Election 2012 - A reporter’s notebook

By Ian Howarth, August 15th, 2012

The four West Island provincial ridings have traditionally voted Liberal over the years. In fact, the riding of Jacques-Cartier, with Geoffrey Kelly as the incumbent, has been Liberal since 1939, with the exception of 1989-’94 when the Equality Party’s Neil Cameron took the riding.
Along with Kelley (57-years-old), Robert-Baldwin’s Pierre Marsan (64) and Marquette’s Francois Ouimet (53), were elected in 1994, all going for a 5th consecutive term in office. In the riding of Nelligan, Yolande James enters her third provincial election at the tender age of 35. She won the Nelligan by-election in 2004, when Russ Williams stepped down from public life. At 71, Yvon Marcoux (Vaudreuil) is the oldest of the Liberal incumbents west of Lachine.
As of the dissolution of the Quebec National Assembly Aug.1, the Liberals held 64 seats, the PQ 47, the CAQ (after absorbing the ADQ party and 3 ex-PQ MNAs) 9 seats. Québec Solidaire and Option Québec hold two, with one vacant seat for a total of 125 seats up for grabs.
The Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), headed up by former PQ minister Francois Legault, enters the fray as a brand new political party having yet to run an election campaign with 9 seats already in place. Its logo is a rather psychedelically modified “Q.” With the unfortunate acronym CAQ, the abbreviation has become something of a running joke – in both French and English. Unlike those who affiliate themselves with the PQ as“Péquistes”, a CAQ devotee becomes a “caquiste,” hardly the same romance to it.
On the West Island at least, some parties have decided not to bother with campaignposters. With the exception of the Liberals and the CAQ, who have gone with a Francois Legault plus the candidate motif, the PQ, Quebec Solidaire and the Green Party, for example, have yet to post.
The Internet has provided some election campaign moments. Québec Solidaire, with a stridently indépendentiste platform, ran a video on YouTube which featured a beaver getting the boot. Point taken, the beaver presumably standing in for federalism. Option nationale leader Jean-Martin Aussant recorded a 25-second video in English inviting all Quebecers to help realize the province’s “full potential.” And the PQ has an officialcampaign song, “A nous de choisir,” enlisting some well-known Quebecois talent. The song sounds downright Olympic in its spirit. The Quebec Liberal Party’s TV ads began a week ago with themes like, “Which province do you want to live in?” and “Quebec’s 3 main priorities” being addressed. Pretty straight up political ads. The Liberal ad brain trust may have peaked before the campaign when in June they ran –without any voice over explanation – a video of an awkward looking Pauline Marois banging two pot lids together while participating in a student-led demonstration. The pot boiled over with reaction to that video.
Elections Quebec lists 20 different officially registered political parties in Quebec. Some like, the Equality Party are still on the books but no longer run candidates. Some new and exotic ones like the Quebec Democratic Revolution and Parti de la classe moyenne du Quebec (Quebec Middle Class Party) are on the bill and may offer up a few candidates. Old favourites like the Bloc pot and the Marxist-Leninists are still around.
Prospective candidates must be waiting for just the right moment to register with Elections Quebec. Their web site (as of Monday) shows some ridings with no candidates, some with just one. The only registered candidate in Nelligan (where Minister of Families Yolande James is the incumbent) is the CAQ’s Phillippe Boileau. The deadline is Saturday, August 18.n