QUEBEC РToday is the day for former Parti Qu̩b̩cois cabinet minister Fran̤ois Legault, and the province is watching.
After months of work behind the scenes and setbacks in his quest to attract star quality participants, Legault is to make public a scheme for a new right-of-centre political group.
Will the new group, to be called the Coalition for the Future of Quebec, become a new political party? That is the question that will be on everyone’s lips this morning when Legault holds a news conference in Quebec City.
And just how new and original are his ideas? Already, critics are saying they are not that new.
But Legault, who came close to running for the PQ leadership in 2005, still scores high enough in public opinion polls to make other politicians nervous about what he has to offer.
Quebecers seem to have latched on his idea that it’s time for a shakeup of the province’s many sacred cows.
Telling interviewers lately he could not sit at home while Quebec stagnates, a video launched by his group this weekend on YouTube sets the tone.
“Based on the reaction, there seem to be a lot of Quebecers who feel like talking about new ideas,” Legault says in the video, flanked by his star recruit, Telesystem founder Charles Sirois.
Sirois, who seems to be one of the coalition’s few personalities with a Liberal background, adds on the video that the group has come together even if its members have different backgrounds and beliefs.
Quebec needs to regain its confidence and “stop treading water,” he adds.
How does the group propose to change things?
Strategic leaks of the group’s document reveal some of their ideas, which analysts are already panning as warmed-over leftovers.
The “absolute priority” should be education, and the Legault plan will call for higher salaries for teachers, probably paid for through higher hydro rates.
Quebec does not need more doctors. The doctors it has have to take on more patients.
There does not seem to be any plan for major government spending cuts – a standard idea in many right wing movements – with Legault, opting for a simple three-per-cent reduction that he says would hurt very much.
The group will call itself nationalist, shedding the federalist-sovereignist label. It will propose putting those ideas on ice because, short of major change, neither renewed federalism or sovereignty seems to be on the horizon.
There will be considerable interest today in just whom Legault has attracted after failing to woo such big names as former PQ premier Lucien Bouchard or former Liberal Treasury Board president Monique Jérôme-Forget.
There are reports he will unveil a list of 17 people, including academics and business leaders.
For the moment, Legault’s team says he does not envision launching a political party.
But in a recent interview with Le Soleil, Legault was asked if Quebec can be changed with just a movement of ideas. He said no.
“Eventually, things have to become political. But for the moment, we have to agree on what changes to make,” he said.
Asked if that was not what another right-leaning Quebec movement, the Lucids, tried a few years ago, Legault said the lack of political action was the group’s Achilles heel.
“You can’t just write a text and then go home,” Legault said. “There has to be a follow-up. I will explain this soon.”
Besides a website, Legault is to announce his group will tour Quebec to hear what Quebecers have in mind for the future.
Other politicians, however, are already geared up to react. On the weekend, Premier Jean Charest noted that Legault himself and one of his recruits, Jean-François Simard, are former PQ politicians which he said shows they do not feel the PQ is going anywhere.
But it will be the reaction of the current official right wing party, the Action démocratique du Québec, that will be worth watching.
ADQ leader Gérard Deltell is already struggling to breath life back into the party but a number of former ADQ MNAs say they like Legault better.
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