A few days after the resignation of his co-spokesperson Émilise Lessard-Therrien, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois gave a big kick to the Qsist hive.
During a landmark press briefing at the beginning of May, he affirmed that his party must now see itself as a “government party”. He encouraged him to be more “pragmatic”. The emergency? “Simplify” the program, become “agile”.
Breakup
This, he said, had been his position since he joined the party.
Actually no. Shortly after the CAQ election (December 9, 2018), in a video on QS social networks, he declared: “To think that the taking of power by a party necessarily involves a refocusing is an old way of understanding politics.”
His inspiration? These “political movements” which have “an assumed agenda of change”. Bernie Sanders in the United States; Podemos in Spain. According to GND they were approaching “power because they have proposals for rupture”.
Six years later, GND, grappling with a “leadership” crisis, played its part by proposing another kind of break. That of QS with its past.
To maintain that “from now on” we must demonstrate “pragmatism” and see ourselves as a government party implicitly amounts to saying that until now, QS has wanted neither one nor the other.
As a long-time Qsist activist, I would find this unflattering. When you found a political party, after all, you necessarily want to take power.
Not a “good risk”
Some saw it as a sort of “great risk” on the part of GND, in reference to what René Lévesque had attempted in September 1984: concluding a constitutional agreement repairing the 1982 coup.
This contrasts with the risk of the GND, which uses it as a diversion in order to impose its vision on its troops and maintain its position. In his letter published these days in the newspapers, we understand that he wants the left to “start winning its elections”.
With his risk, Lévesque wanted Quebec to win. GND, for its part, works for its interests and those of “the left”.
“Effective left”
The other break is observed in the vocabulary used by GND in this operation. He gives in a surprising managerial vulgate on his part: “Let’s prove that we will be able to deliver the goods.” All this recalls the “effective left”, a concept disputed by François Legault and Jean-François Lisée.
In the past, the left dreamed big, wanted to “change life”. The “effective left” of GND? “What are we dreaming of? Very down-to-earth things. Of houses and housing at a fair price, of salaries that pay the credit card, of good schools for our children, of a health system that treats us quickly and for free, of a dignified retirement for our parents. A little more time to live.”
We are a long way from QS, “starting from the streets”, which took up the slogans of 2012: “Demo every evening, until victory.” And even more of the witticisms of the French student movement of 1968: “Be realistic, ask for the impossible.”
