Le PQ vise le PLQ, mais flingue le séparatisme et les institutions « nationales »

Anyone who knows the history of QC nationalist rhetoric, and has been paying attention to the coverage over the past months, the implicit-verging-into-explicit links made between the Charest Govt's supposed weakness on "identity issues", like daycares/schools etc. run by religious groups, Muslim and Jewish among others, and the legitimate suspicion re. Govt favours for its donors, esp. from the construction industry, often involving prominent figures with Italian names, will realise that when the PQ claims QC is being run by a "clandestine network", it is saying something a lot uglier than what it seems on the surface. And this cleverly insiduous line, superficially neutral yet charged full of meaning, once claimed in the Assemblée nationale, can be repeated by the echo-chamber without fear of slander, ie. "the PQ claimed in the Ass Nat that QC was being run by a clandestine Govt".

This "clandestine Govt" line is really ugly. It ties a lot of things together in the popular consciousness, that is preconditioned to think that way, given mythologies and arts. Read Beauchemin's "Le Matou". Or recall Parizeau's "innocent political analysis", as viewed by his supporters, of Oct. 30, 1995. No need to go on, there's been enough said about this historical vein of rhetoric to make the point. But think me naive, I was still shocked when I heard PQ use that line in AssNat, and QC Solidaire (well, Khadir), leap on it. Over the years, I've had a ridiculous number of conversations that started out innocently, and devolved into expositions (and angry contestations thereof by me) of this "Clandestine Govt Theory" by my interlocutors, always assuring me that THEY live in Outremont-Westmount-Mont Royal and pull the strings on their pure laine puppets. For example, Michel David wrote this recently in Le Devoir (13/03/10): "Jusqu'à présent, le gouvernement Charest s'est surtout signalé par son remarquable empressement à répondre aux désirs des contributeurs à sa caisse électorale, notamment la communauté juive." No correction, retraction, or anything as yet, as far as I know. The PQ must know what fire it is playing with (QC Solidaire? Khadir is such a self-obsessed drama queen, it's hard to say). Bouchard warned them. And I honestly thought they had evolved beyond such loaded language. Naive me. This is a really disgraceful expression.

The PQ is clearly willing to burn down QC in order to rule it. It is, for me, as a federalist, a slim consolation to know that by discrediting this Govt, the PQ is unwittingly discrediting all Govt and politics, as the polls demonstrate, and shooting the separatist project in the foot: if politics and Govt are all corrupt and incompetent, then one doesn't trust any politician, even less any Govt, even less any Govt proposing radical change, and no change is more radical than Independence. In aiming at the PLQ, they are shooting the Govt of QC, and their own project. This does not comfort me, since I am also a democrat, and a social-democrat. The cost of delegitimising politics & govt is not worth the benefit of making separation more unlikely, in my mind. And I am sorry to see Charest, a basically good man, though I disagree with his socio-economic philosophy, victimised by an unhappy Bellemare. It is a sad story. There is of course corruption, influence-peddling, as always. But I'm pretty sure Charest is clean, given the man and his record. But who will remember that, or retain that impression, when all is said and done? Stories like this make one wonder why anyone would enter politics, when one's reputation can be destroyed in the public consciousness, overnight, through slander.