Anglos, who cares about them?
Even the Journal is now noticing that anglos are one of the groups pushed aside in the election campaign, although I’ve seen it observed here and there that no party held out much of a hand to any ethnic community, in an effort to quietly compete for the “soft” nationalist swing vote.
(I have to admit that the PLQ incumbent in Laurier-Dorion, Gerry Sklavounos – where I live – kept up his regular tweets about visiting Sikh and Hindu temples and talking to immigrant groups of various kinds, in which tendency he’s more like a federal politician than a provincial one, but Mr. Sklavounos, you won’t get my vote till Jean Charest is no longer your chief, I hope you understand why.)
Quel Avenir takes a final look at what threehundredeight.com predicts for the island of Montreal and considers what tooclosetocall.ca says about several close races, including central Laurier-Dorion.
Kevin 13:15 on 2012/09/03 Permalink
Nobody knows what’s going to happen tomorrow night. I’ve seen projections of every kind and ridiculous swings based on 1 percentage point changes in voter intention.
The only guarantee: 2/3 of the population will have voted for a party that does not make up the government.
Have fun with that!
Jack 13:54 on 2012/09/03 Permalink
Your right that no party held out a hand to any ethnic community, that tells you a lot about the “soft’ nationalist vote that they were courting. Being welcoming and accepting of other communities is the exact opposite of what a nationalist ideology is. It is in fearing those communities that the most political traction can be gained.
In this election cycle no party went further that the PQ, this is the worst I have seen out of the PQ in many election cycles.The cynical way this strategy was concocted to make sure they were not outflanked on the identity issue will have long lasting consequences for their own party.Marois has been to Gouin 4 times to make sure Francoise David does not get elected, she know damn well that David diminishes Marois personally. This done by having a modern non ethnic political discourse that assumes that people are descent and welcoming, not frightened,small and xenophobic. Something really interesting could happen to Quebec politics if the QS manages to elect David and Khadr to the National Assembly and the PQ is justifiably scared.
Louis 14:15 on 2012/09/04 Permalink
100% with Jack here. Before the election, I was so fed up with the Liberals that I considered voting for the PQ, and I think their left-of-center general line would suit many Quebecers, a lot more than their 32-34% projected. But they crossed too many lines this time: the stupid idea of banning “religious” clothing from civil service, the even more stupid controversy about hallal meat, and now the language test for candidates and this weird mother tongue immigration policy. And I cannot believe they finally decided to talk about family housing on the island, only to language-wash this issue.