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Quebec Just Became Carney’s Latest Headache

The PQ’s return opens another front for a prime minister already managing a fractured country

The Parti Québécois won Quebec’s election. If you’ve been following provincial politics, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. However, one would be forgiven for being distracted. It’s been a year.

Back in December, I wrote a piece about the lack of attention being paid to the political situation in La Belle Province. Ten months later, not much has changed. A lot will probably be made about the PQ’s promise to hold a separation referendum sometime during their mandate. Referendums have a particular hold on everyone’s imagination. But like the Outaouais River, the undercurrent is the part one really has to look out for.

The current iteration of Ottawa rarely takes time to look up from its Western flank. There’s good reason for this: British Columbia’s political implosion has taken up a lot of oxygen. Danielle Smith’s referendum in Alberta is a foolish mess at a level Quebec would never stoop to. Much of the federal government’s national policies have been singularly fixated on the prime minister’s desire to maintain his home province within the federation. He’s been using his love language—major projects—to sweeten the deal, throwing billions of dollars in public subsidies at the problem in the hope that it generates enough goodwill for Albertans to resoundingly vote no.

I won’t attempt to analyze whether his approach will work in the long term. But I would like to issue a warning: the PQ won’t be bought off as easily. Though every province in Canada thinks it’s a special flower, Quebec has long-standing demands which, though occasionally grievance-driven, are fundamentally about culture and a long-standing political desire to be maîtres chez nous—masters in our own home.

Support for separation is low in Quebec, as anyone with access to Google likes to point out. But separation isn’t the whole story. The PQ is a sovereigntist party, which is different than just yay/nay to a separation referendum. It means that as long as we are part of the Canadian federation, the party will push for Quebec to be the sole decision maker over its internal affairs.

Think of it this way: a........

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