Le Devoir is Québec's respectable sovereigntist-leaning newspaper, so it should come as no surprise that they've come out and endorsed the PQ in a signed editorial by Bernard Descôteaux. However, I cannot blame them. Caught between mini-Mulroney and Mario Dumont, I'd choose them too, if it weren't for the existence of Québec Solidaire, at least. However, interestingly, sovereignty isn't high on their agenda.
Le choix du Devoir - Le Parti québécois. Notre deuxième mise en garde a trait à la volonté clairement affirmée du Parti québécois de tenir un référendum sur la souveraineté du Québec. La transparence d'André Boisclair est appréciée. Personne ne pourra lui reprocher d'avoir caché son jeu, le cas échéant. S'il est appelé à former le prochain gouvernement lundi soir, il devra toutefois se demander s'il a la légitimité requise pour engager de nouveau un tel exercice. Ces élections se gagneront à la marge, nous indiquent les sondages d'opinion publique. Quel qu'il soit, le prochain gouvernement ne pourra pas se lancer dans n'importe quelle aventure, y compris dans l'aventure référendaire. Après une campagne éprouvante, le Québec aura d'abord besoin de refaire ses forces et son unité. L'indépendance, ne l'oublions pas, n'est pas une question de temps mais de volonté collective. Ce projet, s'il se réalise, doit être celui d'une forte majorité de Québécois.
This is at the very end of the article, and from what I've seen, that's pretty emblematic of the character of this particular election cycle. In the time of Lucien Bouchard and before, Québec elections seemed to be a regular epic battle between sovereigntists and federalists, but this time around it's a footnote on the campaign---an important footnote, but one among many other election promises. The battle is between a conservative party (the Québec Liberals), a kind of neoliberalish social-democratic party, the PQ, flanked by the ADQ and the nascent QS, which each seem to have a greater focus on political economy than nationalist politics, regardless of their stance on the National Question.
Still, interesting that Le Devoir resorts to the Winning Conditions logic that allowed Lucien Bouchard and company to stave off a referendum after their narrow mid-1990s defeat. I'm inclined to agree with the sovereigntists who feel that this is a self-defeating strategy---and one with which the Québec electorate is relatively comfortable, and Le Devoir knows it. Actually, I'm increasingly convinced that the tactic of putting many of their eggs in the Fiscal Imbalance basket was probably a mistake for the sovereignty movement in Québec, and its end result is this desiccated approach to the National Question that seems to be the case in this electoral cycle.
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