Freeland, Quebec, And Quebec's Glorious Contradictions

On The Idea She Would Hurt The LPC

Just over a year ago, now, I started writing fiction, a silly, unpublished story designed to try and give my brain something to do in its hyperactive and crazy state. It was as much a therapy exercise as a literary one, and I thought it would go nowhere. And then, I wrote a novella, and a sequel, and that silly therapy exercise became an act of love, between me and my characters, these people who don’t exist, and yet, in so many ways actually do.

In the sequel, Montreal makes an appearance as the place my protagonist has history, and where he wanted to propose to his boyfriend. Writing that proposal, I was no longer my character, but just myself, talking about a city I love, and picturing myself there, in Dorchester Square. It’s the greatest thing I’ll ever write, but the thing is, the words still apply to politics, because it applies to why I feel comfortable saying what I’m about to say. Chrystia Freeland will be fine in Quebec, and will walk out of the province with essentially the same number of seats as Justin Trudeau has managed the last two elections.

…

“Montreal was always a second home to me, a place that made sense to me. I understand this city, in all its glory and all its contradictions. It makes sense to me through the nonsense, a thoroughly English city in a sea of French. It makes sense to me, because I've also only known this city through my internal contradictions - a gay man pretending to be straight, lying to myself to try and fit in, shoving the contradictions away to make it all work.”

To understand Quebec is to understand Montreal, and to understand the contradictions that make that city and that province so wonderful. To understand La Belle Province is to understand it not in spite of contradiction, but because of it, and to understand the next election is to understand what Quebec is, and where the Liberals have seats.

“Is Chrystia Freeland a good candidate for Quebec?” is a question that’s actually really stupid to ask that broadly, because a good candidate for some parts of Quebec is a bad candidate for others. The problem with thinking Freeland is gonna be a bad candidate for Quebec is that they’re kinda right – and yet, it doesn’t matter, because Trudeau isn’t a good candidate for those places either! When people say she’s a bad candidate for Quebec, what they mean is she’s a bad candidate for not-Montreal – and they could be right. The thing is, so was Trudeau.

Do you know how many Liberal MPs there are from east and north of the Eastern Townships? Four – two in Quebec City, the one seat in the Gaspe, and Francois Phillipe-Champagne’s seat. That’s it – everything else is either on the Island of Montreal, in the near proximity of the Island, or is out in the Outaouais, meaning Liberal exposure in what could be called “real Quebec” is literally 4 seats. And, frankly, Quebec City has too many Anglos to be that shocking as Liberal seats, so it’s really 2 seats that you could look at as odd cultural fits.

In many ways Freeland is a better fit than Trudeau for Quebec City – she’s a brilliant but fairly non-ideological elite who is more a technocrat than a firebrand, she is the wet dream of the consultant class of Quebec’s capital. She’ll win everything that Trudeau won in Gatineau and federalist western Quebec, and she’ll be fine on the west island and in Laval – mostly because no Liberal is going to lose there short of the party returning to 15% in the polls there. So, where’s the risk?

The risk, such as it exists, is on the East Island, the more-French part of the Island, and the south shore, places which are functionally suburbs of Montreal that hate being called that. These are places that are less culturally liberal, less English, and where the Blanchet Bloc is decidedly less popular than the Duceppe editions, and where the Liberals do better now than they did in 2015. But even in these places, the Liberals are probably going to be fine in the Freeland era, because the reason they’re trending their way isn’t going to go away.

The thing about Montreal is the lines get fuzzier every year, and that’s an absolute good thing. It’s a testament to the fabric of that city that the lines between English and French, federalist and separatist, is blurring, because for the last generation, the kids have been raised together much more than they had been in the past. Rates of bilingualism are up, comingling is up, and the dividing lines of the city my parents grew up in just don’t exist to the same degree anymore. The Bloc used to win East Montreal because that dividing line was a bridge too far for Liberals to win there, even as they used to be able to win Chicoutimi. It was a different city then, a different world then. Duceppe’s Bloc was more leftwing than Blanchet’s, because Duceppe’s was about separation as a means for a more left wing, independent Quebec, and Blanchet’s is about defending Quebec – yes, from the evil Feds, but also from school teachers and nurses who believe in a different faith than they find to be acceptable.

Blanchet’s Bloc is much more explicitly cultural conservative, and so the socially liberal, urban voters of the East Island or of Longueuil are more willing to still vote Liberal. And, it’s not like the Liberals even have this much exposure – the vast majority of their seats in the province aren’t close. There are only a handful of seats within 5%, and unless the Bloc is going to suddenly surge back to 45% in the polls, which, uh, no, then Freeland won’t lose that much, even if things don’t go well for her.

The Bloc are active participants here, and they have made a series of choices which work well for them in places where I would not be seen as an authentic Quebecer. I wasn’t born in Quebec, I’ve never lived in the province, but I’m a proud descendent of generations of residents of Quebec. I love the province with all my heart, and Freeland will do fine in the places where I am considered one of them. In the places that would scoff at my Anglo heart being considered a Quebecer, she will struggle. Fortunately, the Liberals don’t have shit left to lose in those places. The places that the overwhelmingly English concern trolls about her ability to win over think of when they think of Quebec are all Bloc or Tory at this point, and they’ll probably stay that way, but the notion Chrystia Freeland is going to lose wide swathes of Quebec is for the fucking birds, and everyone who thinks so doesn’t understand Quebec and its beautiful contradictions.