BY MICHEL DUGRÉ
MONTREAL - The November 30 provincial election brought very
little change in the Quebec National Assembly, to the dismay of
Canada's rulers. They had waged a major campaign to defeat the
government of the Parti Quebecois (PQ), a bourgeois party that
favors sovereignty for Quebec.
Prime Minister Lucien Bouchard's Parti Quebecois won 75 seats, two fewer than in 1994, while the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) of Jean Charest got 48, an increase of one. The Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ) of Mario Dumont won one seat.
In the actual number of ballots cast, the Liberals got a thin majority of 44 percent of the vote against 43 percent for the PQ. The difference in the number of seats stems from the highly concentrated votes for the Liberals in non-francophone areas. French speakers are spread throughout the electoral districts of the province, while non rancophones are concentrated in a relatively small number of districts.
The election results mark the failure of a campaign launched by Ottawa early in 1998 to build what they thought would be a winning combination to defeat the PQ and prevent another referendum on Quebec's future. In 1995, a referendum on Quebec sovereignty initiated by the PQ almost won, striking a political blow to Canada's ruling rich. As part of his campaign, Bouchard had promised to organize another such referendum in the future.
The elections showed that the fight for Quebec independence is far from being squashed. It remains an unsettled question that bothers the bourgeoisie across Canada. "I'll try to work with Bouchard," said Canadian premiere Jean Chretien, hours after the PQ's victory was announced. "But when they talk about another... referendum on separation, then they should know that we shall defend and protect our country... with the last of our energy."
The rulers' campaign to defeat the Parti Quebecois was centered around Charest, who resigned as head of the Conservative Party in Ottawa to become the leader of the PLQ last spring. Charest pledged not to hold a new referendum, claiming that this would bring political and economic instability.
But the Liberals did not succeed in breaking the majority support for the PQ among Quebecois, the French-speaking oppressed nationality in Quebec who make up about 80 percent of the province's population. At the same time, the PQ did not win by a wide margin as many bourgeois opinion polls had predicted the last week before the vote.
The day after the election, Bouchard announced that his government would not organize a new referendum for the time being, as the result of the vote indicates it would not be a winning one at the moment.
The gains made by the ADQ, which almost doubled its share of the vote, getting nearly 12 percent, is the most significant change since the 1994 elections. The ADQ was established in the early 1990s from a split in the PLQ. It campaigned on a program to the right of those of the other parties, centered on tax reductions and cuts in social services.
The ADQ presented itself as the alternative to the two other parties, as offering at least a different style from the established politicians, standing above their old conflicts that it described as responsible for mismanaging the economy and public budget. Its campaign remained in the framework of mainstream bourgeois politics.
The ADQ's success is rooted in the dissatisfaction among a significant layer of Quebecois, including many workers, with the PQ's massive cuts in social services and the PLQ open support for the federalist status quo.
The election campaign was marked by a series of labor actions against belt-tightening demands by the employers. Some 80,000 teachers organized a one-day job action despite threats of fines and imprisonment by the Quebec government and the opposition of the PQ and the Liberals. Paperworkers in Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland won a victory against Abitibi- Consolidated (see article on page 10). And some 500 poultry workers began a strike against Olymel-Flamingo near Montreal.
Michel Dugré is a member of UNITE and was a candidate of the Communist League in these elections.