Should we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Bloc Québécois?

On June 9, 2001, the members of the Bloc Québécois celebrated the 10th anniversary of their party in Sorel. The party was supposed to have a short life when it was created after the failure of the Meech Lake agreement. The founder, Lucien Bouchard, declared at that time that the success of the BQ would be measured by “the brevity of its existence.” The current leader of the BQ, Gilles Duceppe, has some difficulties when explaining the relevance of his party, but he has declared to Le Devoir that it was a question of democracy: “It is ten years of democracy for Quebec, because, before that, there was a democratic abdication” (June 9-10, 2001, p. A1).

There is a real existential problem for the BQ over these “democratic principles.” The party has continuously declined since its foundation because its leaders have never been courageous enough to face the fundamental problem of its relevance. In 1993, the BQ won 54 seats and became the Official Opposition in the federal Parliament under the firm direction of Mr. Bouchard. It lost 10 seats in 1997 under Mr. Duceppe and got 38 MPs in 2000 with less votes than the Liberal Party in Quebec (44 per cent vs. 40 per cent). Quebec journalists unanimously said that the last election campaign of the BQ was very well run, but it did not get the results expected because the party was not able to justify its existence. Why should we vote for a party that has no possibility of forming a government? A mediocre and careerist politician like Gilles Duceppe will always be happy to get a few seats, but the Quebec population becomes less and less satisfied with a farcical party eternally in the opposition.

There are two possibilities for this party: dissolution or integration into a broad anti-Liberal coalition. With the results of the last election (the BQ still got 40 per cent) and a vast and stable support from separatism, dissolution seems unlikely. With Mr. Duceppe as leader, it is impossible that the BQ would be part of an anti-Liberal coalition with the Canadian Alliance because he is too left-wing and subservient to the Parti Québécois. Mr. Duceppe, however, is not leader for life of the BQ. Many separatists are tired of his frailty, lack of charisma and Marxist rigidity (he was an active militant of the Communist Party of Canada until 1982).

Even among fervent separatists, his leftist and multicultural orthodoxy is strongly criticized. During the debate that recently shook the BQ over the nationalist manifesto of its youth wing (condemned as racist and outdated by the leader, but supported by BQ MP Ghislain Lebel), the nationalist militant Yves Michaud violently attacked Gilles Duceppe: “A wind of madness blows over the PQ and the BQ. It is beyond understanding that a former Maoist anti-nationalist, promoter of rootless, recycled-in-Ottawa politics, could become the objective ally of B’nai Brith soiling the memory of [Lionel] Groulx. Indecency has reached unacceptable limits” (Vigile.net, March 2, 2001).

It must be understood that the BQ cannot be dismissed as merely a leftist party: it has been a coalition since its founding by Conservative MPs (Lucien Bouchard, Nic Leblanc), Liberal MP Jean Lapierre and other nationalist militants. It is now dominated by leftists (Gilles Duceppe, Pierre P‰quette), but there are still some MPs who have common sense and who are hostile to this new leftist orthodoxy. Recently, debate over Bill C-23, about homosexual couples, exposed this diversity when 10 BQ MPs voted against it at the second reading and eight of them were absent for the vote at the final reading because the leader imposed a party line.