COMMENTARY: Rodriguez would be among rare federal transfers to Quebec premier’s office
Peter Black
peterblack@qctonline.com
As of this writing, speculation was at high fever pitch that federal Transport Minister and Montreal MP Pablo Rodriguez would seek the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party (QLP).
In the event he doesn’t, well, so much for that.
But, based on the integrity of the original report by Radio- Canada, and the subsequent evasive non-denials by Rodriguez himself, it would seem the appropriate people have been consulted and the decision has been made.
Should he jump in the race – with two-time defeated Montreal mayor Denis Coderre, little-known businessman Charles Milliard currently the only officially declared candidates (Editors’ note: Liberal activist, business consultant and son of former premier Jean Charest Antoine Dionne-Charest added himself to the list after the QCT print edition went to press)it’s safe to say Rodriguez would immediately and dramatically flip the script in the Quebec political scenario.
He would also spark debate and attacks focused on his provenance, notably his background as a member of Parliament since 2004 – losing once, in the 2011 Quebec Orange Wave – and a minister in Justin Trudeau’s government since 2015.
And here we embark on the worthwhile, although perhaps irrelevant, examination of the history of federal politicians making the leap – backwards, some might say – into the provincial ring.
Actually, the list is rather short of successful transplants from the Ottawa political gar- den to the Quebec environment. Indeed, in relatively recent memory we have the incredible case of John James “Jean” Charest, the pride of Sherbrooke, who, after coming within 187 votes of becoming prime minister of Canada in 1993, became leader of the QLP in 1998, and in 2003, premier of Quebec for the next nine years.
(We won’t dwell on Charest’s unsuccessful attempt two years ago to make a federal comeback as leader of the Stephen Harperized Conservative Party of Canada. Suffice it to say he joined the club of victims of Pierre Poilievre’s rhetorical venom.)
Charest’s case is unique in that he went from the federal Progressive Conservatives (PCs) – which he led for a short spell as a tiny rump party – to the provincial Liberals, who don’t share much DNA with Quebec’s small-c conservatives, most of whom now find themselves in the ranks of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) and the Parti Québécois.
The only post-Confederation leap from the federal Liberals to the leadership of the QLP would be that of Jean Lesage, the proclaimed father of the “Quiet Revolution,” whereby Quebec began an ambitious program of modernization after decades of “the Great Darkness” of Union Nationale (UN) premier Maurice Duplessis.
Back then, the federal and provincial Liberals were unabashed cousins, helping each other out with campaigns and candidates. Lesage, a protégé of soon-to-be prime minister Louis St. Laurent, was first elected in a Quebec City-area riding in 1945 and served in cabinet from 1953 until the Liberals fell to John Diefenbaker’s PCs in 1957, and again in 1958.
When Lesage decided to leave Ottawa, not a foolish choice given the enormity of Diefenbaker’s mandate at the time, there was no guarantee leading the provincial Liberals to power was going to be a piece of cake.
At the time, the QLP had only 20 seats to the UN’s 72. At least les Rouges had climbed out of the pit from the 1948 election that left them with only eight seats (despite winning 36 per cent of the popular vote).
But, as fate would have it, Duplessis died suddenly in September 1959, his successor Paul Sauvé followed suit barely six months later, and the UN found itself adrift and vulnerable under its third leader in the blink of an eye, Antonio Barrette.
Even at that, the Liberals under Lesage barely squeaked into power in the June 1960 election, winning 51 seats to the UN’s 43. Still, for someone who had spent the first 13 years of his political career in Ottawa, Lesage’s victory was a turning point in Quebec and Canadian history.
In the context of Ottawa- Quebec political transfers, we can’t ignore the sole instance of a Quebec premier flipping to the feds after he’d done his time leading the Quebec people. Lomer Gouin, a former mayor of Quebec City, served as Liberal premier for 15 years (1905-1920), then jumped to Mackenzie King’s federal Liberals where he was justice minister from 1921-24.
Gouin finished his career as lieutenant-governor and literally died in his office while signing documents into law in March 1929.
Will Pablo Rodriguez be the next in a very exclusive club of Quebec premiers with an Ottawa provenance? On verra.