IN THE days following the late August meeting of Canadian, American and Mexican leaders in Montebello, Que., north of Montreal, a curious story appeared in one of Quebec’s leading French-language daily newspapers.
There had been a snafu in preparation of the final communiqué from the meeting, a snafu that had prime minister Stephen Harper furious with the Americans.
As the story goes (or went), Harper was reviewing the final draft of the communiqué that had been prepared in advance and he noticed some unacceptable changes.
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American drafters had inserted language that could have undermined Canada’s ability to protect sensitive supply managed farm sectors against imports from the U.S. and Mexico.
A government source told the newspaper that Harper had exploded, demanded an explanation from the Americans and insisted successfully that the offending words be removed.
Details of the dust-up, assuming it happened, were not leaked to any English-language media. Since it is widely accepted that the prime minister’s office controls the government’s communications strategy, it has to be assumed this was an attempt to get a message to Quebec voters, rural voters in particular.
Not only is the Conservative prime minister willing to speak in favour of supply management, he is prepared to go to the mat in a battle with ally George Bush to defend those words.
Consider it an integral part of Harper’s dogged attempt to do what only one other Conservative leader in the past century has done: position the party as the favoured federalist option for Quebec voters. Only Brian Mulroney in 1984 and 1988 has managed the feat.
At least for now, the strategy seems to be working.
The Conservatives stole a rural seat from the Bloc Québécois in the Sept. 17 byelections and came close in a second. In both rural ridings, the Liberals polled less than 10 percent of the vote.
Then at the end of September, the Montreal newspaper La Presse published an opinion poll that had the Conservatives just four percentage points behind the BQ in Quebec with 27 percent, eight more than the Liberals. Among francophone voters, the Conservative lead over the Liberals increased to 16 percentage points, 27 to 11.
Only in the Montreal Island ridings where Anglo and ethnic voters dominate do the Liberals still poll decent numbers.
It is a remarkable turnaround in just three years, since in the 2004 election the Conservatives were shut out of Quebec and there were predictions that Harper’s conservatism simply wouldn’t sell in Quebec.
Last week when asked about the poll, BQ leader Gilles Duceppe was left sputtering the old refrain about Harper being out of touch with Quebec on many key issues – the war in Afghanistan, failure to support the Kyoto Accord, the long gun registry and even supply management that Duceppe insists Harper does not really support.
Quebeckers will be reminded of all these things and the love affair will cool, Duceppe insisted. But surely Quebeckers have heard the critics and know these things, yet the love affair seems to be growing.
If it requires the odd strategic leak to tell Quebeckers that Harper will side with their interests against Bush, so be it.
Whatever works.
