Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobblehead
Interesting that this is considered a win for fiscal conservatives in Quebec. The recent Federal budget had a lot of money for Quebec, and there was quite a bit of spending (for a party that is Conservative).
It just seems liek a bit of a disconnect - Quebec is considered fairly liberal (I'm not speaking political party), but in this election has shown a fiscally conservative vein. Will that sentiment extend federally (as some in this thread have surmised), or will the BQ adopt more fiscally conservative policies in pursuit of this voting block and then point at the CPC as attempting to buy Quebec?
A pretty interesting result, both provincially and perhaps federally.
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Its a win for small-c conservatives only. I'm sure the federal Conservatives would have much prefered a Liberal majority based on Charest ties to both the federal Conservative party and with Harper himself. Even though Charest flies the Liberal flag if you look at his policies and what he has done over the last term it seems much more fitting of a conservative government. This is the main cause of the dwindling popularity of the Liberal party in Quebec, particularly the union-busting that has been going on.
As for the PQ, the party is a complete mess. They haven't really had any sort of a leader with any charisma or intelligence since Parizeau. Bosiclair is the perfect example of that as a man who allegedly imbezzled thousands of dollars as a cabinet minister to fund his (self-admitted) cocaine habit. Hardly an ideal candiate on paper for a provincial leader. Not only that but there is a ton of squabbling within the party and no open can agree on anything except the fact that they want to separate. Their whole campaign is based on nothing but that.
The ADQ is the new player in the picture, so I think they got thrown a lot of protest votes from people that are hugely fed up with the other two parties. I don't think this signals a shift to the right as much as it indicates a growing disatisfaction with the status quo. I think this election was meant as a message to Charest who was pounding on his desk shouting about the Liberals having a majority -- people were upset at the Liberals for their arrogance much like people were upset at the federal Liberals for their arogance in the last federal election.
I think the big irony in the situation is that people are fed up with the the Liberals for leaning too far right, so the throw protest votes at party that leans even further right (on paper anyway, we'll see how they act in the coming weeks).
As far as the BQ is concerned, they have the luxury of sitting back and seeing how all this unfolds and whether it is just a protest vote or the political trend is shifting to the right in this province before they have to make any big political decisions.
My 2 cents.