The accepted wisdom said that the Conservatives could never pull out a win in Bloc-dominated Quebec, and yet in yesterday's by-elections, the Tories took a Bloc-held riding.

[Again, no posts for days and days.  A severe cold has been racing through my household, keeping me off work and blogging both.  It seems to be on the wane, and the by-elections seem as good a spot as any to pick things up again.]

I have no credibility is discussing Quebec politics.  Everyone, it seems, says it is different from politics elsewhere in the country.  If you don't live there, you just don't get it.  Fine.  I'll accept that at face value.

So why did the Conservatives contest two Bloc-held ridings, and come away with one of them in what is being called a game changer?  Lots of reasons, so obvious to people like me, and some perhaps only understood by someone who understands these unique Quebec dynamics.  But that it is significant is clear:

The Conservative government put the Bloc Quebecois on notice Monday night with its byelection win in a Bloc stronghold, proving that its fortunes in Quebec are stronger than pundits predicted, experts say.

Conservative candidate Bernard Genereux won in Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup by more than 1,400 votes over Bloc candidate Nancy Gagnon, grabbing a riding that's been held by the BQ since 1993.

The win "is a game-changer off the island of Montreal," L. Ian Macdonald, editor of Policy Options magazine, told CTV.ca in a telephone interview. "This is a Bloc bastion that has fallen to the Conservatives not by a few votes but by 1,500, five points."

Nowhere in the preceding quote are the Liberals mentioned, because even as the game is changed, the Liberals are still not playing.

But that runs counter to what we've told.  The Conservatives were dead in Quebec.  Arts and culture.  H1N1.  The gun registry.  And, of course, Stephen Harper himself.  Meanwhile the Liberals are resurgent, because unlike elsewhere in Canada where Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff is seen as too cerebral and short of practical leadership, in Quebec, the philosopher king appeals to their political sensibilities.

Of course, Michael Ignatieff took a heavy blow with the Denis Coderre mess, but really, was that enough to re-energize the Conservative vote?  In any case, in the run-up to the vote, Ignatieff had dutifully begun firing all those people that Denis Coderre didn't like.

Now to be fair, the Liberals were never expected to win in either Quebec by-election.  Of course, neither were the Conservatives.  But while the Liberals went through the motions, the Conservatives ran a star candidate, Bernard Genereux, in Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup, and executed a campaign designed to win.

The Conservatives rejected the accepted wisdom.  And now, along with the win in Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley in Nova Scotia, the Tories have two extra seats in parliament.    More importantly, the Tories have an additional Quebec MP, and a high profile one at that, who will be spending the time from now until the next election building on Tory strength in Quebec.

The concern for the Tories used to be how many of their Quebec seats they would lose in a general election.  Now it is the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois who are worried, wondering how many additional seats the Tories might be able to pick up.

I guess Michael Ignatieff is going to working with Peter Donolo on a whole new set of reasons of why Canadians, who clearly are aching for a Liberal government, will have to wait for an election.  Hah.

There is no law that says you have to accept the accepted wisdom.

Green is so passe: The Greens received only three percent of votes cast in all four by-elections.  And Michael Ignatieff last month declared that the environment will play a central role in the Liberal Party platform in the next election.  So maybe yet again Michael Ignatieff is utterly misreading the electorate.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 03:07 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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