Justin Trudeau’s agenda last weekend came as a surprise. While the federal premier rarely holds a public event on weekends, he did attend an announcement and press conference on a beautiful sunny Sunday in August…which happened to be the day the Quebec general election was called.

Was he going to put his grain of salt in it? The fade of his comment, as if to answer this question: “I hope that all Quebecers live up to their responsibility to create a future that lives up to their dreams and hopes. – had to convince the skeptics that his entourage was telling the truth: it was just a fluke of timing.

Because indeed, Justin Trudeau will do whatever it takes to stay away from the Quebec election, which will always give him a bit of a headache…as does the other federal party leaders.

The main problem arises from the fact that in Quebec, as there is almost everywhere in Canada, there is no correspondence between federal and provincial education. (British Columbia is an exception, where the provincial Liberal Party is the emblem of the federal Conservatives there.) The federal-sovereignist fault line has long been responsible for this realignment of loyalties. Now that it has faded, it is the CAQ that muddies the waters by being a true coalition that welcomes people from all walks of life. Also, Quebecers’ political allegiances at the federal and provincial levels are not always consistent. There are plenty of examples again this year.

Christine Moore, who was elected to the House of Commons for the NDP in the 2011 orange wave and was one of the few re-elected in the following elections, is running this year for the Parti Québécois in the Ungava equestrian center. She will join Paul St-Pierre-Plamondon’s team alongside her former colleague Pierre Nantel, who was also elected to the NDP in 2011. However, Mr. Nantel was disfellowshipped shortly before the 2019 election for being too close to the Greens of Canada, the formation he eventually ran for. He is running again for the Parti Québécois in Marie-Victorin, where he bit the dust in the by-election this spring.

These two politicians therefore developed in Ottawa into strongly federalist and centralizing formations that did not hesitate to propose initiatives that fell under the jurisdiction of the provinces, and here they jump into the Quebec arena to defend the colors of a formation that is not only jealous of provincial prerogatives, but openly committed to making Quebec one country. No wonder Jagmeet Singh doesn’t want to comment!

Another example: the leader of the People’s Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier, publicly supported Eric Duhaime’s Conservative Party in Quebec, while the latter has been repeating to anyone who will listen that he has been voting for the Conservative Party of Canada ever since at least 2004. Richmond Assemblyman André Bachand, who is running again for the CAQ, was himself a progressive Conservative member at the federal level and even advised Stephen Harper for a time. In his new political house, André Bachand will have to step shoulder to shoulder on the federal stage with former advisers to the Bloc Québécois… and thus his opponents! Far from the mics in Ottawa, the Bloc Québécois will tell you that nearly 40% of its provincial scene voters are voting for the CAQ and that is why support for the PQ will be in relatively low mode. .

***

Despite a shared desire to remain discreet, as prime minister, Justin Trudeau will have less than other heads of state the luxury of staying away from the Quebec countryside. He will be questioned frequently, and his challenge will be to choose an answer.

Back on Monday, the PQ leader vowed to create a new entity that would compete with the Ottawa CRTC and force broadcasting platforms like Netflix to offer more French-language content.

François Legault wants to make health and identity two of his five priorities. But if you say health, you say growth in federal transfers. The provinces claim $28 billion more per year (+62%) and Quebec’s share would be $6 billion. Behind the scenes, the federal Liberals are signaling that they have no intention of granting such a sum. They feel that the provinces are looking at the problem backwards. In her opinion, before talking about money, you must first identify the goals to be achieved.

Already, CAQ’s commitment to forgoing $5.5 billion in revenue in the first year of the next mandate (i.e., $2 billion per year in tax cuts for four years and $3.5 billion of one-off checks promised to taxpayers for December), Ottawa’s position that it’s not all about money. Behind the scenes, there is ridicule that these shortfalls correspond exactly to the amount demanded by the federal government.

As for identity, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals may not have come out quite as they would have liked when they announced last spring that they would contest Bill 96 reforming the Language Charter. and Law 21 on Secularism (although no developments in the news compelled him to speak out). They hoped that by fanning out the news, their potential for controversy would be lost once the campaign got underway.

In Ottawa we are keen to prevent François Legault from making Justin Trudeau his main opponent. But strategy can fall short. If the two parties formed after the passage of Bill 96 – Balarama Holness’s Montreal Bloc and Colin Standish’s Canadian Party of Quebec – were ever able to bring Anglophone rights to the forefront, the CAQ leader would do so good to remember that eight Justin Trudeau MPs demonstrated against Bill 96 in the spring. The Canadian Prime Minister could then be in big trouble.