Pauline Marois, PEI and Manitoba

Amidst all the excitement surrounding the PQ leadership campaign, it dawned on me to check up on how our national newspaper has been covering the day-to-day politics of other Canadian provinces. Last fall, my Canadian Studies students were treated to a lesson on media bias and the impact of media concentration, as the New Brunswick election campaign slid completely under the radar for both the Globe and the National Post.

Did you know that two provinces are in the middle of election campaigns? Better tell the Globe! It's been a week since there was any mention of the Manitoba campaign. The PEI campaign hasn't merited a word since May 5th.

I recognize that the vast majority of the Globe's readers are concentrated in central Canada. But there really is something striking about the fact that the leadership race for what is currently the third-place party in the Quebec legislature is getting a lot more ink than the provincial election campaigns in two other provinces.

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And then there was one. Third time the charm for Marois

I don't think anyone would have predicted a week ago that Gilles Duceppe would essentially be forced out of the PQ leadership race due to an underwhelming level of support from the party. But it seems that this is the case, and that Pauline Marois' third run at the leadership of the party will be unopposed.

Never let anyone tell you that Quebec's politics aren't the most interesting in the country.

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So much for the triumphant coronation...

Interesting. I'm not entirely certain what to make of the fact that Pauline Marois has decided to run against Gilles Duceppe for the leadership of the Parti Québécois.

To read most of the press coverage to date, it is tempting to conclude that this is simply a matter of Duceppe not being overly popular among the PQ's elected MNAs, and perhaps being mistrusted as an "outsider" by PQ party militants.

However, I'll stick my neck out and offer another possible explanation. Earlier reports today had the Marois and Duceppe people feeling each other out. I'm going to suggest that they might have jointly decided that it would be better for the party (and the separatist movement) to have an active leadership race, featuring at least two high-profile candidates, than to simply hand the job to Duceppe, and thereby reinforce the perception that the PQ leadership is a job that nobody really wants. I'm by no means certain that this is the case, especially given the deeply rooted animosities within the PQ tent, but I'm in the mood for thinking outside the box on a Friday afternoon.

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Le Québec indépendant - Land of a million putsches

Watching the latest effort by a former PQ leader to undermine his successor, ably examined by La Presse's Michel Auger and André Pratte, I can't help but wonder what impression, if any, this makes when Quebec voters contemplate what an independent country led by these people would look like.

It must be nightmarish to think of André Boisclair's triumphant inauguration address, followed a week later by a Bernard Landry-led coup, only to be overthrown the next month by a putsch led by the Quebec armed forces sympathetic to Jacques Parizeau. Two weeks later, revolutionary militants led by Pauline Marois undertake a glorious revolution. All the while, more moderate forces are coalescing around Lucien Bouchard and Mario Dumont, undertaking covert talks with the Canadian government to see about re-entry prospects if they topple the government.

Watching the PQ leadership makes relations between Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien seem downright cordial.

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