(Texte français disponible ici)
A one-year-old baby was found in an encampment, and our politicians are discovering that homeless people include women, too.
Premier Christine Fréchette was visibly moved. “It breaks my heart. I’m a mother, first and foremost. I can’t believe it.”
I can. It isn’t even hard when you know that there are at least 12,000 homeless people in Quebec, nearly one-third of them women.
If even 1% of homeless women become pregnant, that still means a lot of babies. And that only accounts for visible homelessness, counted at a single point in time. Over the course of a year, the number is much higher.
Ms. Fréchette wanted to know more. “What are their profiles? Are there other children? We really need to get these children out of that environment. It is no place for children. Absolutely not.”
Those are all excellent questions for a cabinet minister to ask. As it happens, Ms. Fréchette has been one for the past four years. Perhaps she was too busy handing millions to companies that were about to go bankrupt.
Not to worry: Ms. Fréchette has already promised a summit on homelessness. In 2027.
Which reminds me of my childhood reading.
Ms. Fréchette also showed how well she knew the issue during Wednesday’s debate, when she claimed that her government had taken 4,000 people off the streets in 2024–25.
In reality, the homeless population grew by nearly 1,900 people between 2022 and 2025, bringing the current total to roughly 12,000. The real number may be two or three times higher.
As I explained here, homelessness is a choice we make as a society.
The Conservative Solution to Homelessness
“We have to condemn the fact that these encampments are springing up and make sure they are eliminated as quickly as possible throughout Quebec.”
– Éric Duhaime, leader of the Conservative Party, making the case for “compassion”
$20 Bills Hidden Inside a CAQ Candidate’s Giveaways
It sounds like a parody, but that is the actual headline. I cannot top this.
MNA Louis-Charles Thouin raffled off door prizes at a bingo, including CAQ-branded caps and shirts.
That was already tacky enough, but Mr. Thouin decided to hide $10 and $20 bills inside the “gifts.”
Mr. Thouin had already been investigated by the National Assembly’s Ethics Commissioner for inviting mayors to meet the deputy premier in exchange for a $100 contribution to the CAQ.
He had previously been the subject of another investigation by the Ethics Commissioner, this time over an apparent conflict of interest.
When he was mayor of Saint-Calixte, Mr. Thouin awarded an animal-control contract to an organization he had co-founded and whose executive director was his spouse, after cancelling a contract with a competing company.
He also awarded grants to businesses managed by his daughter-in-law.
Among other things. The full list is available here.
Christine Fréchette, leader of Team Christine Fréchette, reiterated her confidence in Louis-Charles Thouin.
The Conservatative Controverservative Conservative Party and Spelling
On Substack, people read a lot and comment very little. On other social media platforms, the opposite is true.
My posts often get a reaction, particularly on Facebook. I can generally spot people’s political allegiances fairly quickly.
PQ supporters react whenever someone criticizes the PQ;
CAQ supporters react whenever someone criticizes the CAQ;
QS supporters react whenever someone mentions private health care;
Liberal supporters do not react when someone criticizes the QLP because they also think their party is terrible;
QCP supporters make a lot of spelling mistakes.
Which brings me to Éric Duhaime’s news conference today, held in part to cut red tape for our “agriculturers.”
🙄
It is still fascinating to imagine how many people must have read “AGRICULTUREURS,” roughly the French equivalent of “AGRICULTURERS,” in giant capital letters before it went to print without ever noticing the problem.
Without meaning to, Mr. Duhaime’s party also highlighted the importance of Quebec’s school dropout problem, as well as another kind of culture, the kind that does not usually grow in a field.
Which reminds me that the gentleman on the right, Frédéric Poulin, a QCP candidate on Quebec City’s South Shore, once declared himself “125% in favour” of Canada being annexed by the United States. Another fine example of an “agriculturer.”
This is not the first time the Conservatives have mangled our language.
(In French, trafic takes only one f, and circulation is the better term. In this particular case, congestion would be better still.)
Roughly half of Quebecers struggle to read and understand long texts, like the one you are reading right now.
For a long time, I have wondered, from a purely statistical standpoint and with absolutely no ulterior motive, what that proportion might be among Conservative Party supporters.
Now I have another question: what is it among the people who work for the Conservative Party?
In the Land of Orange Unicorns
Québec solidaire still hopes to form the government on October 5. “We believe in our chances,” said Sol Zanetti, who is hoping for an “orange wave” like the one that swept through Quebec under Jack Layton’s NDP in 2011.
The NDP became the Official Opposition for the first time in its history that year after winning 103 seats, including 59 in Quebec.
That makes sense. QS’s slogan is “It’s possible,” not “It’s probable.”
It is possible that the Nordiques will return to Quebec City. It is possible that one day we will miss François Legault. It is possible that I will finish my article at a reasonable hour.
Still, a quick clarification before I continue.
Dear Sol,
You are not Jack Layton.
Best,
Patrick
Here is where the races stand.
Québec solidaire can still matter. But it will not form the government.
I know that QS’s co-spokespeople and candidates are convinced they would do a good job. Perhaps they are right, but most Quebecers simply cannot picture Québec solidaire in government.
I know, I know: the other parties have hardly spoiled us. But they are better at looking as though they know how to count. And Quebecers see them as less likely to slap a 15% surtax on their next car, or tax 100% of the gains on their retirement investments.
On the other hand, I am convinced that many more Quebecers would welcome a party that served as the National Assembly’s social conscience, knew when outrage was warranted, and pushed public policy toward greater compassion. We are missing that.
Québec solidaire is also the only party talking about the environment. For that reason alone, it deserves enough representation to have some influence.
The election is in 18 days. Time is running out.
Instead of pretending it can accomplish something no one believes it can, Québec solidaire might want to adopt a more honest and open strategy, similar to the Conservative Party’s.
Éric Duhaime freely admits that his party has no chance of forming the government. He is there to pull every other party to the right, and he is succeeding. Even without a single MNA, Duhaime has had a lasting influence on CAQ policy and pushed the Parti Québécois sharply to the right. Imagine what the QCP could do if it held the balance of power.
Québec solidaire should rally its activists around that goal.
QS faces two choices: try to influence the government and achieve some of its objectives, or go all in and lose everything.
Knowing the party, I suspect it will choose the second option.
Baloney of the Week
“People at hospitals have spoken to me in confidence (…) that in some hospitals, nearly 20% of operating rooms are reserved for asylum seekers.”
– Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, in an interview with Rebel News last April
“I caught a fish this big!”
Here are the numbers:
Asylum seekers as a proportion of Quebec’s population: 2%, or 190,000 out of nine million;
Quebecers aged 65 and older as a proportion of the population: 21%;
People aged 65 and older as a share of patients hospitalized or undergoing day surgery: roughly 46%;
Asylum seekers in Quebec aged 60 and older: 4%, or fewer than 10,000;
Number of surgeries performed in Quebec each year: roughly 450,000;
Probability that the statistic cited by PSPP is true: close to zero;
Number of times he has repeated the statistic outside Rebel News: zero;
Probability that it was baloney aimed at Rebel News’s conspiracy-adjacent audience: nearly 100%.
Our future premier is a liar. We can console ourselves with the thought that this at least offers some continuity with his two predecessors.
Quote via Alexandre Dumas. I added or adjusted some of the figures.
The QLP’s Communications Strategy
Are you familiar with the mudslinging strategy?
Some sociopaths political strategists consider it important to “define the opponent,” usually by saddling them with childish nicknames built around cheap puns, then delivering those nicknames theatrically and with contempt.
One variation is to stick a rival party’s label, such as “CAQ,” onto everything in sight and say it as though you had just bitten into a lemon.
For example: a “CAQ tunnel,” because everyone knows that a “Liberal tunnel” is much easier to sell. CAQ budget. CAQ government.
Or, better yet, take one rival party’s label and stick it onto a politician from another party. You might, for example, accuse François Legault of being a “PQ man” and talk about his “PQ side coming out.” The QLP dit that.
Better still, combine the labels of two rival parties and contrast a dreadful “PQ-CAQ constitution” with a marvellous “Liberal constitution.”
Marc Tanguay, MNA for LaFontaine and two-time interim Liberal leader, is a master of the form. (He is also a frequent unwitting guest on Infoman.)
It may sound ridiculous, but this is a genuine QLP communications strategy. I see it constantly, and from now on, you will too.
I had been meaning to write about it for a while, and we got a perfect example this week at a Liberal Party news conference held in the wake of yet another health care IT disaster.
“I’ve really had enough. We’ve all had it up to here with the CAQ’s financial scandals.” (…) “Now we have a* Christine Fréchette-branded CAQ scandal.”
“We” (you, me, all of us) have “had it up to here”: we are angry together.
“The CAQ’s financial scandals”: “financial scandals” is placed right next to “CAQ.”
“Christine Fréchette-branded CAQ scandal”: the same association is hammered home one more time.
And just like that, the opponent has been “defined.”
The same goes for a message posted on X that day. Prepare to be inspired as never before.
“Enough is enough! We urgently need a change of government. We urgently need to take away their chequebook. We urgently need to take control of our finances out of their hands.
We thought the CAQ government would have learned from its terrible mistakes after the SAAQclic fiasco...
But no. Same story: alarm bells, warnings ignored, and a government charging ahead blindly.
Once again, Christine Fréchette and her CAQ government ignored warnings from public servants and accounting firms.
The result: a project initially valued at $96 million now costs $1 billion.”
It opens with manufactured outrage and the “urgent” need to change the government. The CAQ label appears once. Then it appears a second time, now linked to the premier. Add a few more rhetorical devices straight out of a 1950s stump speech.
Aside from the fact that it sounds as though it was generated by the free version of ChatGPT, I struggle to imagine how QLP strategists think this will generate any enthusiasm for their leader or their party.
What in this message demonstrates the QLP’s advantage over its opponents?
Polls have shown for nearly three years that Quebecers want a change of government, yet the QLP has never benefited.
So allow me to offer Liberal Party strategists an observation, followed by a question.
The observation: Here are your voting-intention numbers among francophones, the voters the QLP needs to win over and the audience those messages were meant to reach.
Source: Qc125.com
The question is: Do QLP strategists really think they can win voters over by disparaging parties those voters prefer?
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My name is Patrick Déry. I’m a French-speaking Québécois writing for a living, and trying something different here. If you enjoyed reading this text, you can support me by buying me a coffee. You can also subscribe to this media (free or paid, your choice).
Comments, shares, and “likes” are always appreciated. It also helps the Substack algorithm notice me, so don’t be shy!
Bon travail, comme d'habitude... Mais pas d'images générées par IA, svp!
Merci Patrick de vos textes. Bon éclairage sur le débat actuel.
Claude Levasseur, immigrant de 14 ème génération.