Charest wins majority in Quebec
Dec 9, 2008 8:05:02 GMT -5
Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Dec 9, 2008 8:05:02 GMT -5
What does this mean for Quebeckers? Not a loaded question guys. Is Charest the best guy for the job? Do the Liberals have the right economic strategy for Quebec?
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Charest wins majority in Quebec
By Alexander Panetta, THE CANADIAN PRESS
MONTREAL - A premier whose political obituary has been penned repeatedly celebrated an electoral feat Monday not even attained by giants of Quebec politics like Rene Levesque, Lucien Bouchard and Robert Bourassa.
Jean Charest became the first Quebec premier in more than half a century to win three consecutive mandates as his Liberals regained their coveted majority.
His Liberals took 66 of the province's 125 ridings, while the Parti Quebecois climbed back to official Opposition status with 51 seats, and the Action democratique du Quebec was relegated to its traditional place in third-party wasteland with just seven seats.
The results represented such a crushing setback for Mario Dumont - the one-time boy wonder of Quebec politics - that he immediately announced plans to resign as ADQ leader in the near future.
Charest's three-seat majority margin was far smaller than expected, however, suggesting his party's lead may have been eroding in the final days of the campaign.
His Liberals won the popular vote over the Parti Quebecois by only seven percentage points after polls last week suggested they were up by 14 points.
PQ supporters sang and chanted independence slogans as if they had won Monday night, as they celebrated their return from the electoral wilderness.
"The Parti Quebecois is back," party leader Pauline Marois told her cheering troops.
"There will be a sovereigntist party in Quebec's national assembly for as long as Quebec is not sovereign."
The PQ made a frantic attempt in recent days to capitalize on the separatist-bashing going on in Ottawa and sought to use the political crisis there to whip up nationalist fervour.
Marois did a creditable job in guiding the PQ to the 51 seats after entering the campaign with only the 36 the party won under Andre Boisclair in 2007.
Charest's victory carries a host of potential implications for Canadian politics and will be greeted with relief in the nation's capital.
He used his election victory speech to reaffirm his pledge to work toward a free-trade deal with the European Union, and open up the province's north to hydroelectic development.
"In this time of economic uncertainty many Quebecers recognized the need for a stable government," Charest said.
"We are ready to work with all other Canadians - all other governments - so that we can weather this storm."
Monday's result carried a stunning reversal of fortune for Dumont, who just 20 months ago came within a whisker of becoming premier.
In a whirwind political career that saw him become a household name in his early 20s, build the ADQ from scratch and become a poster child for the province's conservatives over five elections, Dumont's career in Quebec politics appears over.
A teary-eyed Dumont said he would not lead his party into the next election following a disastrous result that saw him tumble from official Opposition status to electoral annihilation.
Dumont is so closely associated with the ADQ that the party's official six-word title carries his name. Its survival without him at the helm is far from guaranteed.
Dumont's departure from the provincial scene will stir the imagination of federal Conservatives, who have long sought to bolster their weak Quebec ranks by adding him to their roster.
His frequent policy shifts in whichever direction the public-opinion winds blew - including on the sovereignty question - earned him the derisive nickname, "The Weathervane."
The man who coined the insulting moniker was smiling Monday.
Charest became the first Quebec premier since the 1950s to win three consecutive terms as his Liberals won a slim majority mandate following 20 months of minority rule.
But the majority is small enough that it risks being wiped out by a few Liberal floor-crossings, health scares, resignations, or absentees.
The left-wing Quebec solidaire party elected its first-ever member, a Montreal microbiologist and party co-leader named Amir Khadir, in a downtown Montreal riding.
When Charest called the election Nov. 5, he invited a flood of accusations that he was cynically holding an unnecessary vote only to take advantage of his party's strong poll numbers.
He argued that Quebecers needed a stable majority government to weather the coming economic storm and hammered the theme right up to election day.
Voter turnout was extemely low - just 57 per cent, compared with 71 per cent in the last election - following a campaign that failed to inspire much public interest.
Charest called the vote one day after Barack Obama's U.S. election win, prompting pundits to lament the bland state of the province's politics compared with the historic vote down South.
But Charest's election gamble paid off for his party.
After nearly losing power in the March 2007 provincial election, party members were whispering about replacing Charest as recently as last fall.
But several key events propelled his improbable journey from lamentable poll numbers to some of the highest recorded levels of voter satisfaction in provincial history.
The ADQ bombed in opposition. Charest reorganized his office. And the premier bolstered his nationalist credentials by picking the occasional fight with Ottawa.
He now becomes the first premier since strongman Maurice Duplessis to win a third term and the reverberations of his win will be felt across the nation's political landscape.
Already, Charest's name comes in Parliament Hill chatter whenever the subject turns to possible future leaders of the federal Conservative party. Monday's result will do nothing to quell such talk.
But a more immediate result for national politics is that the sovereignty debate remains relegated to the back burner of the Canadian conversation. Such stability will come as a relief to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
A Charest loss would have produced an extremely rare alignment of Canada's political stars: a separatist government in Quebec City, facing a federal government headed by a non-Quebecer.
Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chretien and Brian Mulroney held office for all but a few months during the PQ's four mandates in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s - the only exceptions being the brief reigns of Joe Clark and John Turner.
The recent federal election campaign offered vivid examples of the potential volatility Harper has been spared with a federalist win.
His Conservatives were overwhelmed by a backlash in the province over arts-funding cuts, and after failing to detect it they were so badly thumped by the Bloc Quebecois in the ensuing public-relations war that it likely cost them a majority government.
Charest was, to the dismay of Conservatives outside Quebec, among the more vocal critics of those funding cuts.
It was the latest twist in his increasingly strained relationship with Harper.
Ironically, the ups-and-downs of that relationship have been as pronounced as the topsy-turvy trend lines of Charest's own improbable career path.
A federal Tory cabinet minister in his 20s and party leader in his 30s, Charest has oscillated from favourite, to whipping boy, and back on several occasions.
The greatest of those comebacks came during his first term when, with his favourability ratings cratering into the high teens, Charest reaped a number of benefits for Quebec from the province-friendly Harper.
cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2008/12/08/7668706-cp.html
==============================================================
Charest wins majority in Quebec
By Alexander Panetta, THE CANADIAN PRESS
MONTREAL - A premier whose political obituary has been penned repeatedly celebrated an electoral feat Monday not even attained by giants of Quebec politics like Rene Levesque, Lucien Bouchard and Robert Bourassa.
Jean Charest became the first Quebec premier in more than half a century to win three consecutive mandates as his Liberals regained their coveted majority.
His Liberals took 66 of the province's 125 ridings, while the Parti Quebecois climbed back to official Opposition status with 51 seats, and the Action democratique du Quebec was relegated to its traditional place in third-party wasteland with just seven seats.
The results represented such a crushing setback for Mario Dumont - the one-time boy wonder of Quebec politics - that he immediately announced plans to resign as ADQ leader in the near future.
Charest's three-seat majority margin was far smaller than expected, however, suggesting his party's lead may have been eroding in the final days of the campaign.
His Liberals won the popular vote over the Parti Quebecois by only seven percentage points after polls last week suggested they were up by 14 points.
PQ supporters sang and chanted independence slogans as if they had won Monday night, as they celebrated their return from the electoral wilderness.
"The Parti Quebecois is back," party leader Pauline Marois told her cheering troops.
"There will be a sovereigntist party in Quebec's national assembly for as long as Quebec is not sovereign."
The PQ made a frantic attempt in recent days to capitalize on the separatist-bashing going on in Ottawa and sought to use the political crisis there to whip up nationalist fervour.
Marois did a creditable job in guiding the PQ to the 51 seats after entering the campaign with only the 36 the party won under Andre Boisclair in 2007.
Charest's victory carries a host of potential implications for Canadian politics and will be greeted with relief in the nation's capital.
He used his election victory speech to reaffirm his pledge to work toward a free-trade deal with the European Union, and open up the province's north to hydroelectic development.
"In this time of economic uncertainty many Quebecers recognized the need for a stable government," Charest said.
"We are ready to work with all other Canadians - all other governments - so that we can weather this storm."
Monday's result carried a stunning reversal of fortune for Dumont, who just 20 months ago came within a whisker of becoming premier.
In a whirwind political career that saw him become a household name in his early 20s, build the ADQ from scratch and become a poster child for the province's conservatives over five elections, Dumont's career in Quebec politics appears over.
A teary-eyed Dumont said he would not lead his party into the next election following a disastrous result that saw him tumble from official Opposition status to electoral annihilation.
Dumont is so closely associated with the ADQ that the party's official six-word title carries his name. Its survival without him at the helm is far from guaranteed.
Dumont's departure from the provincial scene will stir the imagination of federal Conservatives, who have long sought to bolster their weak Quebec ranks by adding him to their roster.
His frequent policy shifts in whichever direction the public-opinion winds blew - including on the sovereignty question - earned him the derisive nickname, "The Weathervane."
The man who coined the insulting moniker was smiling Monday.
Charest became the first Quebec premier since the 1950s to win three consecutive terms as his Liberals won a slim majority mandate following 20 months of minority rule.
But the majority is small enough that it risks being wiped out by a few Liberal floor-crossings, health scares, resignations, or absentees.
The left-wing Quebec solidaire party elected its first-ever member, a Montreal microbiologist and party co-leader named Amir Khadir, in a downtown Montreal riding.
When Charest called the election Nov. 5, he invited a flood of accusations that he was cynically holding an unnecessary vote only to take advantage of his party's strong poll numbers.
He argued that Quebecers needed a stable majority government to weather the coming economic storm and hammered the theme right up to election day.
Voter turnout was extemely low - just 57 per cent, compared with 71 per cent in the last election - following a campaign that failed to inspire much public interest.
Charest called the vote one day after Barack Obama's U.S. election win, prompting pundits to lament the bland state of the province's politics compared with the historic vote down South.
But Charest's election gamble paid off for his party.
After nearly losing power in the March 2007 provincial election, party members were whispering about replacing Charest as recently as last fall.
But several key events propelled his improbable journey from lamentable poll numbers to some of the highest recorded levels of voter satisfaction in provincial history.
The ADQ bombed in opposition. Charest reorganized his office. And the premier bolstered his nationalist credentials by picking the occasional fight with Ottawa.
He now becomes the first premier since strongman Maurice Duplessis to win a third term and the reverberations of his win will be felt across the nation's political landscape.
Already, Charest's name comes in Parliament Hill chatter whenever the subject turns to possible future leaders of the federal Conservative party. Monday's result will do nothing to quell such talk.
But a more immediate result for national politics is that the sovereignty debate remains relegated to the back burner of the Canadian conversation. Such stability will come as a relief to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
A Charest loss would have produced an extremely rare alignment of Canada's political stars: a separatist government in Quebec City, facing a federal government headed by a non-Quebecer.
Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chretien and Brian Mulroney held office for all but a few months during the PQ's four mandates in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s - the only exceptions being the brief reigns of Joe Clark and John Turner.
The recent federal election campaign offered vivid examples of the potential volatility Harper has been spared with a federalist win.
His Conservatives were overwhelmed by a backlash in the province over arts-funding cuts, and after failing to detect it they were so badly thumped by the Bloc Quebecois in the ensuing public-relations war that it likely cost them a majority government.
Charest was, to the dismay of Conservatives outside Quebec, among the more vocal critics of those funding cuts.
It was the latest twist in his increasingly strained relationship with Harper.
Ironically, the ups-and-downs of that relationship have been as pronounced as the topsy-turvy trend lines of Charest's own improbable career path.
A federal Tory cabinet minister in his 20s and party leader in his 30s, Charest has oscillated from favourite, to whipping boy, and back on several occasions.
The greatest of those comebacks came during his first term when, with his favourability ratings cratering into the high teens, Charest reaped a number of benefits for Quebec from the province-friendly Harper.
cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2008/12/08/7668706-cp.html