If governments can’t make good policies, they can at least delete bad ones
Premier François Legault knows populism — or at least, he did; or at least, he seemed to. He and his Coalition Avenir Québec party have successfully reoriented Quebec politics from a battle between separatists and federalists to a battle between tolerance for linguistic, religious and ethnic minorities, and the lack thereof. It has been remarkably successful: The Parti Québécois might well win the next election, and might well launch a third referendum. But even if it did, there’s no chance the Yes side would carry the day.
It’s all the more surprising because other Canadian premiers and would-be premiers seem to be in a populist sweet spot — even if it’s just a matter of undoing things other people did.
In hindsight, it seems completely bizarre that now-imperilled governments would have done these things to themselves. If the best case you can mount for making people’s lives slightly more difficult and inconvenient is “stop complaining and suck it up,” then defeat is the only place you’re likely headed, and rightly so.
That being the state of play, it’s entirely correct for governments to do what they can do to help us out — which in so many respects just means getting the hell out of our way. If they can’t make good policies, they can at least delete bad ones. In modern Canadian politics, sad to say, it’s about the most compelling thing going.
National Post