Paul Tuns
On Jan. 14, beleaguered Quebec Premier François Legault, 68, announced he would step down as premier and leader of the party he founded before a provincial election later this year.
Legault led the right-of-centre Coalition Avenir Quebec to two majority governments in 2018 and 2022. Seeking re-election four years ago, CAQ garnered 41 per cent of the vote, nearly as much as the Liberals, Parti Quebecois, and Quebec Solidaire combined, winning 90 of 125 seats.
But Legault and his party have sunk to third or fourth in most polls, and haven’t broken 20 per cent since last May.
Georges Buscemi, president of Campagne Quebec Vie, the Quebec arm of Campaign Life Coalition, told The Interim, “Premier Legault’s legacy on life, family, and religious freedom is profoundly negative,” explaining, “His government consistently weakened Quebec’s Christian heritage, undermined parental authority, and entrenched policies that erode respect for life.” He said the pro-life movement will “not miss him.”
Buscemi highlighted Bill 21, the government’s secularism bill, “which did not protect Quebec’s Christian identity but instead weakened it by turning the state against any visible religious influence” and “Rather than recognizing Christianity as a foundational element of Quebec’s history and culture, the government treated religion as a problem to be neutralized.”
He said Bill 21 and Bill 9, another secularism bill, “established a vision of Quebec that is deliberately disconnected from its spiritual roots.” Buscemi also condemned Legault for closing churches during COVID “while leaving liquor stores, cannabis outlets, and big-box stores open.”
Buscemi said that his government presided over a “cultural shift hostile to family and parental rights,” including the promotion of advanced request for euthanasia, the imposition of the Culture and Quebec Citizenship program with its “highly ideological sexual education content,” the marginalization of parents in education and a crackdown on homeschooling, and the facilitation of late-term abortion in the province.
Buscemi said that the Legault government failed to address the “civilizational crisis” in Quebec of below-replacement level birth rates, currently standing at 1.33 children per woman.
He also condemned Legault’s proposed Quebec constitution, tabled last October and seen by some as a desperate attempt to win back lost support. Buscemi said “the proposed Quebec Constitution represents the culmination of this trajectory” of secularism, abortion-on-demand, and euthanasia as “foundational principles” of Quebec, “would permanently lock into law policies that cut Quebec off from its roots (through secularism), cut it off from its future generations (through abortion) and cut it off from social solidarity (through euthanasia).”
Buscemi said, “This constitution does not protect Quebec. It sabotages it.”
Buscemi said now that Legault is resigning, the proposed constitution might have a better chance of passing because it will no longer be moored to the unpopular leader and that the justice minister responsible for it, Simon Jolin-Barrette, could replace Legault as CAQ leader and premier.
Buscemi said the situation is “not hopeless,” although pro-lifers must be realistic: “we are morally and spiritually right, but materially and politically weak,” and do not yet have the numbers to “expect electoral victories.” He said, “this is a mission field before it is a battlefield” and the task is “less to ‘win’ elections than to change what elections are about.”
He said pro-lifers in the province must force the issues of abortion, euthanasia, protection of the family, and the upholding of faith “as the soul of Quebec” into the election campaign.
Pro-life voters should support pro-life candidates, publicly question all candidates about these issues, and “redirect discussion” away from separation and federalism “toward moral survival.”
The CAQ will announce a new leader at its leadership convention on April 12.
The provincial election is slated for Oct. 5, although it may be called earlier.
