Montreal vs ROQ: Homophobia in the Quebec Election

Last week, it was his cocaine use, this week, it's his homosexuality. Sadly, the issue that I predicted would dog André Boisclair on the campaign trail has indeed come up, raised by a shock-jock radio host in the Saguenay, where another openly gay candidate, Sylvain Gaudreault, is running for the PQ in Jonquière.

For a campaign which started off nasty, things just seem to be getting worse and worse, and the main beneficiary of the turmoil appears to be the ADQ, which is making huge gains in Quebec City and the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region, if you believe the polls.

My read on this isn't that it's the fact that Boisclair is gay that is the central issue. As Chantal Hébert has pointed out in her new book French Kiss, which I started devouring last night, it's the fact that Boisclair is so emblematic of urban Montreal, and by extension, so appears the PQ. As we saw in the last federal election, Canadian politics appears to increasingly be reflecting a split in political (and social) values along urban-rural lines. In Quebec, this is why we see the issues of multiculturalism (or interculturalism, as it's called there), and sexuality being used as wedge issues.

Progressive Canadians should be very concerned about this trend. Rural and small-town Canada is better represented in the legislatures on a per-capita basis than the cities are, and those discontented voices will be able to flex their muscle if a) we leave the distribution of seats as it currently stands, and b) more effort isn't made to spread progressive values in smaller communities.

Recommend this Post

When in doubt, strike a commission

Facing a scandal in Hérouxville and studies which claim that the majority of Quebeckers are at least somewhat racist (although the methodology of these polls are suspect), Quebec Premier Jean Charest has opted to follow a glorious Canadian tradition and strike a commission to resolve the debate over how to integrate minorities into Quebec society.

Charest's selection of commission co-chairs makes it evident that he's not seeking radical new proposals. Gérard Bouchard, a sociologist and historian at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, and Charles Taylor, a philosophy professor at McGill (and former NDP candidate), are both outspoken proponents of the collectivist approach to identity that has long been followed by successive Quebec governments. Essentially, Jean Charest is paying these two leading intellectuals to go across the province, hold hearings, and then slightly rephrase their existing published works in a nice report in a year's time.

The Bouchard-Taylor Commission may diffuse the issue for a while, as commissions are expected to do. However, to make a big deal out of the commission being non-partisan ducks the main issue. It is ideologically and intellectually one-sided, and will not produce a report that calls for any substantial revision of Quebec's policies to give greater latitude to individual rights or pluralism. I have little doubt that the report will be well-written and intellectually rigorous. But if you want a preview of the outcome, you could read La nation au singulier et au pluriel, Reconciling the Solitudes: Essays on Canadian Federalism and Nationalism, and Multiculturalism and The Politics of Recognition for a pretty good overview of what that commission will say.

Recommend this Post