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This is the Life: Will a lesson be learned from B.C. and Quebec elections?

Maybe it’s just a sign of the times that voters can no longer be taken for granted, and maybe that’s not a bad thing...
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Lorne Eckersley is the publisher of the Creston Valley Advance.

We have the answer. Now what was the question?

Only a few months ago I expected to be writing an entirely different column after learning the outcome of a Quebec election called by Premier Pauline Marois specifically to give her Parti Québécois (PQ) a majority government.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye, was to be my message, perhaps not as tuneful as the von Trapp family version, but a heartfelt reversal of attitude after many decades of supporting Canadian unity and Quebec’s place in my own vision for Canada.

I am surely not alone in feeling that The Rest of Canada has done its fair share in making sure Quebecers feel at home within this huge and diverse confederation. Somehow I have managed to overlook my years of pathetic French classes, in which we endlessly repeated mind-numbing phrases about the activities of the dreaded M. and Mme. Thibault. I have come to terms with half of my cereal box being given over to a language that I never came close to mastering. Shouldering the cost for a Francophone to get government service in his own language, regardless of where he is in the country? Hey, it’s the least we can do.

And then the election results roll in and as quick as we can say Robert est ton oncle, Marois and her team have been given the derriere’s rush and a Liberal government is back in power, with Marois’ dreamed-of majority, no less. Eighteen months in the doghouse and a far from cleaned up bunch, not having had a real chance to rid itself of the cynicism and isolation that inevitably takes hold in long-governing parties, the Liberals are back in the driver’s seat.

Hard to imagine that Marois managed to effectively drive away the PQ’s soft support in such a short campaign. But Quebec voters were clearly turned off at the thought of another separatist campaign and vote. By contrast, the tired old Liberals emerged looking as young and fresh as Rocket Richard’s hair in the old Grecian Formula commercial that saw him being sent off to the penalty box. “Two minutes for looking so good,” he was told.

It’s hard to find any parallels with last year’s B.C. election, which also saw a massive and unpredicted collapse of the early campaign favourite. The BC NDP got spanked by voters for acting like they had already won, while Marois lost her job for wanting an even bigger mandate. Maybe it’s just a sign of the times that voters can no longer be taken for granted, and maybe that’s not a bad thing.

As the dust clears and the moving crews get to work, shuttling the PQ out and the Liberals back in, Quebec voters have to be wondering. Have they just rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic? Have they made a mistake in giving the Liberals a four-year reward, less for being what they aren’t than what they are? After all, even the resounding defeat of the PQ didn’t drive a wooden stake into the heart of separatists.

“We will never give up,” said one possible successor to Marois. Karl Peladeau was no less defiant, fresh from his own victory in an election that pushed Marois out not only from the premier’s office but from her own constituency.

“As I have said since last summer, I had the utmost confidence that Quebec voters would reject the negative, divisive politics of Ms. Marois’ proposed plan,” Justin Trudeau told the Globe and Mail (the same newspaper that erroneously reported two weeks ago that Creston is going to referendum on the daylight time issue — click here for the story). “I am proud that my fellow Quebecers have chosen unity and acceptance as we move forward together.”

Stephen Harper was equally relieved.

“The results clearly demonstrate that Quebecers have rejected the idea of a referendum and want a government that will be focused on the economy and job creation,” he said in a statement. “We look forward to working with the new government of Quebec on those priorities.”

It isn’t difficult to envision Harper, Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair calling meetings this morning to debrief on the election result. They will all be asking the same question: “What the heck just happened?”

Lorne Eckersley is the publisher of the Creston Valley Advance.