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Chris Selley: Quebec's doomed new premier can at least save her party from chauvinism

The tragedy of the party is that they replaced the federalism versus sovereignty feuding not with social peace, but with different kinds of feuding

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Christine Fréchette, who will be sworn in as premier of Quebec on Wednesday, is unlikely to hold that position in a year’s time. The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party, of which she won the leadership Sunday, is staggering around town at roughly 10 per cent in the polls. It would take a heck of a new-leader boost to save it, even without Canada’s least popular outgoing premier, François Legault, weighing the party down.

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You never know in Quebec. The Parti Québécois under Paul St-Pierre Plamondon (nicknamed PSPP) looks like the safe bet to win the next election, which has to occur by October. But his quixotic insistence on holding a third sovereignty referendum, when there is no realistic prospect of a “Yes” vote, is almost certainly more of a bug than a feature for the majority of voters. Indeed, PSPP has recently been accused of going a bit squishy on the timing of such a vote, as well he should, because it would be an appalling waste........

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