Make Quebec A Country,' New PQ Leader Péladeau Tells Delegates

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques BoissinotParti Quebecois newly elected leader Pierre-Karl Péladeau celebrates after the leadership vote results were announced in Quebec City Friday, May 15, 2015.

When Pierre Karl Péladeau last year raised his fist and declared his commitment to “make Quebec a country,” the gesture was seen as a miscue that scared voters away from the Parti Québécois in the spring election.

But the clenched fist was catnip to the separatist true believers who make up the PQ membership, and on Friday they elected the 53-year-old media magnate leader on the first ballot.

Disregarding warnings from within to be wary of a high-profile saviour, members voted 57.6% in favour of Péladeau during three days of Internet and telephone voting. Alexandre Cloutier, former intergovernmental affairs minister, was second with 29.2% and Martine Ouellet, former natural resources minister, was third with 13.2%.

Three other contenders — Jean-François Lisée, Bernard Drainville and Pierre Céré — had quit the race before the votes were cast, acknowledging they stood no chance against the Péladeau juggernaut.

While he is a fresh face in the PQ, Péladeau can hardly be seen to represent renewal. Running his campaign like the favourite he was, Péladeau offered little in the way of new ideas and instead fell back on the oldest belief in the separatist bible: independence will solve everything.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques BoissinotParti Quebecois leadership candidate Pierre-Karl Péladeau, right, arrives with his family, from the left, Romy, Marie, his wife Julie Snyder and son Thomas, May 15, 2015 to hear the vote results in Quebec City.

In a speech just before the results were announced in Quebec City, Péladeau recalled his political debut to applause and some raised fists from the crowd. He drew a standing ovation when he spoke of meeting men and women across Quebec during the leadership campaign “who believe, more than ever, that Quebec has to become a country. … How fortunate. I think the same thing!”

Later, in his victory speech, Péladeau focused almost exclusively on independence and even reached out to anglophones to join the cause.

“I want all to be part of this great and legitimate objective,” he said in English, a language rarely heard at PQ meetings.

In the April 7, 2014 election, the PQ share of the popular vote fell to 25%, its lowest score since its first election in 1970. It was Péladeau’s dramatic arrival in the campaign that allowed the Liberals to play on fears of another sovereignty referendum. But Péladeau’s analysis was that voters wanted to hear more, not less, talk of independence.

“They told us: ‘Do your work,’ ” Péladeau said when he declared his candidacy for the leadership. “You want to achieve sovereignty? Explain to us why.”

Never mind that peddling sovereignty is what the PQ has been doing since its creation. Under Péladeau, Quebecers are in for even more explaining. Among the few concrete promises in his platform — it never mentions health care, aside from one vague reference to controlling expenses — is the creation of what he called an Institute of Scientific and Applied Research on Quebec Independence.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques BoissinotParti Quebecois newly elected leader Pierre-Karl Péladeau speaks after the leadership vote results were announced in Quebec City Friday, May 15, 2015.

Despite the weighty name, the institute’s work will not be appearing in peer-reviewed journals anytime soon because these researchers are starting out with their findings spelled out for them. Their studies, Péladeau said, will “demonstrate the concrete advantages of independence, identify the losses caused by the Canadian regime [and] identify the federal jurisdictions that slow down or disadvantage Quebec in the federation … ”

Péladeau has not released his timetable for another referendum, but pressure from the membership will be high should the PQ win the next election in 2018. During the campaign, he said separatists have no time to waste. “We won’t have 25 years ahead of us to realize sovereignty,” he said in March. “With demographics, with immigration, it’s clear we lose a riding each year.”

Péladeau is in many ways a surprising choice to lead the party. Until his entry into politics, the former Quebecor chief executive was known as a hard-nosed capitalist. He showed no mercy to unions in his business empire and whose media outlets campaigned to expose Quebec’s shaky public finances.

Since he joined the left-leaning, union-friendly PQ, he has literally changed his tune. This week he spoke out in favour of locked-out car dealership mechanics, suggesting the government should intervene. He has accused the Liberals of taking “a chainsaw” to social programs as it balances the budget. And Maclean’s reported that at a campaign visit to a working-class tavern, he joined the crowd in singing the socialist anthem,L’internationale.