post that despite MaroisQ go-slow approach and current
public discourse indicating withering PQ popularity, the
issue of sovereignty is always relevant. In the context of
Kosovo, he elaborated that a unilateral declaration of
independence has always been a Plan B in the PQQs strategy,
but that it has historically sought to negotiate first. He
viewed the recent decline in secessionist fervor as the
normal ebb phase of a recurring six-year cycle which has
occurred since 1976.


6. (C) Montreal-based conservative party insider Ian
MacDonald conversely expressed his belief to post that
MaroisQ attempt to regroup during a political power lull
revealed her own struggle to retain the leadership amidst
general public apathy towards the party and secession
whilst the partyQs secessionist stalwarts applied pressure
to stay the more contentious course.

PQ FAILS TO RALLY PUBLIC WITH LANGUAGE CARD

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7. (U) The key challenge to the PQ is a lack of a uniting
issue. Pro-secessionists spent a large part of 2007 trying
to exploit the impending loss of French language and Quebec
identity and culture as a rallying cry, but were seriously
undermined in December by Statistics CanadaQs report that
although the francophone community had slipped below 80%
province-wide for the first time, French itself had
actually increased in usage, with one recently released
statistic claiming that 90% of Quebecois used French as
their primary language at work. Further, the report stated
that more Allophones were choosing French over English as
their second language, and in fact, more Anglophones than
ever were bilingual.


8. (SBU) Marois had attempted in October to exploit the
language issue to gain support by submitting a
controversial bill that said the ability to speak French
should be prerequisite to the right to vote in Quebec.
(Note: Many opinion leaders have expressed their belief to
post that her intention was more to cater to internal party
politics than to garner voters.) In fact, the issue may
have sparked the sudden resurgence in public approval of
the PQ by December, but it wasnQt enough to predict a win
over Charest.

ADQ: POLITICAL WILDCARD
--------------


9. (SBU) ADQ leader Mario Dumont has been notably quiet the
past few weeks, leaving many, including the other parties,
to speculate on whether the ADQ will support the budget.
One PLQ contact told post that conversations at the PLQ
national caucus were peppered with speculation on where the
ADQ stood. Dumont did enter the public debate last week to
challenge MaroisQ calls to renovate the PQ, accusing her of
stealing ADQ platforms for autonomy, such as calling for
the creation of a Quebec constitution. Dumont said it was
insulting for Marois to suggest there were still stones
unturned on QuebecQs secession debate after forty years of
public discourse and a referendum.


10. (SBU) This would not be the first time the PQ has
adopted ADQ issues. Last year, the ADQ made the racially
heated issue of Qreasonable accommodationQ interchangeable
with QuebecQs struggle for identity, only to have the PQ
hijack the cause by turning it into another fight over the
survival of the French language. Charest deftly took the
bite out of the issue by establishing the Bouchard-Taylor
Commission to make a formal study of reasonable
accommodation, including holding numerous town hall
meetings where the public aired their frustrations on
immigration and racial intolerance. By the end of the
year, the public was tired of discussing identity issues Q
resulting in an unexpected upsurge in support for the
economy-focused PLQ and a decided disinterest in another
election.


11. (U) Ironically, MaroisQ calls to renovate the party
came the same day the Bouchard-Taylor Commission announced
a two-month publishing delay of the report from March 31 to
May 31. Independent reports of the Bouchard-Taylor
CommissionQs town hall meetings revealed very little
contention (but much hype) and a great deal of community
concurrence on the need for inter-ethnic tolerance.

COMMENT: WHAT THIS MEANS FOR CANADA
--------------


12. (C) Quebec Premier Jean Charest and his new budget
should be the clear winner of this weekQs provincial party
showdown, unless an unlikely and well-guarded alliance has
been made between the Party Quebecois (PQ) and Action
Democratique du Quebec (ADQ). If CharestQs budget is as
non-controversial as he insists, the ADQ would have no
reason to join with the PQ and prompt an election where
they would most likely lose official opposition party
status to the PQ.


13. (C) For Prime Minister Harper, CharestQs successful
side-stepping of another election has reconfirmed his
position as the 'go-to' man for Quebec. As long as the
province suffers economically, he will hold enough public
support to keep his government intact. Ironically,
however, if Quebec can recover from a recent spate of bad
press over poor health care, slow snow removal efforts, and
other infrastructure related incompetence, the public might
renew its interest in the PQQs fight to preserve Quebecois
identity.
MARSHALL