Quebec election: people give no clear mandate to any party

The election rally of Quebec Solidaire

J. Boyden

A shorter version of the article will be published in the upcoming issue of People`s Voice newspaper

Quebec voters headed to the polls on Sept. 4th for a historic election, coming after a series of major storms of popular discontent had swept the province --  outrage over corruption scandals and opposition against the Liberal government’s austerity budgets, which exploded during last spring’s student strike. But the final results saw no party come out with a clear mandate, as the Liberals, including party leader Jean Charest, went down to defeat while voters granted a slim minority government to the Parti Québécois (PQ) led by Pauline Marois.

The PQ has already announced that its first act will be to cancel the tuition fee hike and abolish repressive law 78, which effectively criminalized the student strikers.  Positively, their party platform also called to abolish tuition increases until 2018, eliminate the health tax, reconsider additional fees for Hydro Quebec usage, increase taxes and fees on natural resource exploitation, expand daycare spaces, and enact Employment Insurance reforms by repatriating EI to Quebec.

Marois’ PQ, however, is nine seats short of a majority to implement this agenda, sitting at 54 Members of the National Assembly (MNAs).  The outgoing Liberals held on to 50 seats in the 125-member National Assembly while François Legault’s new ultra-right and populist Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) expanded from 9 to 19 seats. The progressive Quebec Solidaire (QS) party also increased its seat count to two MNAs and is expected to again have a bigger presence in the National Assembly beyond its small numbers.

Voter turnout

Speaking to People’s Voice about the analysis of the Quebec vote break-down which will be published in the next issue of the Communist Party of Quebec’s newspaper Clarté, editor Robert Luxley drew attention to voter participation and the strong mobilization by right-wing forces during the election.

At almost 75 per cent, turn-out in the election broke all recent records of votes in the last ten years, approaching levels similar to the 1998 election (following the second referendum on Quebec’s independence).

Law & Order

On the one hand, as leaked Liberal strategy documents confirmed shortly before the election was called, Charest pursued a cavalier approach of provocation and intransigence towards the student strike for months, hoping to create the basis of for a campaign of fear where they represented law and order, and stability.

On the eve of calling the election the Liberal message shifted to one of blackmail, threatening voters with a political and economic catastrophe if the PQ won and called another referendum.

In the squeeze

On the other hand, unable to avoid convening a commission on corruption scandals due to public outrage, Charest effectively set the timeline for the election when his government convened that commission and established its schedule.  In the end the Liberal’s were squeezed by the student protests – conditions which also favored the PQ.

The pressure from the people’s forces, unleashed as the student struggle broadened into a popular movement, pushed the PQ into adopting a progressive-sounding agenda, to avoid losing votes.  Without the student mobilizations it is probable that the PQ platform would have more accurately reflected their true political identity, a nationalist party of small and large-scale business and not a left party.

Voter break-down

While the higher voter participation no doubt included many new young voters, who also turned to Quebec Solidaire and helped double the popular vote of QS, another large component of high participation came from ridings where the CAQ won.  Often these were in places where the populist ADQ had made gains in the past.

The Liberal’s received 31.2% and the CAQ 27% of the popular vote, eating into the PQ, which received 31.95%, while QS won just over 6%. Thus the division of the right helps explain the victory of the PQ.

Liberal vote

Although the Liberal’s received basically the same total number of votes as the last election (only 5,000 votes less), it was their lowest percentage of the popular vote since Confederation because of the high participation of the people in the election. The Liberals won seats in Quebec City and the regions, but the lions-share of their seats came from Greater Montreal, the Gatineau-Hull area, and the Eastern Townships -- not surprising given that they were the only Federalist party in the election.

An opinion poll conducted by Le Devoir suggested the primary reason Liberal voters chose that party was to voice opposition to the PQ and support Canadian unity, as well as economic stability – rather than the actual values of the party.

National question still burns

Conservative Prime Minister Steven Harper responded to the Quebec election by concluding the vote suggested debate about the national question should now be shut-down. This stiffening of democratic discussion about Quebec’s future is unlikely to happen, however, given the reactionary framework that federalism imposes, as well as continued chauvinism from the corporate media and some Anglophones.

As a case in point, the PQ election victory celebrations were tragically interrupted when a man attempted to set fire to the theatre venue and shot two people, killing a stagehand. As he was arrested he yelled incoherently about the how the English-speakers are now “waking-up.”

The attack was “an isolated act of madness, but it was nevertheless triggered by the socio-political [context]” the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste said in a statement, calling on the English-language corporate media to tone-down their rhetoric which has labeled soveriegntist voices during the election “Franco-supremacist,” “intolerant,” “anglophobes,” “close-minded idiots,” who “despise minorities” etc.  Comments on some English-language newspaper websites, expressed regret that the gun man was not successful to “kill the bitch”, and other hate speech.

QS makes gains

At the election rally of Quebec Solidaire, held not far from the PQ’s event, newly elected MNA Françoise David congratulated Marois on her election as the first women premier and vowed to work together on any policy the PQ might advance in support of women’s rights, the environment, labour, and other social issues. 

It is more likely however that the PQ will now try to find an excuse to shift away from its election promises and form an alliance with the right. Another election is almost certain well before four years – which has also lead the NDP to officially drop its plan to build a provincial party, good news for QS.

David will now join QS MNA Amir Khadir in Quebec City, meaning that both of QS’s spokespeople will be in the National Assembly, representing back-to-back ridings in urban Montreal. An evaluation of the election by Quebec’s voter-reform coalition suggested that under a Mixed-Member Proportional system, QS would hold 8 seats.  While the actual result is perhaps not as much as that party wished, QS made still important gains and finished second place in at least three other Montreal ridings. 

Marianne Breton Fontaine, the leader of the Young Communist League of Quebec, doubled the popular vote for QS in the riding of Acadie, coming in with almost 2,500 votes and 8%. 

In an upcoming article we will look at the response of labour and people`s movements to the election.

We need diplomacy, not sabre-rattling, says Canada's largest peace group

September 7, 2012

The decision by the Harper government to sever diplomatic ties with Iran and to expel all Iranian diplomats from Canada is a dangerous and unwanted escalation of the current crisis. The Canadian Peace Alliance condemns this decision and calls on the government of Canada to normalize relations and to call for a peaceful and negotiated settlement.

This is not the first time that the government of Canada has led the drive to war with Iran. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has stated publicly that Iran is the "greatest threat to world peace." The severing of diplomatic ties shows that, in fact, the Harper government is the real threat to peace and stability.

"The global community is calling for negotiation and dialogue to avert war," said Sid Lacombe, coordinator of the Canadian Peace Alliance. "Keeping diplomatic channels open for that discussion is an absolute prerequisite to finding a peaceful solution to the conflict. The Harper government has just told the world that they don't care for peace and are instead paving the way to war."

Iranian-Canadians also spoke out against the decision to sever ties.

"We are worried that these actions by the Harper government are a sign of imminent attack," said Niaz Salimi, president of the Iranian Canadian Community Council. "We are opposed to any actions which brings us closer to war."

A war with Iran would cause untold civilian deaths and could escalate into a much larger regional conflict. There is no credible evidence that Iran is using nuclear technology to create a weapon, yet the Canadian public is being asked, once again, to put its faith in fictitious claims about Weapons of Mass Destruction. The fact that no weapons were ever found in Iraq - and that the evidence of such a program was deliberately fabricated - renders any accusations against Iran extremely questionable.

This October 6th, Canadians will demonstrate their opposition to the possibility of war against Iran by joining anti-war events across Canada.

For more information, visit http://www.acp-cpa.ca.

Focus on First Nation’s culture and language at Montreal First People’s Festival

Adrien Welsh

Can the Canadian state really call itself a positive example when it comes to the national question and self-determination?

Just talking about the situation of the First People, there’s a lot to say. For example, the Harper Conservative government waited until 2010 to simply consent to sign the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples -- almost three years after it was adopted by the UN’s General Assembly.  And First People’s communities are still subject to an obsolete law, The Indian Act, which was used as a model by the South African Afrikaner’s ruling class to inspire the apartheid regime!

These facts are generally not mentioned, even in Canadian school history textbooks -- which, of course, does not help resolve the tense situation that Aboriginal People experience.  Here in Québec, these tensions reached a climax in 1990 with the "Oka Crisis," during which a lot of racist prejudices were expressed against Kanesatake Mohawks because they stood up against policies of genocide and assimilation and to defend their traditional territories.

In reaction to the racism at Oka, Innu cinematographer André Dudemaine helped create the Montreal First People’s Festival in 1991. The event has kept growing ever since. Today it acts as an important forum for the promotion and better understanding of First Nations’ culture, as well as a place where Montreal’s public can learn more about the struggles and challenges of Indigenious Peoples all around the world.

This year, the First People’s Festival celebrated its 22nd edition which took place from July 31st to August 8th. More than 50 films were screened (including documentaries, short footage and long footage, motion pictures as well as animation movies) for the modest sum of 2$ per screening!

The struggle for language

The importance of language-related films has to be underlined as one of the major themes of the movies screened. Two documentaries featuring Noam Chomsky were show as well as the first movie (an animation) in the Mohawk language ever produced. The animation explains in a funny tone why, in Iroquoian tradition, beans, corn and squash are called the «three sisters», and why they grow together.

Viewers also had a chance to hear the Pirahã language, spoken by the Hyponym indigenious people from Brazil (the language that, according to Dan Everette who deeply studied  Pirahã, presents some features contradicting Chomsky’s theory of recursivity, which until now had been considered the central paradigm of modern linguistics).

Another documentary told the story of the outstanding work achieved by Jessie Little Doe Baird since 1993. Baird helped revive the Algonquian Wampanoag language among her community, a language that was almost dead.  Both Dan Everett and Jessie Little Doe Baird attended the festival, discussing their work openly with festival goers.

The importance of language for First People is not accidental. Language is one of the main characteristics describing a nation. Language evolves along with the awakening of national consciousness, and against national and linguistic oppression. After all, the case of Wampanoag is not isolated. The same is true for Huron-Wendat or Abenakis, languages which tragically count less than ten fluent speakers right now.

Reintegrating languages in all spheres of society, including cinema or just everyday life, shows us how determined Aboriginal peoples are to rectify the national and linguistic oppression they have suffered.

Untold stories

Many of the documentaries screened this year were highly social or political in concern. In Smoke Traders, by Jeff Dorn, the question of the cigarette "business" in Mohawk territories is presented from a Native point of view. The audience comes to understand how this trade, perceived as contraband, is actually an economic backbone of life on impoverished reserves.

In her film Granito: How to Nail a Dictator Pamela Yates (winner of the Festival’s Rigoberta Menchú award) performs a flash-back on the Guatemalan civil war and especially on her well known documentary When the Mountains Tremble. According to a Spanish lawyer trying to accuse former General Efraín Rios Montt for this genocide of 20 000 Mayan people, Yates' footage may contain information that could help charge those responsible.

More than just films

While cinematography used to be the Festival's principal aim, today it has a multi-disciplinarity approach, including literature (people could attend readings by Native poets or writers), as well as music, dance and craft work.  Probably one of the most notable achievements made by the Festival team is the outdoor site at Montreal’s Place des festivals.

For a weekend the space is covered by native craftspeople, tipis, and much more. Despite being in downtown Montreal, festival goers could enjoy the smell of pine trees and goose cooked on an open fire, and talk with all the attending craftspeople giving workshops about their work, usually strongly linked to their culture. As well, every day different outstanding performances were held in the area, including Florent Vollant, an Innu from Northern Québec and an electro music show by the group A Tribe Called Red, a collaboration with Berber musicians from Morocco.

One of the highlights of the Festival is the traditional «Boréades de la danse», a dance performance by troops representing nations from all over the Americas. This year, it was followed by the Nuestro América Friendship Parade, which for the first time saw participation of delegations representing Bulgaria and the Philipines. The parade ended at Place des festivals, they were welcomed by the Mohawk drum troop Keepers of the Eastern Door before a talk in French, Spanish, English and Bulgarian about the UN’s Charter for Indigenous Rights.

A national awakening

While the First People’s Festival can be a little too folkloric, it is one of the very few large events in Québec, and Canada, prioritizing a truly broad perspective on First People’s culture and struggles all around the world. It challenges festival goers to try to understanding the problematics First People's face on a daily basis. The Festival is also a place to build bridges between different cultures, and to try counteract the many prejudices that First Nations people combat.

The fact that there is more than enough material to organize such an event - which, as said previously, keeps growing since its first edition - is a testimony of the important national awakening among Aboriginal People. This is something that progressive people should fully support. Afterall, the rights of First Peoples inseparably goes together with respecting and defending their culture and language, milestones on which any nation is built.

Adrien Welsh is a student and activist in Montreal and has worked at the First People's Festival for several years.