End of year review | Yves-François Blanchet pleads for quick elections

(Ottawa) Yves-François Blanchet is not giving up. The only possible way out of the crisis on the federal scene is the holding of general elections during the first months of 2025.

“For far too long, it’s been the Justin Trudeau Story », he observed in an interview, the day after the resignation of Minister Chrystia Freeland. She left her position as Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister on the same day she was due to present the government’s economic statement. The Prime Minister had announced to her that he intended to dismiss her subsequently.

These unexpected events have plunged the Trudeau government into an unprecedented crisis at a time when the threat of a trade war with the United States looms.

“It’s deplorable to have so little sense of state under the pretext of hanging on,” Mr. Blanchet disapproves. If you want to hang on, have an election. The liberals will be forced to rally behind you if they still want to have a chance of saving a few seats, and, in any case, its main candidates for succession do not want to be the sacrificed lamb. »

Instability reigned in the House of Commons all fall. At the beginning of September, the New Democratic Party (NDP) withdrew from the support agreement concluded with the Liberal Party two and a half years earlier. The Conservatives then attempted a few times to bring down the government when parliamentary work was not paralyzed.

The Bloc Québécois voted against two of their three motions of censure and preferred to use its only day of opposition to issue an ultimatum to the Liberals… without obtaining the expected results. The government turned its back on the Bloc bill to improve the Old Age Security pension from the age of 65 and the Senate has still not adopted the one to protect supply management.

“I found it irresponsible to only want an election without even trying to find something for retirees or something for agricultural producers,” recalls Mr. Blanchet, rejecting the idea that this tactic was a failure.

Does he regret today not having seized this opportunity to force elections to be held? “We know from the outset that the NDP will support the government,” he defends. But unlike us, the NDP has no conditions. »

Since then, New Democratic leader Jagmeet Singh has indicated that he will bring down the Liberal government as soon as he has the opportunity after the resumption of parliamentary work on January 27. And the future of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remains uncertain.

The fact remains that the Bloc Québécois’ political adversaries took advantage of this setback to rekindle questions about the party’s relevance.

“The Bloc gets nothing for Quebecers. What is the Block for? », asked Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, repeating the comments of Prime Minister François Legault made last winter. “Two symbols in Ottawa that serve no purpose,” underlined the NDP in a powerful advertisement where we see a photo of Mr. Blanchet next to that of King Charles. The Bloc has stopped “working for Quebecers,” said Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, Justin Trudeau’s lieutenant in Quebec.

“The bills that we talked about the most during the session were three Bloc Québécois bills on retirees, on supply management and on hate propaganda,” retorts Mr. Blanchet.

He also argues that his political party obtains between 30 and 35% in the polls compared to just over 20% for his two main opponents.

Montreal, “electoral battlefield”

Against all expectations, the Bloc Québécois made a breakthrough on the island of Montreal in September, dislodging the Liberal Party in its stronghold of LaSalle–Émard–Verdun after a three-way fight with the NDP. The Bloc Québécois intends to “be very present on the ground” to maintain this gain. Less than 300 votes separated its candidate Louis-Philippe Sauvé from the liberal Laura Palestini and around 650 votes from the new Democrat Craig Sauvé.

“Montreal is going to be an electoral battleground for the Bloc,” says the leader of the political party. He anticipates heated struggles in five constituencies in the metropolis.

The electoral projection site Canada338 gives the sovereignist party 45 seats in the next elections, or 13 more than in 2021. Columnist Andrew Coyne, from Globe and Mailalready predicted in October a crisis of national unity if the Bloc Québécois manages to form the official opposition against a conservative government.

How many seats does he expect to win in 2025? He is careful not to put forward a figure as he did in 2021. “It haunted me throughout the electoral campaign,” he recalls. He ventured to say 40 and ultimately had 32 deputies elected.

The Bloc Québécois focused a lot on defending seniors during the fall, it also wants to address the new generation in 2025. Work is underway on access to property for young families. It will also work to demonstrate the cost of inaction against climate change.

In the meantime, Mr. Blanchet focuses on the possible repercussions of Donald Trump’s second term as American president. The president-elect poses “an increased threat to aluminum, wood, manufactured products and much to supply management.” This could therefore hurt the economy of regions like Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean or even Centre-du-Québec where the Bloc Québécois will try to keep its seats.