Graeme Hamilton National Post
Saturday, January 28, 2006
MONTREAL - In the dying days of the campaign, as the Conservatives' climb in Quebec became undeniable, a mystified Bloc Quebecois tried one, final shot. A full-page advertisement appeared in newspapers in eastern Quebec, declaring in huge print, "We will not let Calgary decide for Quebec." A black Stetson sat atop the word 'Calgary'. The message was clear: Beware Stephen Harper's Conservative cowboys.
Jacques Gourde, who raises beef cattle on his hay farm in Saint-Narcisse, about 40 kilometres south of Quebec City, was not amused. "You could say I'm a Quebec cowboy," said the Conservative who won the riding of Lotbiniere-Chutes-de-la-Chaudiere by more than 12,000 votes over the Bloc incumbent.
"I think that advertisement did more damage than good."
Election results tend to support his position: In the area targeted by the ad, the Conservatives won eight seats.
Both the Liberals and the Bloc tried to demonize the Tories, insisting the party's small-c conservatism was anathema to modern Quebec. "Mr. Harper's positions go against values that Quebecers defend," Paul Martin said. On election day, voters decided differently, giving the Tories 25% of the votes in Quebec compared with 21% for the Liberals. At 42%, the Bloc remained the most popular party, but well below their 50% target.
With their strong showing, the Conservatives gave the lie to the notion that Quebec is a sea of social-democrats. At least in a significant pocket of the province, Quebec values are not that out of step with Alberta values, after all.
By tripling their share of the popular vote and going from zero to 10 seats, the Tories confounded experts who assumed a party rooted in the West could never be transplanted to Quebec.
On Thursday, Gilles Duceppe commissioned a study to get to the bottom of the matter. Newspapers have been grappling with what they refer to as a "mystery" or an "enigma."
Maxime Bernier, elected for the Conservatives in the riding of Beauce, disputed the conventional wisdom that Quebecers are inherently on the left. Some analysts have tried to minimize the significance of the Conservative breakthrough, noting the party's victories were heavily concentrated in Quebec City and the region stretching south to the U.S. border. But Mr. Bernier said support was widespread, and Tories finished second in 40 of the 65 Quebec ridings they did not win.
Nestled between Quebec City and the United States, his native region of the Beauce is known for a fierce entrepreneurial spirit, and he said the spirit is contagious.
"Ask the business community in the Beauce, and what they want is no more government on their back, no more government in their pocket," said Mr. Bernier, a former vice-president with Standard Life of Canada who also worked with a right-wing Montreal think-tank. "I think it's in our values, and I think it's something that is shared by a lot of Quebecers. The 20th century was the century of the state and the 21st century has to be the century of the individual."
Christian Paradis, a 32-year-old lawyer and former president of the Thetford Mines chamber of commerce, credited the "silent majority" for his huge victory in Megantic-L'Erable, southwest of the Beauce.
People in his riding are hunters who do not like the firearms registry. They are next-door neighbours to the United States who want amicable cross-border relations. And many among the older generation prefer the traditional definition of marriage. "We see that the silent majority does not necessarily share opinions that are politically correct," Mr. Paradis said.
Some of the newly elected Conservatives preach "family values" that would be considered laughably old-fashioned in Montreal's trendy neighbourhoods. Mr. Gourde, whose campaign biography noted his six years as church warden, has five children. Mr. Paradis has three, and Luc Harvey, who won the Quebec City riding of Louis-Hebert, has four. In a province facing a demographic crunch, family men have a new appeal.
"Many people I met said they would vote for the one with four children," Mr. Harvey said. "To say that people no longer believe in the family, no longer believe in having children, don't believe in marriage, I'm sorry, I don't think that's the case."
The first signs of an emerging conservatism in Quebec came when Mario Dumont's Action Democratique du Quebec surged to first in the provincial polls in 2002 with a platform advocating a flat tax on income, private health care and school vouchers. The ADQ support subsequently collapsed, but in 2003, Quebec elected a Liberal government promising to slash the size of government. More recently, former premier Lucien Bouchard led a group questioning whether Quebec can afford its generous social programs and heavily unionized workforce.
Mr. Dumont said in an interview that it is nonsense to suggest Quebecers do not share conservative values.
"Conservative values are what? They are the family and work. What is Quebec based on if not the family and work?"
Mr. Dumont said Quebecers are reluctant to mix religion and morality, but otherwise have much in common with western Conservatives. "I think there are people in Quebec who are completely ready to hear this socio-economic message, more to the centre-right," he said. Far from being surprised by Monday's results, he said the Conservatives could have done much better in Quebec if they had a stronger organization.
"The next election will be completely different, because the Bloc Quebecois will have a real challenge to prove its relevance, assuming Stephen Harper delivers on his promises," he said.
© National Post 2006
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