I wanted to introduce you to your next Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition after the next federal election.
His name is Yves-François Blanchet, and he’s the leader of the Bloc Québécois, the party that wants to see Quebec separate from Canada and form a sovereign state of its own.
In his role as opposition leader, Mr. Blanchet has no intention of speaking English, though he can, as it would offend his tender French nationalist sensibilities. Yves-François is a bit of a dick that way.
How do you get this little pop-in-jay as leader of The Opposition?
Simple.
On election night, tune in and watch the Conservatives win maybe 230 seats in the House of Commons, making Pierre Poilievre the prime minister of Canada in a major electoral sweep. The incumbent Liberals will be absolutely trashed, winning maybe 35-40 seats. The NDP will be trashed right along with the Liberals, winning maybe 20 seats.
But the Bloc Québecois will win 40+ seats in Québec, since they don’t run any candidates anywhere else in the country. Those 40 seats will make them the second largest party in the Commons, and hence the Opposition.
It’s happened before when the Bloc won the second most seats in 1993 under Lucien Bouchard as the Mulroney Tories got waxed after back-to-back majorities in the 1980’s and into the start of the 1990’s.
This is what happens when the governing party gets taken to the woodshed. You get lopsided majorities with separatists as the Opposition.
Yves-François will live in the mansion known as Stornaway, but he’ll likely refer to it by its French name, Stornaway.
He’ll ask all his questions in French, and they’ll likely be responded to in French, meaning after the next election, French could very well become the dominant, if not official, language of the Canadian House of Commons.
That’s so cool. Alberta wlll no doubt bitch about that, but they bitch about everything and who listens to them anyway? They whine every bit as much as Québec does, to the point where the rest of us just tune them out. Sort of like ignoring that ill-tempered toddler freaking out at the mall.
Blanchet has said he will vote to topple the Liberals every time he gets a chance, and has proven that time and again, but he was always secure that the the NDP would vote to back up the government, first by virtue of their supply and confidence deal, and secondly because of basic political survival. But now the New Democrats themselves have signalled no-confidence in the Liberal government, which means that they too will vote for the government’s fall, thus triggering an election, one that will lead to their certain demise.
That puts the BQ in a bit of a spot then.
Despite their tough-talking rhetoric, there’s no guarantee the BQ are ready for an election themselves at this point, so Blanchet needs to weigh his options. Because with the NDP and Conservatives voicing no-confidence, the Bloc sticking to their talking points means an election. Constitutional lovers will note that the Governor-General has the option of asking the next party, the Tories, to form a government, but that’s almost never done, so an election is probably what we’ll see. There’s no reason for the Conservatives to respond positively to such a request to form a minority government of their own when they can just win a smashing majority by going to the polls.
So poor Yves-François. Such weighty matters foisted upon that well-coiffed head with the silk pocket square.
He sometimes makes noises about how he might support the Liberals if they cave to his demands of industry protection in the milk and dairy sectors, along with enhancements to the Canada Pension Plan. But what if the Liberals were to go along with those demands to secure BQ support in the Commons? That would leave Blanchet holding a basket of hard-to-explain reasons for backing-up a deeply unpopular government, especially when no one will thank the BQ for their government concessions were they to be made.
In a perfect world, Blanchet would probably like a little more time to get the party ready for the free-for-all in Quebec that will result from the Liberal vote collapsing in that province. He’ll want to secure his flank against the rise of the Conservatives there. He would much rather score more than 40 of Quebec’s 78 seats for himself, and may need a bit more time to organize for that. Despite his lofty language of indignant defiance, he’s not a total idiot.
Remember, a poor showing for the BQ (less than 50 seats) can also be interpreted as a decline in the attitude of Quebecers for sovereignty, the raison d’être of the Bloc Québécois in the first place. The political implications of that are not something Yves-François would like to contemplate.
Politics is a rough business, with plenty of moving parts to keep your eye on.
Just ask Yves-François Blanchet.
Just make sure you ask him in French.
Sorry.
Veillez simplement à lui demander en français.
That’s what I meant to say.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 