Jean Charest was the future of the Tories in 1984 — and he could be again

National Post, 12 March 2022

The former Quebec premier's most powerful advantage is not about policies. It is about geography

Jean Charest’s bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada comes at a time both like and unlike his first run for Parliament in 1984. His prospects of becoming prime minister — he declares himself “built to win” — depends on whether things, on balance, are more the same or more different.

In 1984, Brian Mulroney was putting to the test the argument that he used to wrest the Progressive Conservative leadership away from Joe Clark.

Mulroney argued that Clark was not only unforgivably inept, having bungled his way to defeat after less than a year as prime minister, but that the PCs were facing impossible odds if they could not win seats in Quebec. His claim was bold; Mulroney as a native son could win there.

Out of 74 seats in Quebec, Pierre Trudeau took 56 in 1968 and 1972, 60 in 1974, 67 out of 75 in 1979, and 74 in 1980. In those five elections, the PCs won four seats in 1968 and steadily decreased their total until they won only a single seat in 1980.

Mulroney did not say exactly that Quebecers would not vote for a non-Quebecer, but everyone knew the history. In 1984, facing John Turner from Ontario and British Columbia, Mulroney was vindicated, taking 58 of Quebec’s 75 seats. The wave brought Charest to Ottawa as a 26-year-old MP.

Mulroney lost seats in his 1988 re-election, but still managed to increase his total in Quebec to 63 seats. He would observe that “chez nous” was a politically potent phrase in Quebec.

Will Quebecers only vote for one of their own?

In the past six federal elections the Conservatives, led by Stephen Harper (Alberta), Andrew Scheer (Saskatchewan) and Erin O’Toole (Ontario), have won only 10 or 12 seats in Quebec, save for 2011, when they got five.

Meanwhile, in the 10 elections from 1993 to 2021, the Liberals were led by Quebec MPs — Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, Stéphane Dion and Justin Trudeau — save for 2011, when Michael Ignatieff was the leader.

In all those elections the combined Liberal and Bloc Québécois (always led by a Quebecer) total was never less than 60 seats. The Liberal-Bloc total fell to 50 seats in 2015, when the NDP won 16 seats with their own leader from Quebec, Tom Mulcair.

The only anomaly in the past 10 elections was in 2011, when Harper won his only majority with just five seats in Quebec — less than the 12 seats he won in his 2015 loss. The NDP’s “orange wave” claimed 59 seats under Jack Layton, a Toronto MP, reducing the Liberals to third party status.

Layton was the only non-Quebec MP since John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson to win a majority of seats in Quebec — and they were contesting each other, not a Quebecer. In 1957, Diefenbaker won a minority but lost big in Quebec to Louis St. Laurent, 62 seats to nine.

Layton’s strong showing in 2011 was not against a Quebec leader, but against Harper and Ignatieff. Indeed, Layton was the federalist Quebecer in that election, born and raised in Hudson, Que., the son of a Quebec MP and the grandson of a minister in the Union Nationale cabinet of Maurice Duplessis.

Consider three facts since the Second World War:

Quebec has never given a majority — or even a plurality — of its seats to a party not led by a Quebecer (including Layton) if a Quebec leader was available.

No leader — Liberal or Conservative — has ever won a majority government in that time without at least 20 seats in Quebec, save for the 2011 Harper-Ignatieff-Layton anomaly.

Aside from the Diefenbaker sweep in 1958, no Conservative leader aside from Mulroney has won more than 14 seats in Quebec, and then it has usually been 10 or fewer.

Charest’s most powerful argument is not about principles or policies. It is about geography.

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