Only days after the NDP ripped up their de facto coalition agreement with the Trudeau government, the Bloc Québécois stepped forward to say that they would be happy to keep the Liberals in power … for the right price.
“There is an opportunity to get something out of this situation,” was how Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet described his intention to vote “no” on an upcoming confidence vote.
In Dear Diary, the National Post satirically re-imagines a week in the life of a newsmaker. This week, Tristin Hopper takes a journey inside the thoughts of Blanchet.
Monday
Put yourself in my shoes, Canada. You are the leader of a political organization whose singular goal is securing sovereign independence for the province of Quebec. You’ve spent your entire political career commuting to a large building in Ottawa that you wish you never had to go back to, except as a foreign diplomat. Day after day, you have to listen to endless debates about railroad strikes or grain exports or lentil production, when all you want to do is go back to Shawinigan, take a hot bath and try to forget that you’d ever sworn an oath to King Charles.
And then, one day, the leader of this country you don’t want to be a part of comes to you for a favour. And not just any leader; the rich kid son of the arch nemesis of your entire movement: The spawn of Pierre Elliot Trudeau himself is asking you, Mr. Chief Sovereigntist, what it would take for you to give him just a few more months at the helm. The question was never that we wouldn’t exploit the opportunity, it’s in whether we would be able conceal our hyper-salivation at the prospect.
Tuesday
Us Bloquistes are not unrealistic; we understand there are limits to what Trudeau, as the leader of a minority government, is capable of promising. So we’re not just going to burst out of the gate demanding something crazy like an independence referendum.
But here are the preliminary conditions: A Quebec Armed Forces. The restoration of the Quebec Nordiques and an official apology from Gary Bettman. A Quebec-only retirement age of 50. Several billion dollars all paid in loonies with Jacques Parizeau’s profile on them. McGill University demolished and its topsoil removed to Ontario for decontamination. Labrador.
We probably won’t get all of these, but it’s a starting point.
Wednesday
The most common reoccurring dream for any Bloquiste is the one where they sit down with a supplicant Government of Canada and outline their demands. Personally, it’s a dream I’ve had more often even than the one where I’m a Gatineau-area border guard intercepting a shipment of contraband religious garments.
So, I believe we all showed great restraint in not appearing triumphalist. We’ve requested that the first meeting with the Liberals be conducted in a special structure located half in Quebec territory, half in Canadian — the precise details of this have been reasonably left to their discretion. The structure need not be permanent, but the site will be marked in perpetuity with a 100-metre flagpole bearing the Quebec flag whose upkeep will be funded by the Government of Canada until such time as it can be assumed by a sovereign Quebec.
Thursday
I am not deaf to Canada’s concerns about the current government. Truth be told, I am frequently wracked with pity at the plight of English Canada. Whole landscapes of sexually repressed accountants named Mike. The endless handwringing about land acknowledgments or the gender neutrality of the national anthem. It’s all very sad.
So I understand that another 12 months of Justin Trudeau could well result in any number of new and more flamboyant scandals. Or, perhaps it will engender some new kind of super crime wave in which the bailed-out auto thieves team up with the fentanyl dealers and start stealing more valuable items such as quarries or Great Lakes freighters.
But again (and I can’t believe I have to keep telling people this) I don’t care. The whole point of the Bloc Québécois is not caring about Canada. It’s in our constitution. It’s scrawled in our bathroom stalls. It’s all we do all day.
Now it you don’t like having a few dozen self-interested separatists camped out in your national parliament all the time, we have a very effective solution for that that you all refuse to listen to.
Friday
I suddenly fear that I have overplayed my hand.
The Achilles heel of this whole plan was always going to be the NDP; we could only push so far until the Liberals grew weary of our demands and returned to their prior strategy of appeasing Jagmeet Singh. But if we have erred in our approach, it was only in underestimating how easy that is.
We had just submitted our outline for a gun and Anglophone registry when one of the Liberal delegation produced a cell phone and wordlessly dialled a number on speakerphone. “Hey, Jagmeet, it’s the PMO. What if we promised your party a preliminary working group to examine the possibility of an exploratory committee to establish a feasibility report on a guaranteed income … maybe?”
They hadn’t even finished before Singh chimed in, “Done. You’ll have our support in the next confidence vote.” The Liberals then stood up, smiled at us and said, “I guess we won’t be needing you after all.”
If only they’d made Singh prime minister. Quebec wouldn’t just be independent by now; he probably would have given us New Brunswick.