Québécers are dissatisfied, and other news you've heard before

The possible return of Lucien Bouchard and rumours of a new political party are the latest evidence that Québec is unhappy.

Québecers are so dissatisfied with the provincial Liberals and Parti Québécois that a recent poll found 30 per cent of voters would support the formation of a new party offering a centre-right, federalist platform. Such a party likely won’t exist before the next election, but former Parti Québécois cabinet minister François Legault has floated the idea and it seems he’s gauged the political climate correctly.

The Globe and Mail’s Éric Grenier breaks down the poll’s numbers, and finds the existing parties have reason to be very worried. The new party would “help oust the Liberal government of Jean Charest, destroy the Action Démocratique du Québec, and radically change the landscape of provincial politics.” Only the PQ would have something to gain in the short term, as they’d likely win a minority government. But as with all polls, this one comes with a caveat: “As a party that does not yet exist can be everything to everyone, the results … need to be taken with a large grain of salt.” Large grains of salt can now be found here.

That a “no-name party, with no leader, no platform, and no founding convention in sight, is the most popular party in Quebec … tells you everything you need to know about the standing of the leading two brands,” writes the Montreal Gazette’s L. Ian MacDonald. Which is that thanks to Liberal corruption scandals and voters’ distaste for the PQ’s sovereignty platform, the leading two brands are about as popular as British Petroleum is in Louisiana these days.

To the Globe’s Lysiane Gagnon the new ‘third force’ looks like “ADQ redux.” The ADQ came second in the 2007 vote but was trounced in the next election. They too tried a federalist, centre-right approach but the crucial difference is that “Mr. Legault’s movement was born in Montreal and might eventually attract more high-profile personalities than the ADQ, whose scope was limited to eastern Quebec.” Don’t be alarmed, but those high-profile personalities are rumoured to include the boogey man of 1995 himself Lucien Bouchard.