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With the possibility of a Conservative majority government becoming more plausible as the Oct. 14 election day approaches, speculation is mounting that some voters in the province may decide to cast their ballots strategically, in order to counter the influence of a Conservative government, whose support could largely be based in western Canada and elsewhere outside Quebec.
All parties welcome – Duceppe
During a swing through Laval last week to help launch the campaigns of the island’s four Bloc Québécois candidates, party leader Gilles Duceppe tendered an open invitation to supporters of all other parties, "who want to prevent the Conservatives from obtaining a majority … We are ready to support all proposals from any party which are in the interests and values of Quebec."
It is notable that Duceppe — who repeats the phrase time and again during campaign speeches — is portraying the Bloc as "the only party in Quebec that can be beat the Conservatives." At the same time, however, he reminds the crowds that the Bloc’s strategy for furthering Quebec’s interests involves gaining full political recognition from Ottawa for the "Nation Québécoise."
Voting strategic
In voting systems, strategic voting occurs when a voter supports a candidate other than his or her first choice, in order to prevent what they consider would be an undesirable outcome. With support for the Liberal Party (the traditional champion in Quebec) seemingly still on the wane, voters who ordinarily vote Liberal might see no choice but to go with the Bloc. In the general elections in 2004 and 2006, strategic voting became a concern for the federal New Democratic Party.
In 2004, the governing Liberal Party was able to convince many NDP voters to vote Liberal in order to avoid a Conservative government. In the 2006 election, the Liberal Party attempted the same strategy, with Prime Minister Paul Martin asking the NDP and the Greens to vote for the Liberal Party in order to prevent a Conservative win.
Bloc remains sovereignist
In an interview with TLN, Bloc MP for Laval Nicole Demers, who is seeking her third term, agreed that a post-election scenario, in which the Conservatives have a majority of seats mostly from the west and the Bloc predominates in Quebec, could raise new questions about national unity. "I’m a sovereignist, so for me that Mr. Harper could pose a threat to the unity of Canada poses no problem," she says.
"The only thing, I believe Canada would be very disturbed by a majority Conservative government right now, because it’s not the Conservative party that they know and that they voted for. It’s the Reform Party, it’s the Alliance party. It’s not the Progressive Conservative Party that was a conservative party for so many years."
Quebec Nation
"People are scared of a Conservative majority government, and so they must get behind the party that has the greatest chance of stopping them," says Serge Ménard, who is the Bloc Québécois incumbent in Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. During his speech in Laval, Duceppe dwelt on the question of the Quebec Nation, which is a recognition the Conservative government enshrined in a resolution that was passed by the House of Commons with the assent of the other parties during Parliament's last session.
The Bloc's leader made it clear that his party means to pursue the Quebec Nation status after the election, so that substance is added to its nominal significance. "To recognize a nation, you have to make it so that it means something, and it doesn't mean anything right now," observed Demers. "When you recognize a nation, it shouldn't be imprecise — it's something with serious meaning," adds Robert Carrier, the incumbent in Alfred-Pellan. "A nation has rights, which is to say it has it's own identity, culture and its own language. So, it is necessary to pursue the issue fully and it is one of our objectives to do that."
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