Time to Blow up the PQ !

Out with the old....

Now don't get excited, the headline isn't any sort of a terrorist threat, sports fans understand what the term 'blowing up' a team indicates in relation to a disastrous and bitterly disappointing season.

It means to completely destroy and rebuild the team, in an effort to start over from scratch, with the Vancouver Canucks being the latest prime example, where right after the regular season, one where the Canucks missed the playoffs, the coach and general manager were unceremoniously dumped, with the new management team given the mandate to clean house, that is, to trade players, even the stars, in order to reset the dynamic and build for the future.

"The Vancouver Canucks are a mess right now. An absolute mess. .... .....If you’re going to blow up a team, then blow up a team. Don’t just partially tear it down and call it good. Link

I actually can't think of a better metaphor to describe the Parti Quebecois, which is pretty much the political version of the Canucks, once high and mighty, now a mere shadow of things past, an embarrassment to loyal fans.

While the mainstream press concentrates over the possible replacement for Pauline Marois, the defunct PQ leader, the media fails to understand that the desperate situation in the PQ goes far beyond a leader, and just like changing the coach in Vancouver alone, it won't change the fortunes of the PQ team, which is rotten to the core.

Pauline has left the party in shambles, there's no other way to put it. She put her personal ambition to remain Premier above  the public good and would it be possible, I've no doubt she'd have sold her soul to the devil , à la Dorian Grey, to remain in power.
As leader she led the way to the most divisive and harmful government this province has ever endured.
In my lifetime I cannot remember a government so thoroughly reviled by opponents and this all on the PQ for promoting the politics of hate in a nakedly partisan attempt to win power by dividing citizens into us/them camps.

I can go back to the first René Levesque government and trace all the subsequent leaders of PQ leaders up to Lucien Bouchard and say that I never as an anglo felt so disrespected by my own government.
René Lévesque, Pierre-Marc Johnson,  Jacques Parizeau, Lucien Bouchard and even Bernard Landry all had a certain gravitas and while all promoted sovereignty, none went out of the way to purposely antagonize Anglos and Ethnics or make us feel unwelcome.
Yes, I know that many of you are thinking of Parizeau's  remarks on the night of the referendum loss, but clearly he was frustrated and disappointed and probably in the cups when he made the unfortunate utterance that has now become famous.
But Parizeau was humiliated by his own actions and did the honourable thing in resigning over the incident, I still maintain that it was never representative of the man, who was actually quite urbane, open and actually inclusive.

But what Pauline Marois and the PQ did was despicable, rolling the dice on a wedge issue that was sure to rip Quebec apart, something that was actually the underlining intention,  a strategy to make Quebecers choose sides based on language and religion.

Over and over again,  François Legault and the CAQ told the PQ during the last Parliamentary session that a compromise was available, if only the PQ removed the most contentious parts of the Charter of Values.
 In fact both Parizeau and Landry publicly implored Marois to back down on the Charter, all to no avail. They tried to convince Marois that to slam minorities so hard was a recipe for disaster, a course that in the end proved to be exactly that. But the PQ team believed that forcing francophones to choose sides would ultimately bring electoral success, which was all that mattered at the time and governing for themselves and not the people became the PQ's raison d'etre.

I shall never forget the supremely arrogant Bernard Drainville telling reporters that a compromise was indeed available, but if only the opposition compromised its position and embraced the Charter as presented. What unmitigated chutzpah.
After the election debacle Drainville completely reversed himself, telling reporters that a compromise was indeed in the works, but that the election got in the way.
It is that type of lie that sent the fortunes of the PQ plummeting after the election, when the truth came out about the other big PQ lie, that of the non-existent legal opinions over the Charter.
 
And so if the PQ thought the election rout was its low point, it was a rude awakening for the party to find that just a few short weeks after the election, it has sunk in popularity, losing about 25% of its election support, down below the 20% level, a historical low if I am not mistaken.

Now electors are not swift, but somehow get to the truth in the long run, bringing to mind the old Abraham Lincoln adage that tells us that;

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin110340.html#MF7r6f3mySUk3rMB.99

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin110340.html#MF7r6f3mySUk3rMB.99

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin110340.html#MF7r6f3mySUk3rMB.99

What conclusions did Quebec voters come to before the election?

Firstly, on the question of integrity, the public rightly concluded that the PQ had nothing to teach the Liberals over honesty and that the only reason the Liberals had a worse record was because they were in power much longer.
Pauline's hubby, the oily Claude Blanchet may have been the most unpopular person in the election and although not running for office and actually hiding from public view, his disreputable shadow cast a heavy pall over the PQ campaign.
While the integrity issue should have been a slam/dunk for the PQ, the public rightly concluded that when it came to honesty, all Quebec politicians and political parties are as guilty as the next.
And so the issue, while of paramount importance, was deemed to be a wash, something the PQ never counted on..

As for the Charter, the PQ outright miscalculated its impact.
While many non-traditional PQ voters embraced its precepts, it wasn't enough to move them to vote for the PQ with other issues far more important.

But the real issue that haunts the PQ election campaign is sovereignty, for which the PQ has Pierre-Karl Pelédeau to thank.
Quebecers voters took one sniff at his separatistagenda and ran for the hills, there's no other way to put it politely. This is the shocking lesson of the election.

For the PQ it was a shock as profound as that of a child who finds out there really isn't any Santa Claus. The rejection of the PQ's holiest of tenets, turning the sovereigntist world upside down.
 
With the rejection of sovereignty, the rejection of the politics of division, coupled with the revelation of duplicitous manipulation and lying, as well as the dubious ethics of Marois and her husband, it is no wonder that the PQ now is engulfed by the proverbial Perfect Storm.

Changing the leader won't alter the fact that the PQ is in the voter doghouse. Only time can possibly heal the rift between the party and the voters and even that remains to be seen.
Like Moses who sinned while wandering the desert and was refused entrance to the promised land, so too will the PQ leadership be sacrificed, it is the only thing that can save the party, if it is at all savable.
Shortly after the election, Sylvain Tanguay was removed as PQ party boss and Marois supporters, both Harold Lebel and Nicole Léger were removed from the PQ executive in a caucus vote, signalling that the old guard was no longer trusted. 
It seems that those on the bottom are convinced that they've got to remove those on top.

So don't look to Drainville, Lisée or PKP to win the leadership, an outsider is needed to re-generate the party, somebody who had nothing to do with the planning and staging of the last election.

For those who think that PKP may be the answer it doesn't look good. The young turks in the party always resented the interloper and held their nose in the interest of winning.
But PKP is a liability, who brings nothing to the table except a reputation as a union buster and rich kid, two characterisitcs that hardly are enduring to Quebecers.

His less than average magnetism and poor speaking skills don't auger well for a potential leader. Also the fact that he has no constituency within the party make him a prime political target, and the baby wildebeest that is lagging dangerously behind the herd, he is ripe for the picking by th more experienced and deadly PQ carnivores. Even with that, I'm not sure he has what it takes to battle in the dirty, dirty cesspool of politics, where backstabbing and double-crossing are par for the course and this within one's own party! The political pitch on which PKP will battle the Liberals is slanted decided in the other guys favour and all of PKP's money can't help.

And does PKP really have what it takes to carry on over four long years on the cold hard benches of opposition, where one must passively watch the guys in power on the other side of the house, doing what you are denied.
Somehow I don't see it, PKP will become bored, his aristocratic style under supreme duress. I can't see him doing the rubber chicken circuit rubbing shoulders with the ho-polloi after a lifetime of privilege, where his word was regally obeyed, working in a committee, is just not his style.

At any rate, I see him as a Rodney Dangerfield character, the one in the movie 'Back to School' where a wealthy, but uneducated hard-nosed businessman returns to college and imposes his lifestyle on all around with hilarious results.
He cannot resist using his money and the hilarous moral is that he is able to change the school, instead of the school changing him. Somehow I don't see PKP having that type of impact.
 
So for PKP, it is only a matter of time before he gives up , he is either too smart, too dumb, or just to arrogant for the job.
As for Drainville and Lisée they are just plane burned, their reputation in tatters, deemed responsible for the election drubbing.
The new leader will come from deep within the caucus, likely somebody untainted by the past, with a decent shot at putting the dirty linen behind, somewhat like Couillard did.

But it remains to be seen if that even blowing up the PQ will even work, because it all comes down to sovereignty and for the PQ it is a Catch-22 situation, where giving up sovereignty is unthinkable and keeping it around, toxic for its health.