For a change, we’re going to hand out a few flowers before taking some potshots.
Don’t worry, it won’t take too long. I’m well aware that you’re not here to hear me sing our politicians’ praises. Still, we have to acknowledge good ideas if we don’t want to become cynical. Or simply unpleasant. I’d like to avoid that.
Today, we have three very good public policy ideas. That gives me hope.
Québec solidaire wants a universal school lunch program
It’s common sense, and Canada, including Quebec, is an outlier among Western countries. Yes, it would mean providing lunch to children whose families can afford it. But for the children who need it, the harm caused by doing nothing (and, conversely, the benefit of providing lunch) is so great that a universal program is necessary.
This is why we need Québec solidaire: to serve as the social conscience of other parties that are too often caught up in electoral calculations.
I hope the other parties pick this one up. I have only one request, since bad bureaucratic instincts can easily derail this kind of program: let’s be creative about keeping costs reasonable. It can be done.
The CAQ wants to invest $400 million in worker retraining
Some 25,000 workers would be able to retrain. The estimate seems to have been done on the back of an envelope and on the lower side ($400 million for 25,000 workers works out to $16,000 per worker), but the principle is excellent.
I would go further.
The federal Employment Insurance program, created in an era when people worked for the same employer their entire lives, no longer works. It discourages people from pursuing training while unemployed because claimants can be penalized for being unavailable for work. This pushes them to take the first job that comes along, diminishing the value of the human capital the program is supposed to protect.
Education and vocational training already fall under provincial jurisdiction. Employment Insurance should be aligned with them. A sensible “nationalist” demand? Imagine that!
My dream would be to offer up to two years of Employment Insurance benefits, enhanced for people enrolled in training, thereby transforming our entire approach to career transitions.
In the 21st century, in an economy that is changing quickly and unpredictably, keeping our workforce (that means us!) skilled and productive should be a public policy priority. Our programs should be designed around the idea that having several distinct phases over the course of a career is perfectly normal.
Charles Milliard wants more remote work for public servants
A Liberal government would scrap the requirement that public servants be in the office three days a week.
For those who missed that episode, the government has not enough office space for its employees since increasing the requirement from two to three days a week. Then there is “tele-presenteeism”: commuting to the office only to attend virtual meetings with colleagues. Utter nonsense, all because Cruella Minister France-Élaine Duranceau wants public servants to spend a little more time at the office.
Charles Milliard therefore wants to end the one-size-fits-all policy and have in-office requirements determined on a case-by-case basis.
I would go further.
The government should promote full-time remote work wherever possible, lead by example, and encourage other employers to follow suit. Perhaps retain one day a week in the office, although even that depends on the field and the nature of the work.
It would reduce congestion and pollution, ease the sardine-can conditions on public transit at rush hour, give people more time for themselves, their families, and sleep, and, most importantly, make employees happier.
No serious study has shown that remote work has a consistent effect on productivity. There are all sorts of ways to ensure that a reasonable level of productivity is maintained, and our experience since the pandemic speaks for itself.
Beyond that, we all have our personal preferences, and that’s fine. But for those who are comfortable with remote work and whose jobs allow it, I just want to say: “Because it’s 2026.”
That makes three flowers. Enough for today. Ready for the potshots?
PSPP wants Quebec’s “fair share” of a high-speed rail project that cannot exist without Quebec
The CAQ, the Quebec Liberal Party, and Québec solidaire support the proposed high-speed rail line between Quebec City and Toronto.
The Quebec Conservative Party opposes it, although there is at least a certain intellectual consistency between that stance, its opposition to the tramway in Québec City, and its leader’s rhetoric. He regularly denounces the “war on cars” and generally couldn’t care less about public transit. My car, my choice.
As for the Parti Québécois, one gets the impression that this is less about opposing high-speed rail than opposing anything that comes from Ottawa. In June, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon blew a gasket over the “Canadian unity train,” as though he were being asked to swear allegiance to the statue of John A. Macdonald.
It caught everyone by surprise, including members of his own caucus. Here, incidentally, is what Joël Arseneau, the Parti Québécois MNA for Îles-de-la-Madeleine, had to say about the high-speed rail project in February 2025. And yes, the estimated cost was already known at the time.
Look how delighted he is to talk about high-speed rail. Everyone loves trains. Well, almost everyone.
There are good reasons to oppose high-speed rail. Some people advocate high-frequency rail instead, which could accomplish much of the same thing at a fraction of the cost. I’ll have an opportunity to come back to that.
But the “Canadian” nature of the project is not a good reason. Trains connect different countries throughout Europe, and you can travel by train from Montreal to New York.
I’m pretty sure PSPP is not thinking of severing rail and air links with the rest of Canada if Quebec became independent. (Right?)
On Thursday, in addition to opposing the high-speed rail project, PSPP once again demanded Quebec’s “fair share,” roughly $40 billion, since a Parti Québécois government would withdraw from the project.
Would you like fries with that?
Without Quebec, there would be no high-speed rail project. Because most of the stations would be located in Quebec, including Montreal, the project’s largest potential passenger market after Toronto.
Let’s summarize the method:
Complain that federalism does not generate enough benefits for Quebec.
Watch an Everest of federal investment and economic spinoffs materialize in Quebec.
Realize that federalism can work, undermining one’s (political) reason for being.
Experience cognitive dissonance and start climbing the walls.
Promise to torpedo the project.
Demand the “fair share” of a project that no longer has any reason to exist.
For context, the same sort of intellectual contortion led the Parti Québécois leader to condemn as “federal interference” Ottawa’s financial role in securing the Churchill Falls agreement between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador, along with the federal contracts awarded to the Davie shipyard in Lévis and the Alstom plant in La Pocatière.
As my grandmother used to say, some people are never happy.
The CAQ doesn’t like journalists asking questions
While visiting the Saguenay, Team-Christine-Fréchette-Coalition-Avenir-Québec (I can’t wait to see what that looks like on the ballot) added a media scrum to its schedule.
The two reporters accompanying her across Quebec, from La Presse and Radio-Canada, did not get to ask any questions because the sociopaths on Ms. Fréchette’s communications team decided that the outgoing premier would take questions only from local reporters.
Move along, Montrealers. Nothing to see here.
Why? Because it is easier to control the message that way. Local reporters tend to ask about local issues, and those answers are then reported by local media.
By contrast, those damned national media outlets are always trying to put candidates on the spot with awkward questions that can generate unwelcome headlines and make life harder for spin doctors. Which brings us to…
Christine Fréchette, non-practising sovereigntist
The leader of Team Christine Fréchette was pressed by reporters who tried to make her either acknowledge or deny her inner sovereigntism.
It’s amusing on several levels.
First, Ms. Fréchette served as an adviser to Jean-François Lisée, a former Parti Québécois leader, when Lisée was a minister in Pauline Marois’s government. That gives us a pretty good idea.
Second, it shouldn’t even matter. The idea behind the CO-A-LI-TI-ON Avenir Québec was to establish a kind of truce between federalists and sovereigntists, allowing the two camps to join forces to take power move Quebec forward. Bernard Drainville, the outgoing Pork barrel politics Economy minister, is a sovereigntist. So is Mathieu Lacombe, the outgoing culture minister. And then there is, of course, the CAQ’s founder and former leader, François Legault.
Nobody believed that François Legault had fundamentally become a federalist, even though, after several torture sessions being asked the question repeatedly, he eventually managed to whisper the words. Deep down, Mr. Legault is surely still a sovereigntist, but he tried something else after concluding that sovereignty was going nowhere.
There is nothing shameful about that. René Lévesque himself showed some openness to the Beau Risque, the “beautiful risk” offered by Brian Mulroney: formally bringing Quebec back into the Canadian constitutional fold “with honour and enthusiasm.” Sovereignty was not necessarily an end in itself, but a means. What if Canada could meet Quebec’s legitimate aspirations?
Ms. Fréchette probably stands in much the same place politically as Mr. Legault (and is every bit as interested in power as her predecessor was). She could openly describe herself as a non-practising sovereigntist. That is essentially what her series of non-answers amounted to.
“My personal position doesn’t matter.”
“I’m in a position where this is not the time to start that process.”
“That is not a relevant consideration.”
“We are a coalition, and we are convinced that this is the worst possible time to launch a referendum process.”
At least nobody can accuse her of lying. But at this point, she might as well admit it.
Late that afternoon, Ms. Fréchette explained in a campaign video that she had “evolved,” before serving up a salad of clichés.
I still give her an eight out of ten. You be the judge.
“Shame” and purity
Charles Milliard, meanwhile, says it is “shameful” that Ms. Fréchette is unable to state a clear position.
Tsk. Such strong language. That delightful old strategy of “defining your opponent.” Or, if you prefer, throwing enough mud and hoping some of it sticks.
I have a question for Mr. Milliard.
Is it “shameful” that his party recruited influencer and public educator Farnell Morisset, who said he was “comfortable” with considering independence if the federal government failed to meet Quebec’s demands?
There are undoubtedly many Quebecers who, like Ms. Fréchette and Mr. Morisset, are neither completely federalist nor completely sovereigntist. It’s more Yvon Deschamps than Elvis Gratton.
Demanding ideological purity is easy within a political movement. Mr. Milliard should remember that he claims to want to lead all Quebecers, whatever their political leanings.
Given the QLP’s current level of support, it probably wouldn’t hurt the party if sovereigntists who do not want a referendum felt there might be room for them, too.
Quote of the day on temporary immigrants
“We need these people, so we want them to stay. […] Everyone who is working right now and helping Quebec weather the current economic crisis, we want them to stay.”
—Charles Milliard, leader of the QLP, speaking about temporary immigrants currently living in Quebec.
If I were the Liberal leader, I would campaign on that every day, everywhere, for the rest of the campaign.
Because it is a fundamental issue in an aging society that needs more and more services of every kind, but lacks the workers to provide them.
And because the way we have treated many of these people in recent years is truly shameful.
Well, I added a fourth flower. Don’t get used to it.
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My name is Patrick Déry. I write for a living, and I am trying something different here. If you enjoyed reading this piece, you can support me by buying me a coffee. You can also subscribe to this publication (for free or as a paid subscriber; the choice is yours).
I remember during the first PQ government in the late 1970s. I was a student at McGill and some minister (my gut tells me thst it was Bernard Landry) gave a speech or presentation. I had voted PQ (it was time to end the Bourassa government) and I got to ask a question.
I pointed out that I had been born in Montréal, that my dad was from Sillery, and his mom from Beauport and that I knew about her grandfather (from Québec city). I'd gone to high school in Trois Rivières, but that my primary language was English because my mother never picked up French. The question was in anglophone french.
I asked if he considered me "québécois".
He started nicely. Talking about how I was part of the mosaïque des peuples québécois.
But eventually, his answer ended up contrasting me (and people like me) with québécois. It was subtle, but definitely obvious.
I got my answer. My guess is that he was proud of his answer and felt that I should be going away happy.