VZCZCXRO1999
OO RUEHGA RUEHHA RUEHQU RUEHVC
DE RUEHMT #0067/01 0712119
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 112119Z MAR 08
FM AMCONSUL MONTREAL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0834
INFO RUEHOT/AMEMBASSY OTTAWA IMMEDIATE 1348
RUCNCAN/ALL CANADIAN POSTS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MONTREAL 000067 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/11/2018 
TAGS: PGOV PREL CA
SUBJECT: ANALYSIS: CHAREST GAINS FROM OPPOSITIONSQ STRUGGLES 
 
Classified By: Consul General Mary Marshall, reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary:  Quebec Premier Jean Charest received 
unprecedented support from his party last weekend, giving 
cause to predict his budget will pass without inciting a 
provincial election.  Coupling the relative disarray of 
both opposition parties with the election apathy of a 
public literally buried in snow, Charest has successfully 
bounced back from the grave in time to woo citizens with an 
economy-centric message to stay the course.  CharestQs 
budget needs only one opposition party to support it and 
there are no signs that the official opposition party, the 
Action Democratique du Quebec (ADQ), will vote against it. 
The Party Quebecois (PQ), however, enjoying a resurgence 
over the ADQ, appears to be posturing itself to turn down 
the budget, despite not having enough seats in Parliament 
to force a new election on its own.  And yet, if they do 
unexpectedly succeed, a new election would give the PQ the 
opportunity to win from the ADQ the much needed financial 
perks afforded the official opposition party.  End Summary. 
 
CHAREST ON TOP, FOR NOW 
----------------------- 
 
¶2. (U) With the Quebec Liberal PartyQs (PLQ) 97.23 percent 
confidence vote for Premier Jean CharestQs leadership last 
weekend in Quebec City and the expected introduction this 
Thursday of a budget too blasi to provoke a partnering of 
the PQ and ADQ against it, it appears Quebec has been 
spared a provincial election - for now.  More than six 
months ago the PQ seemed to be gaining ground while Charest 
struggled in the polls.  However, PQ and ADQ 
identity-centric rhetoric has failed to resound with a 
public desperately seeking respite from a recent series of 
economic hits to the health and infrastructure sectors and 
a general malaise regarding sovereignty. 
 
¶3. (SBU) PQ leader Marois may be the only one disappointed 
by the news.  According to a series of opinion polls, 
Marois has successfully brought her party from third to 
second ahead of the ADQ.  One political analyst offered 
that the PQ might attempt to force a provincial election by 
rejecting the budget simply to take advantage of the 
relative weakness of the ADQ and Mario Dumont, and 
therefore, benefit structurally and financially as the 
official opposition party.  Further, a win over the ADQ 
would offer the PQ renewed strength and momentum.  The ADQ, 
on the other hand, is more likely to find common ground 
with Charest than risk losing to the PQ.  Sources indicate 
that the ADQ is unprepared for an election, lacking both 
the internal party organization to pull one off and the 
necessary public support to maintain its position. 
According to a PLQ contact who attended last weekendQs 
party conference, if a deal has been made between the PLQ 
and the ADQ, it has been kept very close hold.  The contact 
further added that the Liberals simply Qdid not know what 
the ADQ will doQ regarding the budget. 
 
PQ RENOVATES TO REGROUP 
----------------------- 
 
¶4. (U) PQ leader Marois announced last week a QrenovationQ 
of the party, namely, to win back a referendum-wary public 
by distancing the party from its long-standing mandate to 
hold a sovereignty referendum as soon as possible after 
forming a government, should it take power.  Marois said 
her proposal, one of 248 resolutions up for debate at the 
PQ national council meeting later this month, allows the 
party time to convince skeptics of the benefits of 
sovereignty and begin what she termed a Qnational 
conversationQ on the issue. 
 
¶5. (C) PQ insider and Marois advisor Jean-Francois Lisee 
told post that despite MaroisQ go-slow approach and current 
public discourse indicating withering PQ popularity, the 
issue of sovereignty is always relevant.  In the context of 
Kosovo, he elaborated that a unilateral declaration of 
independence has always been a Plan B in the PQQs strategy, 
but that it has historically sought to negotiate first.  He 
viewed the recent decline in secessionist fervor as the 
normal ebb phase of a recurring six-year cycle which has 
occurred since 1976. 
 
¶6. (C) Montreal-based conservative party insider Ian 
MacDonald conversely expressed his belief to post that 
MaroisQ attempt to regroup during a political power lull 
revealed her own struggle to retain the leadership amidst 
general public apathy towards the party and secession 
whilst the partyQs secessionist stalwarts applied pressure 
to stay the more contentious course. 
 
PQ FAILS TO RALLY PUBLIC WITH LANGUAGE CARD 
 
MONTREAL 00000067  002 OF 002 
 
 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (U) The key challenge to the PQ is a lack of a uniting 
issue.  Pro-secessionists spent a large part of 2007 trying 
to exploit the impending loss of French language and Quebec 
identity and culture as a rallying cry, but were seriously 
undermined in December by Statistics CanadaQs report that 
although the francophone community had slipped below 80% 
province-wide for the first time, French itself had 
actually increased in usage, with one recently released 
statistic claiming that 90% of Quebecois used French as 
their primary language at work.  Further, the report stated 
that more Allophones were choosing French over English as 
their second language, and in fact, more Anglophones than 
ever were bilingual. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Marois had attempted in October to exploit the 
language issue to gain support by submitting a 
controversial bill that said the ability to speak French 
should be prerequisite to the right to vote in Quebec. 
(Note: Many opinion leaders have expressed their belief to 
post that her intention was more to cater to internal party 
politics than to garner voters.)  In fact, the issue may 
have sparked the sudden resurgence in public approval of 
the PQ by December, but it wasnQt enough to predict a win 
over Charest. 
 
ADQ: POLITICAL WILDCARD 
----------------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) ADQ leader Mario Dumont has been notably quiet the 
past few weeks, leaving many, including the other parties, 
to speculate on whether the ADQ will support the budget. 
One PLQ contact told post that conversations at the PLQ 
national caucus were peppered with speculation on where the 
ADQ stood.  Dumont did enter the public debate last week to 
challenge MaroisQ calls to renovate the PQ, accusing her of 
stealing ADQ platforms for autonomy, such as calling for 
the creation of a Quebec constitution.  Dumont said it was 
insulting for Marois to suggest there were still stones 
unturned on QuebecQs secession debate after forty years of 
public discourse and a referendum. 
 
¶10. (SBU) This would not be the first time the PQ has 
adopted ADQ issues.  Last year, the ADQ made the racially 
heated issue of Qreasonable accommodationQ interchangeable 
with QuebecQs struggle for identity, only to have the PQ 
hijack the cause by turning it into another fight over the 
survival of the French language.  Charest deftly took the 
bite out of the issue by establishing the Bouchard-Taylor 
Commission to make a formal study of reasonable 
accommodation, including holding numerous town hall 
meetings where the public aired their frustrations on 
immigration and racial intolerance.  By the end of the 
year, the public was tired of discussing identity issues Q 
resulting in an unexpected upsurge in support for the 
economy-focused PLQ and a decided disinterest in another 
election. 
 
¶11. (U) Ironically, MaroisQ calls to renovate the party 
came the same day the Bouchard-Taylor Commission announced 
a two-month publishing delay of the report from March 31 to 
May 31.  Independent reports of the Bouchard-Taylor 
CommissionQs town hall meetings revealed very little 
contention (but much hype) and a great deal of community 
concurrence on the need for inter-ethnic tolerance. 
 
COMMENT:  WHAT THIS MEANS FOR CANADA 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶12. (C) Quebec Premier Jean Charest and his new budget 
should be the clear winner of this weekQs provincial party 
showdown, unless an unlikely and well-guarded alliance has 
been made between the Party Quebecois (PQ) and Action 
Democratique du Quebec (ADQ).  If CharestQs budget is as 
non-controversial as he insists, the ADQ would have no 
reason to join with the PQ and prompt an election where 
they would most likely lose official opposition party 
status to the PQ. 
 
¶13. (C) For Prime Minister Harper, CharestQs successful 
side-stepping of another election has reconfirmed his 
position as the 'go-to' man for Quebec.  As long as the 
province suffers economically, he will hold enough public 
support to keep his government intact.  Ironically, 
however, if Quebec can recover from a recent spate of bad 
press over poor health care, slow snow removal efforts, and 
other infrastructure related incompetence, the public might 
renew its interest in the PQQs fight to preserve Quebecois 
identity. 
MARSHALL