Commentary
Among my favourite unlikeliest of things is the reality of a Quebec election outcome proving Preston Manning correct.
In a late September Epoch Times column, the erstwhile Reform Party leader and current voice of political sanity argued eloquently that the political catch-alls “left, right, and centre” should be tossed from the lexicon tout de suite. As Manning put it pithily, applying the seating arrangements of the 18th century French governing assembly to 21st century ideological alignment makes less than no sense (allowing, for argument’s sake, that something can be less than nothing).
Exhibit C for Current: Premier François Legault’s party winning 89 seats in the 125-seat National Assembly on Oct. 3 and scooping up about 45 percent of the popular vote throughout the province except in the major metropolis of Montreal. And how did the Coalition Avenir Québec manage such a frontal assault on the ballot box? Why, by promising to take Quebecers back to the deep blue “right” conservatism of Maurice Duplessis’ Fortress Quebec statism that would leave today’s self-identified “left” authoritarians drooling with envy….