Twenty years ago, Progressive Conservative leader Brian Mulroney won his second straight majority government in large part by winning 63 of the 75 seats in his home province of Quebec. Those 63 seats represented more than one third of the PCs' total seat count for the 1988 election.
We remember what happened after that. By the time of the next federal election in 1993, Mulroney had left office with record-low popularity numbers, the PC vote collapsed, and the sovereignist Bloc Québecois - formed out of the ashes of Mulroney's failed constitutional gambits - began its long domination of Quebec federal politics, which has continued through five election campaigns:
Under Jean Chrétien, the federal Liberals slowly improved their lot in Quebec over three elections, eating away at Bloc support. But the Liberal vote collapsed in the wake of the sponsorship scandal, tumbling to levels not seen since the Mulroney years.
In the meantime, Stephen Harper's Conservatives broke through with ten Quebec seats in the 2006 election. Over the past 2.5 years of minority government, Harper made steady gains in Quebec polls at the expense of the Bloc.
At the beginning of the current campaign, many commentators - including moi-meme - were pointing out how the road to a potential Conservative majority ran through La Belle Province.
Now? Not so much.
The latest polls show the Bloc poised to once again win the bulk of Quebec federal seats, the Liberals fighting with the NDP and Bloc to maintain their strongholds on the Island of Montreal, and the Conservatives looking elsewhere in the country for new seats.
Anything can happen between now and election day next week, but tonight we look at how the battle for Quebec has progressed since the writ was dropped.
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Canada is moving forward
All my life the road to Ottawa passed through Quebec but since their self absorbed inward looking politics and us only ideas took hold of them I think they will in the future find themselves on the complete outside looking in. Canadian politics is moving west no matter how much people in the east try to deny it.
posted by opinions/dialogue on 09 October 2008 at 11:11 AM