Québec's distinctive and particularistic version of conservatism means the federal Conservatives are caught between a rock and a hard place in la belle province, here's a radical proposal to solve it.
If the right split into Anglo and French associated parties, wouldn't that encourage the Liberals to split into Eastern and Western associated parties thus neutralizing that advantage for the CPC?
Salut, bon article, mais il y a un problème à la base : au Québec les nationalistes sont principalement à gauche ou centre-gauche économiquement. Si ils peuvent apprécier l'ouverture des conservateurs aux revendications nationalistes québécoises, ils sont généralement en désaccord avec leur positions économiques (comme ils sont en désaccord avec celles du PLC). C'est pour cela que les partis très à droite économiquement sont seulement présents en Beauce.
Agreed with this. The CAQ is certainly pro-business and economically pragmatic but their policies are family-oriented that require high taxes, which limits the alignment with neoliberal conservatism seen elsewhere in the country. More fundamentally, though, cultural conservatism includes protecting not only cultural but natural heritage. The hydroelectricity power house that is Québec and its growing ability to produce clean energy participates in 20th century Québec nation-building. Hydro-Québec is a source of pride and new generations of Québécois will growingly associate environmental policies with nationalistic affirmation. This goes against Western and Atlantic Canada's fossile fuel energy policies.
I see three things to do in order for the Conservatives to win in Québec. They should 1) reconcile the party with minimal environmental imperatives (market-based regulated carbon taxe for instance). By so doing, Québécois might be more incline to accept this cross-country energy corridor or at least be more flexible; 2) respect the division of power and a decentralized view of the federation like Harper did. This will always be a winning formula because it rallies all nationalists in Québec, even somes Libéraux (with their idea of "multinational federation"; 3) Insist on the inability of the Bloc to bring about change and that only the Conservatives could help Québécois participate in governing the country.
Hi Ben, I really enjoyed this article. I didn't even consider the possibility of a separate conservative party for Quebec. One thing that I think is very powerful about Quebec, is that it can only be won with a reliably nationalistic and labour-populist platform. The CPC is obviously not there yet in terms of a broader Canadian populist identity; too focused on neoliberalism and winning Toronto (which it never will).
I think creating a separate party for Quebec would detract from reforming the CPC in its entirety. The benefit of this reform, of course, is that it may instead appeal to places like Atlantic Canada and many rural ridings.
I think it's a bit more complex than this. I said in my piece last week that I'm not a fan of understanding a lot of the changes and realignments going on right now in terms of things like nationalism and populism, I think it's a bit different to that, and I much prefer to think about these sorts of movements in terms of "particularism." The particularism of the CAQ and Quebec nationalists is not an abstract concept, it's grounded in something very specific and distinct about Quebec. If a particularistic "populism" or whatever we want to call it was to work elsewhere in Canada, it would have to look quite different from that of Quebec precisely because these aren't broad ideological groupings, they are particular. I'm on the record as thinking the CPC needs to move in a different direction towards a more pro-worker, pro-family not just right-liberal conservatism, and building a broad political coalition around an idea of "national greatness," but I still think it would need to be understood as a coalition between different groups here, it would have to be about more than just building a "populist" party.
Very interesting idea, though not sure about your second point re: advantages. Wouldn't a right-leaning cultural conservative party just work to split the vote pour le BQ, potentially leading to more Liberal seats throughout the province?. I think the idea of more (both qualitatively and quantitatively) nuanced parties in Quebec would work great within a system of proportional representation, though not certain there would be much political will under FPTP. Still, really great post (maybe my favourite so far), and best of luck with the exams!
Thank you! Well the goal of something like this would be to do to the Bloc what the CAQ have done to the PQ provincially and render them on the verge of extinction. The Bloc remain relevant because they managed to ride the CAQ's coat tails, if the Bloc are just the only game in town when it comes to a party that will defend and not just promise to respect Quebec's autonomy and culture, I think it would be quite possible to thoroughly beat them in these Bloc/CPC seats we're talking about. After all, in this scenario that CPC vote in these ridings is overwhelmingly becoming the voting base of this new party, you don't have to peel every Bloc voter away, just enough of them that you win the margins in these seats that four, sometimes five parties taking significant chunks of the vote.
An interesting idea, but I think wishing for new parties to emerge to help consolidate the vote is not a reliable strategy.
I'd be more interested in thinking about it from the other side. In 2019, CPC won 10 seats in QC. One question that could be asked is: Would those seats have been lost if the CPC had not tried to 'thread the needle' and would that additional clarity have picked up seats outside of QC? How parties treat QC have impact elsewhere in the country and I'm more and more of the mind that tying yourself up in contradictory knots is not worth the gain.
The counterfactual here is a hard one to imagine in any precision. I suspect that these seats are fairly safe for now, the CPC have a stronghold in Quebec but have little indications they can grow beyond it (and I doubt they can), the question would be if the party is holding back in any way that could help it anywhere else but doesn't do so to try and win in Quebec. It's a hard counterfactual to know, and politics would change drastically here if we had coalition politics like I'm proposing, so it's hard to say.
https://www.particonservateurquebec.org/
If the right split into Anglo and French associated parties, wouldn't that encourage the Liberals to split into Eastern and Western associated parties thus neutralizing that advantage for the CPC?
Salut, bon article, mais il y a un problème à la base : au Québec les nationalistes sont principalement à gauche ou centre-gauche économiquement. Si ils peuvent apprécier l'ouverture des conservateurs aux revendications nationalistes québécoises, ils sont généralement en désaccord avec leur positions économiques (comme ils sont en désaccord avec celles du PLC). C'est pour cela que les partis très à droite économiquement sont seulement présents en Beauce.
Agreed with this. The CAQ is certainly pro-business and economically pragmatic but their policies are family-oriented that require high taxes, which limits the alignment with neoliberal conservatism seen elsewhere in the country. More fundamentally, though, cultural conservatism includes protecting not only cultural but natural heritage. The hydroelectricity power house that is Québec and its growing ability to produce clean energy participates in 20th century Québec nation-building. Hydro-Québec is a source of pride and new generations of Québécois will growingly associate environmental policies with nationalistic affirmation. This goes against Western and Atlantic Canada's fossile fuel energy policies.
I see three things to do in order for the Conservatives to win in Québec. They should 1) reconcile the party with minimal environmental imperatives (market-based regulated carbon taxe for instance). By so doing, Québécois might be more incline to accept this cross-country energy corridor or at least be more flexible; 2) respect the division of power and a decentralized view of the federation like Harper did. This will always be a winning formula because it rallies all nationalists in Québec, even somes Libéraux (with their idea of "multinational federation"; 3) Insist on the inability of the Bloc to bring about change and that only the Conservatives could help Québécois participate in governing the country.
Hi Ben, I really enjoyed this article. I didn't even consider the possibility of a separate conservative party for Quebec. One thing that I think is very powerful about Quebec, is that it can only be won with a reliably nationalistic and labour-populist platform. The CPC is obviously not there yet in terms of a broader Canadian populist identity; too focused on neoliberalism and winning Toronto (which it never will).
I think creating a separate party for Quebec would detract from reforming the CPC in its entirety. The benefit of this reform, of course, is that it may instead appeal to places like Atlantic Canada and many rural ridings.
I wrote something very similar to your ideas, I hope you find it interesting: https://thecanadianjournal.com/the-rural-coalition/
I think it's a bit more complex than this. I said in my piece last week that I'm not a fan of understanding a lot of the changes and realignments going on right now in terms of things like nationalism and populism, I think it's a bit different to that, and I much prefer to think about these sorts of movements in terms of "particularism." The particularism of the CAQ and Quebec nationalists is not an abstract concept, it's grounded in something very specific and distinct about Quebec. If a particularistic "populism" or whatever we want to call it was to work elsewhere in Canada, it would have to look quite different from that of Quebec precisely because these aren't broad ideological groupings, they are particular. I'm on the record as thinking the CPC needs to move in a different direction towards a more pro-worker, pro-family not just right-liberal conservatism, and building a broad political coalition around an idea of "national greatness," but I still think it would need to be understood as a coalition between different groups here, it would have to be about more than just building a "populist" party.
Very interesting idea, though not sure about your second point re: advantages. Wouldn't a right-leaning cultural conservative party just work to split the vote pour le BQ, potentially leading to more Liberal seats throughout the province?. I think the idea of more (both qualitatively and quantitatively) nuanced parties in Quebec would work great within a system of proportional representation, though not certain there would be much political will under FPTP. Still, really great post (maybe my favourite so far), and best of luck with the exams!
Thank you! Well the goal of something like this would be to do to the Bloc what the CAQ have done to the PQ provincially and render them on the verge of extinction. The Bloc remain relevant because they managed to ride the CAQ's coat tails, if the Bloc are just the only game in town when it comes to a party that will defend and not just promise to respect Quebec's autonomy and culture, I think it would be quite possible to thoroughly beat them in these Bloc/CPC seats we're talking about. After all, in this scenario that CPC vote in these ridings is overwhelmingly becoming the voting base of this new party, you don't have to peel every Bloc voter away, just enough of them that you win the margins in these seats that four, sometimes five parties taking significant chunks of the vote.
An interesting idea, but I think wishing for new parties to emerge to help consolidate the vote is not a reliable strategy.
I'd be more interested in thinking about it from the other side. In 2019, CPC won 10 seats in QC. One question that could be asked is: Would those seats have been lost if the CPC had not tried to 'thread the needle' and would that additional clarity have picked up seats outside of QC? How parties treat QC have impact elsewhere in the country and I'm more and more of the mind that tying yourself up in contradictory knots is not worth the gain.
The counterfactual here is a hard one to imagine in any precision. I suspect that these seats are fairly safe for now, the CPC have a stronghold in Quebec but have little indications they can grow beyond it (and I doubt they can), the question would be if the party is holding back in any way that could help it anywhere else but doesn't do so to try and win in Quebec. It's a hard counterfactual to know, and politics would change drastically here if we had coalition politics like I'm proposing, so it's hard to say.