Quebec General Election 2012 (4th September)

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Uh, there was no QS candidate in Gatineau.

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Somebody in my family says that her home province is stupid, she'll be proved correct if they reelect the Mafia King St. John the Baptist.

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Somebody in my family says that her home province is stupid, she'll be proved correct if they reelect the Mafia King St. John the Baptist.

Is the Platitude King who destroyed our K-11 system any better? I think not.

I never insinuated or meant that, they all suck, but Johnny is probably the worst.

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Excellent. I still did far better than him. I should've known; partisan Liberals really overemphasized how well their party was going to fair.

Yeah, I predicted a PC minority until like the last 24 hours. I really overestimated our strength.

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There was a PCQ in the 1980s which, if I recall, had a few 'big names' but still did awfully. Besides, none of the fools in this new PCQ thingee are actually that well-known or relevant. Maybe if you could convince The Retard from Beauce to jump in, but short of something like that the PCQ won't go anywhere.

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QS winning more than two seats barring some phenomenal surge which seems quite unlikely, would be a massive upset and anybody who seriously thinks they could win more than 2 at this point is certainly delusional or a hack who should smell the coffee. I seriously doubt the QS vote will end up being 9-10% on election day anyway.

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Joliette,

lolololol

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when they have "winning conditions" nothing changes eh.

Separatists are horrendous.

Take it outside. The thread is mediocre enough as it is...

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If I was Quebecois, i'd vomit in the voting booth if my real choice was between QLP, PQ and the CAQ. Horrible party system, horrible.

(Of course, i'd hold my breath and vote QLP out of sheer hatred of separatist movements in places like Quebec.)

That's no reason to vote for the PLQ, which is an extremely corrupt outfit in cahoots with the worst personalities of Quebec's mafia of sorts, and whose tenure has oscillated between sheer incompetence, disgusting opportunistic posturing, lies and recently a total disregard for fundamental civil liberties. I fail to see one really positive thing which has come out of 9 years of Liberal governance.

I have little respect for anybody who can still vote for the PLQ after all this, regardless of Marois being an incompetent doofus and Legault being a moron. It's not like I disagree with your assessment of the choices, I certainly wouldn't be enthused about voting for any of the three parties (but I'd hold my nose and vote PQ, as the least-worst, despite being a federalist) but there's no excuse to support the PLQ, especially if you're left-of-centre. And, no, your weird and bizarre rabid hatred of "separatism" isn't even a remotely good excuse.

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Hey, can I have a quick overview of Quebec politics, and this year's election more specifically? I'm apparently distantly French-Canadian (from at least slightly before the Lower Canada Rebellion), so I'd like to know more about it.

My blog will eventually (before September 4) have a full preview/profile post with each party explained and stuff on the political culture, if you - and others - can wait a few weeks for a complete answer.

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The PLQ isn't remotely leftist in any sense of the word.

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I made the 1994 and 1998 maps, and I have stuff about boundaries since 1966 (but I haven't traced any base maps from them, because it seems really hard, but if somebody is a winner they should...)

And there's a reason why I use Wordpress, noob

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I dont know Smid, can you convert boundary descriptions into maps? I think that's what Hash has. 

No, no; I have the actual maps (but not in a way which is currently friendly to MS Paint editing).

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Quebec doesn't have community service hours requirements in high school? I didn't know that. 10 hours is a ridiculously tiny amount, though. Ontario has 40 (or was it 35?) hours required to graduate.

And Earl, while the maps are not individual riding maps but rather the lines for the entire province, they're on the Google Earth so a bit tougher to edit (and I don't have time for this kind of stuff).

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Debate was last night. As expected, all 3 major leaders proved that they were incompetent douches.

Most observers and even most politicians concede that David either won outright or had a very strong debate performance, for her first debate. She was relevant, focused, clear, concise and actually on topic. Even if I don't agree with her on everything, she clearly stood up for what she believed in. As far as I'm concerned, she's the only leader who didn't turn in a self-parody at all. I certainly hope that she'll win her own race, because she proved that she was a far more capable and intelligent leader than any of the other three. I mean, she actually answered questions with more than talking points and managed to stay on topic. She wasn't aggressive towards anybody, but still held her ground remarkably well.

Legault had a decent performance, and had a really straight-talking populist style, which, even if I personally hate this kind of persona in a politician, could probably appeal to certain voters. He was attacked many of being a flip-flopper (on independence) or unclear, but he managed to defend himself well. He got stuck into his talking points pretty often and turned into a self-parody pretty quickly as far as I'm concerned, as he rehashed lines like "we need to CLEAN UP" or getting a family doctor for every Quebecker. He was pretty funny and talked like everybody's slightly crazy old uncle. I guess he needs credit for a Giscardian line: "vous n'avez pas le monopole de l'amour du Quebec" to Marois.

Marois started off as a plastic figure or somebody trying to audition for a role in a drama production, but she had a fairly good debate on the whole, though it will probably not boost her standing. She held her ground, at least. She was weak on corruption issues, because Charest rehashed some old report about PQ corruption a lot and she didn't respond very well. Her message was generally clear, and steered clear of damaging attacks while throwing a few good jabs in Legault and Charest's way. Her ideas were still awful and she still acted like a plastic figure for a good part of the debate, sticking to old talking points/bullsh**t lines.

Charest had his usual smugness and arrogance throughout the debate. I don't think he lost the debate, but he didn't win it either. For a lot of the time, he took the appearance of the top student in the class who rehashed numbers about his record, even if the others attacked his record pretty well (especially Legault on the economy). He had a tendency to attack the PQ government from 9 years ago, which is ridiculous (even if some of his stuff, like PQ cuts in healthcare, had merit). His main shtick was certainly bringing up that old commission which found the PQ guilty of some corruption/illegal financing back when they were in power; I don't know if that'll stick. I think it can safely be said that this debate wasn't a game changer in a positive direction for him. He wasn't as talking point-ish as Legault or Marois, but still turned into a self-parody and used a good number of bullsh**t lines/talking points.

The result is that Quebec is still screwed whoever of the three dunces win.

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lol Forum

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No mention of today's Crop poll?

PQ 33%
CAQ 28%
PLQ 26%
QS 7%
ON 3%
PVQ 2%

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Why on earth would anyone from outside Quebec support the PLQ right now?

A special affection for the Italian mafia?

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308 reported polls in Gaspe and Bonaventure, the PQ are thumping the PLQ in the former and narrowly ahead in the latter.

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A pyrrhic victory for the PQ with less support than in 2008 with a leader who is marginally more popular than the worst Premier of the province in recent history is not a sign that the "separatism fire" has been reignited, and Marois' shenanigans on the issue and a little fight with Harpy won't change matters.

Anyhow, guys, as fun as the "Marois is a fascist/radical" game has been, Marois is a technocrat who has only been playing the Marine Le Pen/referendum cards to appease the hardliners in the PQ who, lest we forget, almost killed her last year. So even if the PQ's campaign has been disgusting and reminiscent of the FN in more than one way, I don't believe the horror stories and the panic.

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Anybody want a mibbit chat?

#quebec2012?

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Charest just announced his resignation as Liberal leader and retirement from public life. His resignation will take effect when Marois and her Cabinet are sworn in 10-15 days from now.

Who is likely to succeed charest as Quebec Liberal leader?

Depends who runs. I doubt anyone outside caucus. The strongest candidate would probably be the outgoing justice minister Jean-Marc Fournier, maybe outgoing finance minister Raymond Bachand (who's 65).  Given that there's another election as soon as Charbonneau does Marois' work for her and quite possibly giving her a majority... who knows?

Yves Bolduc has always kinda struck me as a guy who might go for the leadership in good circumstances. Is my uneducated impression correct?