Jean Charest, Tumbleweed

If Quebec politics were the Arizona desert, former premier Jacques Parizeau would be a cactus and current Premier Jean Charest a tumbleweed. The first somehow manages to survive and stand upright despite the harsh conditions, with all its spindly needles ready to prick approaching hands; the other gets blown every which way by the changing winds like the rolling weeds that furnish a classic backdrop of futility and decay for Hollywood westerns and sad country songs.

Ever since, Mr. Charest retreated last February from the program for which his party had been elected in 2003, he has been buffeted this way and that by political winds. But unlike the tumbleweed, he is not thereby spreading seeds that will ensure a flourishing future.

It started with the national forums that were announced in that same gloomy February of 2004, taking everybody, including Mr. Charest’s cabinet colleagues, by surprise. The idea of the forums was to gather folks around bad coffee to discuss upcoming challenges in health, education, family and the economy. The coffee had plenty of time to go cold as the forums dragged on, engaging the interest of, well, interest groups and a few bored journalists. Other than that, nobody remembers what the point of these things even was.

Then came the long, convoluted and very controversial issue of the $550-million Suroît gas-powered combined-cycle power plant, meant to produce some 800 megawatts of electricity. Even though the project had received a thumbs-up from the Quebec government and a favourable review under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, it didn’t sit too well with the province’s environmental groups (what does?). So after many months of back-and-forthing on the issue, the government finally gave up for good last November and announced it was abandoning the project, without any idea how to face Quebec’s growing energy needs.

Even more convoluted, and certainly no less controversial, is the issue of Montreal’s francophone superhospital, the Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM). A few weeks back, I told you about the wrangling over the question of where to build the thing. One side, backed by prominent business types and the university’s rector, wants to build an ambitious research and teaching centre in a disused railyard in the Outremont area that, quelle horreur, is several feet inside the anglo bit of Montreal. Others, mostly social-activist groups, want a smaller-scale project - renovating the downtown St-Luc Hospital that sits on good sound francophone soil.

So what’s the plan, after years of discussions, studies, counter-arguments, public pressure and so on? Figure out which way the wind is blowing and blow with it. That’s right: The Charest government recently commissioned yet another study, to review the whole file and submit suggestions by next Wednesday. The winds are blowing; everybody who’s anybody is offering not-always-helpful suggestions, even including that the Olympic Stadium, which would reportedly cost half a billion dollars to demolish, should be retrofitted to house the hospital. Meanwhile, a planned English-language super-hospital has to wait for a decision on the CHUM before construction begins. And the Shriners Hospital, which needs an English-language super-hospital to graft its own new project onto, is in danger of getting fed up with the delays and moving to Ottawa or London, Ont.

Since things were going so swimmingly, the Quebec government (or rather, Education Minister Pierre Reid, followed by Mr. Charest) decided to cause itself some trouble by announcing a boost in provincial funding for private Jewish schools that engaged in secular exchange programs with public school boards.

It didn’t take long for a hurricane of opposing views to hit. Starting with their cabinet colleagues - who professed not to have heard of the plan - and an unusually strong majority of Quebecers happy with the recent move towards secularization of public schools and therefore opposed to increased funding for private and religions schools. (I’m glad to report that I have not myself heard of read anything smaking of anti-Semitism, as some feared might happen).

In the face of this gale, the tumbleweed stuck briefly; last Tuesday, Mr. Charest said his government would stick to the funding plan because it was the right thing to do. The next day, he was sent tumbling again: "We certainly did not take a decision anticipating that the reaction would be what it is" he explained. "But that being the case, I accept the fact that the method chosen was not the right one."

In the harsh climate of Quebec politics, some stand on their principles, prickly and defiant. Others, like Jean Charest, are just blown this way and that by the prevailing winds. Cue pathetic Western theme music.

Ontario the peacemaker

Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe is touring the West while Alberta Premier Ralph Klein visits us in the East. Meanwhile, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams grabs headlines with a flag-lowering stunt Ontarians would never dare try. Here's a crazy thought: What if Ontario, not Quebec (let alone Alberta or Newfoundland), was the weird and dysfunctional one in this vast country?

Ontario is looking like the family member who always tries to please, and appease, everybody in the name of family harmony. The one who listens to various grievances (real or imaginary), then hugs the complainer before asking him or her please not to ruin Christmas/the wedding/name-your-event-here with these things but instead to put up a brave front. Appearances, you know. Not that it's working or anything, but Ontario keeps trying.

Mr. Duceppe is touring Canada's western provinces to air his party's grievances and incidentally look good to nationalists back home who are tired of Bernard Landry and wish the Bloc leader might be enticed into leading the Parti Québécois to victory in the next provincial election. Mr. Duceppe's tour includes stops in Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, and his plan is to explain to Westerners what the Bloc wants - sovereignty, of course, but also federal concessions on the so-called fiscal imbalance, the employment-insurance surplus and Canada's participation in the U.S. missile shield. He started his, er, charm offensive a few weeks ago by telling the Empire Club in Toronto, "We respect Canada, its institutions and aspirations . [but] we cannot accept it." In Winnipeg on Monday, Mr. Duceppe threatened to bring the Liberal government down by voting against the budget next month if problems such as the fiscal imbalance, more funding for social housing and day-care centres are not addressed to the Bloc's satisfaction.

Mr. Klein, meanwhile, is visiting Ontario and Quebec this week with a similar mission: improve his province's image here, and his own at home. "We think that now is the time to dispel some of the myths about Alberta in that we are awash with money and that it was strictly due to oil and gas that we were able to retire our debt earlier," Mr. Klein explained. Although his tour is not meant to be primarily about health care (despite his "pushing the envelope" on the Canada Health Act comments in Calgary on Tuesday) or gay marriage, you can bet it'll come up in the Q&A sessions. Watch for the sparks, as Mr. Klein like Mr. Duceppe is not known for his restraint when discussing the federal government's deficiencies.

As to Danny Williams, well, we all know the lengths to which he's prepared to go to make sure his province's grievances do not go unnoticed. After allowing the Canadian flag to start flying over provincial buildings again on Monday, Mr. Williams said he didn't regret his coup d'éclat: "History has proven that the only way to get the attention of the federal government in Newfoundland and Labrador is to get the attention of Canadians. That is exactly what we achieved when we removed the flags." He also added that while "not everyone may have agreed with our decision . we were able to focus the attention of the country on our issue." You bet. And may I note, in passing, that there weren't many Quebecers who had anything - positive or negative - to say about the Newfoundland flag-flap business. Maybe they were too stunned by the discovery that other people could use such tactics, too.

At first blush, the three men are doing very different things. But look more closely at what, other than obvious impatience with Paul Martin's rickety government, these politicians have in common: A glaring willingness to abandon the niceties and air their grievances in public, loudly. Notice also that while the complaints have to do with different specific topics and policy questions, you now have three provinces instead of one aggressively pursuing greater power at the expense of the central government, no matter what the federal government says or does. Whatever you think of the respective provinces' pleas or their manners (for the record: I'm sympathetic to Newfoundland and Alberta on policy grounds but I dislike Messrs. Klein and Williams' rudeness, and you already know what I think of the Bloc's goals and methods), it's hard to dispel the feeling that for better or worse, national unity is no longer a high priority in most provinces.

Obviously, being loud and tough-looking in defence of ones' own, local interests pays off. So why would Danny Williams and Ralph Klein back off, given Quebec's example? Ontario-the-pacifier is increasingly at odds with the rest of the country.

A New Year Wish for Quebec