Memo To Mark Carney: How To Maximize Quebec’s Opportunities

On Carney’s Quebec Opening

Of course that was the drive that took 4 hours.

In December 2013, my mother had to go to Laval for work, and because of a combination of my love of Montreal and her wanting to avoid doing the long drive herself, she asked me to come along. We didn’t go into the city on that trip, but we got pizza at Pendeli’s for dinner and got to talk, which was nice.

I was 16 at the time, a month-ish out from my 17th birthday, and the Harvey’s we stopped at for lunch before she left for her appointment was beside an SAQ, and for shits and giggles I decided to see if they’d sell to me. They did, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. And then I realized I had a mickey of whiskey and a 2 hour drive back to Ottawa later that night. And of course, that drive ended up taking four, because of course it did. Fortunately, the inner jacket pocket I hid it in held up as a hiding place, or at the very least my mother knew and didn’t care. (Given how stressed I was during that drive, I really hope I was stealthy, but I have my doubts in hindsight.)

That drive was also the second last time I was in Pauline Marois’ Quebec, and on that drive my Anglo, driven from Montreal by the language wars, mother decided to talk a lot about politics and independence and the family history. And it was in that car that I understood something about Quebec that I intellectually, but didn’t viscerally, understand up until then. It all comes back to the national question, even things that don’t seem like they do.

Those from outside of Quebec tend to treat the national question as an abstraction, and as a separate issue. They tend to view the issues of Quebec as a parallel track to the issues that matter in the rest of Canada - there’s the stuff that matters everywhere, and then there’s independence and the constitutional stuff on a parallel track. But what I understood somewhere on the fucking Decarie 11 years ago was that it’s one track, and the crucial thing about Quebec is understanding that you have to deal with it all together, or you’ll lose it all. And at a time when independence is at the top of the provincial landscape, Canadian patriotism is rising due to Trump, and the BQ is about to face a wedge like they’ve never seen, it’s a potent mix that could blow up at any time. And if the Liberals can get it right, it could be the skeleton key to winning the next election.

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Quebec politics in the modern era - certainly in the post 1970, or at least post-1976 time - gets crudely reduced to a simple fight, between federalists and separatists. That was true, for a couple decades, before the revival of the most interesting faction of Quebec politics, those not addicted to that binary. The third way tendency, for lack of a better name, has been looking for various homes ever since Union Nationale died after 1970, and found it in Mario Dumont’s ADQ, which became the CAQ once ex-PQ cabinet minister Francois Legault became Quebec’s latest flavour of the month.

In 2007 the ADQ briefly got Opposition, before collapsing in 2008. In 2014 it looked like Legault’s CAQ was going to fade into irrelevance in their second election, before storming back in the late stages of that campaign. The Conservatives broke through, in a sense, federally in 2006 on a similar voter base to the core of the ADQ, Quebec City and the east of the province. The Bloc was an effective coalition of hard core separatists and the left in those days, led by east Montreal lefty Gilles Duceppe, but when they won big they did so by adding those ADQ voters who were ambivalent on Canada, opposed to an immediate third referendum, but wanting a strong voice for Quebec in Ottawa.

In 2011, as Jack Layton swept the province, Legault was in the first flushes of his infatuation with Quebec’s voters. Quebec was enthralled by two men, a lefty Anglo who spent his life in Toronto (even if born in Montreal), and a right wing businessman who wanted to break the stranglehold teachers unions had in Quebec. The one thing Layton and Legault agreed on? That Quebec was in an illegitimate union with Canada due to the nature of repatriation, but that independence was a bad idea.

The Bloc’s splits and reconfigurations over the 8 years from wipeout to recovery were about the idea of independence and how hard to push. In a world where Pauline Marois lost in 2014 and came third in 2018, the very purpose of the Bloc needed to change - and it did, not that anyone in English Canada noticed.

The Bloc of Duceppe’s era was a left wing party that believed in state intervention in an independent Quebec. With no prospect of an independent Quebec and a more left wing Liberal Party - plus the loss of key incumbents across the French, lefty east of Montreal - the Bloc pivoted from their left wing status to being a much broader ideological tent. Instead of being a particularly anti-Conservative party, they became the CAQ’s federal wing, which enabled them to stitch together a coalition that looked something like the 2000 election, except worse in Montreal and better in the places Anglos don’t visit. But that was a temporary pivot, driven by Legault’s sky high polling and the PQ’s lack of support.

Now, the PQ have revived themselves, because in classic Quebec fashion the people have decided to go from loving someone to hating them almost immediately. The Bloc are now stuck having to pivot to being the PQ’s defenders, which means defending the idea of a referendum that made little sense in October 2024 and makes absolutely none now. Up until recently the Bloc were polling fine, but the Liberal vote fell sharply in Quebec later than it collapsed in Ontario, Atlantic Canada, or BC. It was, for a shining few months around the turn of 2023-24, the last beacon of Liberal hope.

Now Mark Carney is getting his turn in Quebec’s spotlight, a serious figure in a time of chaos playing well in a province that is still mostly totally opposed to the Conservatives, even if their vote is up in most polls. And he has the capacity to utterly destroy the Bloc, without succumbing to the kinds of pandering that befalls Anglos going for votes in Quebec.

The swing vote in Quebec elections is generally ambivalent to Canada, not convinced independence is the answer, upset about bad governing outcomes at a provincial level too, and wanting politicians to cut the crap and get shit done. They’re often in places around Montreal but not in Montreal, economically dependent on Montreal but places where some number of residents would be offended to be called Montrealers. It’s a complicated dance in normal times for the Liberals. In these times, it’s endlessly easy.

The Liberals should do a bunch of easy, relatively small things - I shilled for a Federal French Language Protection fund a couple years back as the CAQ tried their English tuition doubling bullshit and still like the idea, for one - but the smartest thing they can do is not separate their Quebec messaging off from the rest of the message. The message in English Canada will be about Mark Carney being the right man at a time for chaos. And somehow, the stars have aligned for that message to work in Quebec too.

Quebec is facing two hugely challenging economic headwinds in the next five years - the threats we all face from Trump, but also the uncertainty and upheaval another round of the constitutional question will raise. The PQ are top of the polls right now, and that will mean the Bloc has to stand by them. And if the argument in English Canada is that the Liberals are the safe choice in a world of lunatics throwing everything away just to pander to dangerous and extreme ideological projects and not the wellbeing of Canadians or Quebecers, then throwing the Bloc on that list and saying they’re also for uncertainty and instability at a time when we need stability and calmness is a winner.

Quebec has a reputation for being extremely left wing, a product of caring about the environment and the child care policy, but it’s not particularly true. The Quebec Liberals have always been more conservative than their Federal namesake, and the ADQ/CAQ tradition has always emphasized fiscal discipline. The province is open to, if not primed for, hearing a case for fiscal discipline and for less federal interventionism. It’s a message that fits with Carney’s overall message well.

The reason the CAQ won is that Quebec is increasingly open to voting for an option that isn’t conventional. That third way needs to be better articulated and defended by Liberals, however. We need to take a more nuanced approach to making the case for Canada. It can’t just be waving the flag. Carney has an opportunity to make a case anchored in something more than just history and platitudes. He can, and should, make a pitch to Quebec that is squarely focused at bread butter issues that are often overlooked in exchange for niche priorities in Quebec campaigning.

What flummoxes politicians, especially Conservative ones, is that they have their agenda and then they have their Quebec Agenda of things that are nice to have, that Quebecers nominally want, but don’t care about. The Conservatives keep promising to make Quebecers only file one tax return and then wonder why a party that’s bad on climate and the environment and broadly believed to be bought and sold by the oil industry fails to do well in Quebec. Yes, the Quebec-only stuff matters in a lot of ways, but it only goes so far if it’s detached from the stuff people actually care about.

If you’re Carney, you don’t need to pretend to be something you’re not. Carney doesn’t seem to have much ties to Quebec - born and raised out west, went to the US for college, moved back to Toronto - and that can be fine. Quebecers value authenticity more than anything else, because as the only majority-French entity in North America they fear being lied to and false promises more than most. An authentic, honest Anglo from Edmonton can be the hero, because they want a leader who doesn’t think so little of them as to pander and lie.

What the Liberals need is a coherent message that ties together Trump, Poilievre, and independence as a unified option of Chaos, against which only the Liberals will be a bulwark. Something like this, perhaps:

“Right now, both Canada and Quebec face hard choices, imposed on us by Donald Trump and the American government. It is a time of economic uncertainty, and we must face this crisis with seriousness and thoughtfulness. It is a time to work more closely together, to work together, to be together. It is not a time for petty differences to get in the way of what all Canadians need, from where I was born in the Northwest Territories to the farthest flung towns of Quebec.

At a time when Quebec faces all of this uncertainty, it is unconscionable that there is a self-imposed economic crisis - the crisis of self-absorbed ideologues trying to ram through another Constitutional crisis and a needless vote on independence. The constitutional wars hollowed out Quebec in the 80s and 90s, driving good people who love Quebec from this province and making others who would consider coming doubt they’d be viewed as equals. The damage to both Quebec and Canada of 20 years of constitutional strife was immense. And now the PQ and BQ want to revive it, when we can least afford it.

Canada without Quebec wouldn’t be the country it is today, and that fact has to matter. But it’s also not enough to advocate for the status quo. Quebecers need a country where they are listened to, where they are wanted, and where their priorities are our priorities. We need to build an economy where it’s easy to move Quebec goods anywhere in the country, we need to better promote business investment across the whole of Quebec, and work with the Quebec government to simplify regulatory processes and cut needless duplication of red tape.

At its core, Canada is a promise to each other, that we are better off together than apart. It’s why I’m a staunch believer of Quebec’s place in Canada, but it’s also why I believe so strongly that we need to do everything we can to strengthen Quebec. We can’t rest on our laurels, spouting platitudes about how an independent Quebec would be dangerous economically. It would be, but we also need to use every tool in our arsenal to strengthen every corner of our country.

If we are to grow the strongest economy in the world, build a better country that fixes our problems, and is less reliant on the musings of Donald Trump, then we need Quebec. But we also need Quebecers to proudly and clearly denounce the idea of letting vain and arrogant politicians who are only interested in their self interest and settling long lost grievances from hurting the people they are elected to serve. There is too much at stake to let the chaos of independence hurt us. Just as we cannot afford the chaos of a meek and meagre response to Trump, we must be clear that Quebec will be better off in Canada - and that I will always stand up for Quebec, and every other province, with everything I have and everything I could ever hope to have.”

Framing the Bloc’s interest in independence as a fundamentally anti-Quebec belief - by making it about the grudges of bitter separatists who have never given up the ghost - enables the Liberals to broaden their appeal. For a party that is oftentimes pigeonholed as a party of the Anglo west of the province plus the Island of Montreal, a Liberal Party that can go to the Eastern Townships and the south shore and the north and say the same thing as they say in Hochelaga or Outremont is one that becomes capable of big gains.

By positioning themselves as the party of stability against Bloc chaos in addition to the chaos of Trump and Poilievre, the government has the ability to take control of the message. They’d also show Quebecers they understand them in a basic way, by not trying to pander to them with condescending goodies while ignoring the issues they care about. It’s the lesson I learned 11 years ago now, while hoping and praying my mother wouldn’t catch that Mickey of Canadian Club. Let’s hope Carney understands it too.