Too many watchers of federal politics are reading too much into the results of Monday's provincial election in Quebec.
From Prime Minister Stephen Harper on down, there is a mistaken belief that Quebec residents have once again embraced their love of Canada and thrown those nasty separatists out with the trash.
What really happened is much simpler.
Philippe Couillard, a popular cabinet minister under the former Liberal regime led by Jean Charest, will be the new premier. The Quebec electorate gave the Liberals 70 seats in the 125-member legislature, dumping the governing Parti Quebecois to just 30 seats. PQ leader Pauline Marois, premier for 18 months, lost in her own riding, forcing her to resign immediately.
The PQ won the September 2012 election with a minority government, taking 54 seats, squeaking by the Liberals and then-premier Jean Charest, who took 50 seats.
Even though the Liberals were mired in scandals and links to widespread corruption across Quebec, they still nearly won the 2012 election. They lost for one simple reason. Quebec residents were more sympathetic to the governing Liberals but had had enough of the nonsense and decided to give the PQ a chance.
This isn't the first time Quebec voters have elected a separatist government to govern but not to separate from Canada. Even though Quebeckers rejected separation in the 1980 referendum, they still returned Rene Levesque to power in 1981. They liked the man, they liked his politics and his party, but they disagreed with him on leaving Confederation.
The same thing happened to Lucien Bouchard, who took over the PQ after Premier Jacques Parizeau resigned in the wake of the razor-thin defeat in the 1995 sovereignty referendum. Bouchard stopped talking about a third referendum and started governing. He balanced the provincial budget and voters rewarded him with a majority government in 1998.
Marois and the PQ made two mistakes.
First, they ignored the historic examples set by Levesque and Bouchard. There was little effort made by Marois to show herself and her ministers as competent leaders fit to manage the economy and create jobs. Instead, they focused on divisive social issues, such as the Charter of Values, which would have banned religious symbols in the workplace, and a plan to allow doctor-assisted suicide for the terminally ill.
Second, they didn't understand the message Quebec voters sent them in 2012. The message wasn't "we love you and your party, Pauline Marois, and we want you to lead us to the glorious paradise of a free and French Quebec," it was "we despise Jean Charest and the Liberals so we'll give you a chance and see how you make out."
Voters everywhere, not just in Quebec, often head to the ballot box and vote in protest. That means they are marking an X beside the names of candidates they might not like or oppose many of their political stances, either to make sure the incumbent doesn't get back into office or to let the incumbent know they're not thrilled with their performance.
In the 2002 election, 2,811 votes went to Michael Cavanagh, the only mayoral candidate opposing Colin Kinsley from a second term. Although Kinsley still won with 75.9 per cent of the votes cast, he knew a protest vote when he saw one, in this case over his support for moving the casino out of downtown.
"I would have to say that's a fairly healthy backlash," Kinsley said.
The same lesson is there for Premier Christy Clark. If she thinks B.C. voters gave her a mandate last spring solely on the basis of her politics and her leadership, she's sorely mistaken. The electorate's long flirtation and eventual rejection of NDP leader Adrian Dix had as much to do with Clark's victory as her tireless campaigning and passionate waving of the free enterprise flag.
And how many votes that went Shari Green's way in the 2011 mayoral race were actually votes against giving Dan Rogers a second term in office? Probably more than a few.
All would-be politicians should understand that a fair portion of their support comes from fair-weather voters angry with another name on the ballot. To forget that is to suffer a short-lived time in power and the same fate of Pauline Marois.
