AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE BLOC

by Angelo Persichilli
THE HILL TIMES

The 40th Canadian Parliament will start next month with the political parties looking for answers to the same questions they failed to answer in 2006. The Conservatives will try to form a government with balanced representation from all Canadian regions, including the big cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Quebec and Vancouver. The Liberals will look for a new leader; the NDP will try to find a strategy to influence government activities and the Bloc Québécois will just be happy to be alive.

  Of course, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and NDP Leader Jack Layton are a bit stronger because of their seat gains, and for the same reason the Liberals are weaker.

  However, the fact of the matter is that the future of Harper’s government, according to mathematics, is still in the hands of the Liberals and the NDP can do nothing about it.

  Of course, there is an argument from Harper’s critics on why he wasn’t able to get a majority despite facing a very weak Liberal leader.

  But there is also a question for Layton:how come he was not able to win 40 seats or more despite facing weak Liberal and Conservative leaders?

  This Parliament will still be influenced by these questions and only another election can give us answers.

  The only party that can really make a big change is the Bloc Québécois.

  Up until now, and also during the last election, Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe’s electoral support came mainly from disgruntled Liberal voters desperately looking for an alternative. The Oct. 14 vote was not a vote of confidence for Duceppe but a rebuttal of the Liberals and the Conservatives.

  Duceppe can, of course, wait for the next election hoping that, again, the Liberals and Conservatives will not be a charm for Quebec voters or do something different.

  The first option is dangerous because, sooner or later, the Conservatives and Liberals will be able to come back in Quebec and the electorate is not prepared to be on the sidelines forever and the Bloc Québécois will be erased. Or the Bloc can become a real Canadian party whose base is still in Quebec but ready to work with other political organizations.

  Just to be clear, if the Bloc realizes that the idea of separating Quebec from this country is on fewer and fewer people’s minds and the bulk of their support comes from voters that only want a better representation in the Canadian Parliament, the role of the Bloc will increase greatly. Duceppe is an intelligent person and he knows that the time of “Vive le Québec libre” of Charles De Gaulle is long gone; and, if anybody had any doubts, French President Nicolas Sarkozy reminded it to everybody last week right in the Quebec National Assembly.

  Quebec separatism is only in the minds of a few people, such as Jaques Parizeau. It’s pathetic that he keeps talking about the 1995 “close victory” of the sovereignists as proof of his theory. He knows he had to resort to a convoluted question hiding the key word, separatism, to get some fake results.
  Duceppe’s Bloc Québécois has an opportunity to make this Parliament the starting point of a new era of Canadian federalism.