This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 QUEBEC 000013 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  1/25/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PREL CA ECON
SUBJECT: QUEBECKERS SAY "YES" TO CANADA 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Abigail Friedman, Consul General, Quebec City, 
State. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
¶1. (c) Summary:  In perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the 
election, Stephen Harper's Conservative Party picked up ten 
seats in Quebec, up from zero.  While the Conservatives managed 
to grab votes from both the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois, it 
is the Bloc that will have the most soul-searching to do in the 
weeks and months ahead.  Gilles Duceppe set two goals for his 
party going into the election - to garner fifty percent of the 
vote and to increase the number of seats held by the Bloc.  His 
party fell short on both counts and is now on the defensive. 
Many voters simply do not agree with the Bloc's claim that it is 
the only party that can defend the interests of Quebeckers, and 
proved willing to give the Conservatives a chance.  If Stephen 
Harper can deliver on his promises (especially on reducing the 
fiscal imbalance and lowering taxes), then the Conservatives 
stand a chance of broadening their Quebec base in the years 
ahead.  If they fail, expect a backlash in Quebec, both from a 
reinvigorated Bloc and a reconstituted Liberal party.  End 
summary. 
 
Bloc Quebecois: Losing Out 
---------------------------- 
 
¶2. (c) The results in Quebec of the recent election are a 
setback for the Bloc and its leader Gilles Duceppe.  The Bloc 
failed to reach the 50 percent target Duceppe set for his party 
at the beginning of the federal election campaign, dropping 
instead nearly 7 percentage points to finish the race with only 
42 percent of the popular vote.  Duceppe had hoped to increase 
the number of seats held by his party, but lost three seats, to 
finish with 51 out of 75 parliamentary seats.  Most worrisome 
for the Bloc, is that it lost eight seats to the Conservative 
party and was only able to limit the damage by picking up five 
seats from the discredited Liberals, largely in the Montreal 
area, where the federal vote appears to have split between 
Liberals and Conservatives.  To give readers a historical 
perspective, since the advent of the Bloc in 1993, the 
Conservatives have never been able to pick up more than 5 seats 
in Quebec. 
 
¶3. (c) The Bloc's failure to capitalize on the demise of the 
Liberals, and the resurgent appeal of the Conservatives, is sure 
to be the stuff of political talk shows in the days ahead and 
Quebec politics in the months to come.  For now, it is enough to 
note that the Bloc erred in running a campaign (until the very 
last days) purely against the Liberals and Liberal party 
corruption, underestimating the possibility that the 
Conservatives might make inroads in Quebec.  The Bloc also erred 
in running a campaign with he theme "We are the ones who defend 
Quebec interests," underestimating the possibility that 
Quebeckers might, in fact, believe that other parties, including 
those who could actually form a government in Ottawa, are better 
placed to defend the interests of Quebec in Ottawa.  (The 
Conservatives obtained nearly 25 percent of the vote in Quebec, 
up from 9 percent in 2004; the Liberals dropped from 34 percent 
to 21 percent; the NDP was up three points, to 8 percent; and 
the Greens were up nearly one point, to 4 percent.) 
 
¶4.  (c) During the course of the campaign, both Stephen Harper 
and center-right Quebec Democratic Action (ADQ) party leader 
Mario Dumont attacked the Bloc as being a party with "no 
possibility of governing the country and which confines Quebec 
to political isolation."  This limitation of the Bloc appears to 
have resonated with at least some voters.  Voters in Jonquiere, 
for example, a north central region of Quebec with high 
unemployment, shifted from the Bloc to Conservative in good 
part, according to political pundits, because of the 
attractiveness of having a representative who might be in 
government, perhaps even a member of the cabinet (the winning 
candidate, Jean-Pierre Blackburn, is a former Conservative MP 
under Mulroney and was parliamentary secretary to the Minister 
of National Defence).  The Conservative candidate in the Beauce 
region, Maxime Bernier, is the son of a popular Conservative MP 
under Mulroney.  Other voters in Quebec whose district went to 
the Conservatives said they wanted the Liberals out of power and 
understood that a vote for the Bloc would not make this happen. 
In sum, voters in the now blue regions of Quebec proved to be 
strategic voters, interested above all in exercising influence 
in Ottawa. 
 
¶5. (c) The Bloc is now on the defensive, and in the days ahead, 
it will have to prove to voters either that it can "defend 
Quebec interests" by working with the Harper government or by 
showing that the Harper government is as incapable of meeting 
the needs of Quebeckers as the recently fallen Martin 
government.  Asked which path the Bloc will take, one Quebec 
editorial writer told CG that the Bloc will be "condemned to 
work with the Conservative government."  (An assessment shared 
by editorial writers in several Montreal and Quebec City 
newspapers.)  The Bloc has argued for years against the Liberal 
government's centralizing power in Ottawa and the fiscal 
imbalance.  It cannot now turn around and obstruct Conservative 
efforts to address the problem.  At the same time, our 
interlocutor noted that while working with the Conservatives on 
this issue, the Bloc is likely to denounce the Harper government 
on peripheral issues, from social policies (same-sex marriage, 
abortion) to Kyoto Protocol. 
 
Conservatives: Building an Organization in Quebec from Scratch 
--------------------------------------------- ------------------- 
 
¶6. (c) "Condemned" to work with the Conservatives is an apt 
characterization of the Bloc's position, as the Conservatives' 
ability to deliver on priority issues for Quebec (fiscal 
imbalance, tax reduction, child-care assistance, reduced health 
care wait times) will help the Conservatives increase their 
strength in Quebec at the expense of the Bloc (which is still by 
far the number one federal party in Quebec).  Voter expectations 
are high in Quebec, particularly in the new Conservative 
districts that spurned the Bloc.  Quebeckers will be watching to 
see how many Quebec MPs are in the Cabinet, whether the 
Conservatives deliver on campaign promises, and how "moderate" a 
minority Harper government will be on social issues.  Quebec 
voters appreciated Stephen Harper's conciliatory words, his 
outstretched hand, and his respect for Quebeckers.  Now, they 
are waiting to see if he is "for real." 
 
¶7. (c) For the Conservatives to consolidate their gains in 
Quebec, they will need not only to deliver on campaign promises 
but also to build a stronger political organization in Quebec. 
Unlike the Bloc, which has the Parti Quebecois organization 
working on its behalf, and the Liberals, which (in more ordinary 
times) had the Liberal Party of Quebec spreading the liberal 
message, the Conservatives have no Province-wide organization to 
speak of.  Mario Dumont's right-of-center ADQ, with only five 
members in the Quebec National Assembly, is in no way comparable 
in strength to either the PQ or the PLQ.  We expect that 
building up a party infrastructure will be one of the 
Conservative Party's top agenda items in Quebec. 
 
Liberals Down But not Out 
---------------------------- 
 
¶8. (c) With electoral gains not just in the west, but deep in 
francophone Quebec, the Conservatives have emerged as a viable 
alternative to the Liberals as a truly national party.  The 
Liberal Party is particularly discredited in Quebec because much 
of the corruption it was accused of took place in this province. 
 But while the Liberals may be down in Quebec, it would be a 
mistake to write them off.  As a Laval University professor put 
it to CG, the Liberals will choose a new leader, clean house, 
and begin to work at winning back the confidence of Quebeckers. 
The Liberal party's stance on a number of social issues is more 
to the left than that of the Conservative party, and consistent 
with the views of many Quebeckers.  Perhaps for this reason, 
political analysts seem to believe that time is of the essence 
for Harper.  A failure on the part of the Conservatives to 
"deliver" on its promises early on, coupled with a renewed 
Liberal party leadership, would bring at least some Quebec 
voters (particularly in the anglophone commnty) back into the 
Liberal fold. 
 
Quebec Premier Jean Charest: Happy Days are Here Again 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
 
¶9. (c) Stephen Harper can count on one political figure in 
Quebec to be committed to working with the new government: 
Quebec Premier Jean Charest.  After years of PM Martin's 
"scorched earth" approach to Quebec, Jean Charest (a former 
leader of the Conservative Party) finally has a leader in Ottawa 
who shares his vision of federal-provincial relations and of 
U.S.-Canada relations, and who understands that working in 
tandem with Quebec is more likely to keep Canada whole than will 
efforts to dominate it.  Both Harper and Charest know that the 
next election on the horizon of importance to Canada is the 
Quebec provincial election, which Charest could call as early as 
spring 2007.  Both leaders have every interest in a Charest 
victory, as this will put off any talk of another Quebec 
referendum for several years.  Harper's working with Charest to 
bring results for Quebec both will help Harper in advance of the 
next federal election, (by showing that he can "manage" the 
Quebec portfolio), and it will help Charest (by showing that 
Charest, and not the PQ, can deliver for Quebec). 
 
¶10. (c) Areas where the Quebec government will be looking for 
progress from the federal government include:  addressing the 
fiscal imbalance; federal funding (with no strings attached) for 
day-care; getting back to the negotiating table on softwood 
lumber; federal aid for higher education; and support for a 
greater international role for Quebec.  (This last may be tricky 
for the Harper government as what Quebec wants - a more 
independent role internationally - is opposed by other Canadian 
provinces.) 
 
Separatism 
----------- 
¶11. (c) One issue strikingly absent from the election campaign 
in Quebec was the sovereignty question.  While the Bloc 
Quebecois website features prominently the party's commitment to 
Quebec independence, the Bloc understands that this is not an 
issue that will bring the Bloc the widest possible voter 
support.  The sovereignty issue was so muted during the campaign 
that one journalist told CG that when he interviewed Duceppe, he 
pressed him as to whether sovereignty remained a top priority 
for the Bloc.  Duceppe insisted that it was, but the matter 
stands that the Bloc has chosen to win votes by selling itself 
as the party that can "defend Quebec interests" rather than as 
the party that can bring independence to Quebec.  Immediately 
following the election, of course, the sovereignty issue 
returned, with both the Bloc and the Parti Quebecois fending off 
questions from journalists as to whether the drop in Bloc 
support during this election makes a referendum less likely in 
the event of a PQ victory in the next provincial election.  PQ 
leader Andre Boisclair denied that it would, asserting instead 
that his party would work with Conservative sovereigntists to 
win a referendum.  (Note:  Boisclair told CG only a few weeks 
ago that if the PQ wins the next provincial election, he would 
not waste time putting into place various government programs, 
but would aim for a referendum within six months of taking 
office.  The present election results suggest that Boisclair may 
need to reconsider his timetable.  End note.) 
 
Conclusion 
----------- 
 
¶12.  (c) The recent federal election has shown that, contrary to 
popular myth, Quebeckers are not focused primarily on the 
sovereignty question.  Quebeckers proved willing to vote 
strategically.  Fifteen out of seventy-five ridings switched 
allegiance.  The Conservatives, up from zero seats only a year 
and a half ago, came out first in ten ridings, and second in 
forty ridings.  Despite protestations to the contrary from 
Gilles Duceppe and Andre Boisclair, the two pro-sovereignty 
leaders, the outcome of the current election has put a damper on 
their efforts to move toward another referendum on sovereignty. 
A healthy majority of Quebeckers voted for federalist candidates 
over the Bloc, suggesting that Quebeckers want in and that they 
are saying "yes" to Canada.  Harper has every reason to feel 
buoyant about the results in Quebec.  Quebeckers are now 
counting on the Conservatives to deliver on their campaign 
promises. 
FRIEDMAN