A16 QUEBEC O THEGLOBEANDMAIL| SATURDAY,OCTOBER19,
The revival of the Bloc Québécois
may mark the return of a loud
Quebec advocate to Parliament,
but there is no indication separat-
ism is also on the rise.
The Bloc under rookie leader
Yves-François Blanchet appears
poised to take Quebec seats from
Liberals, New Democrats and
Conservatives alike on Monday,
returning from rump status to a
major player in the House of
Commons.
Despite the rise in popularity of
the separatist party, Quebec inde-
pendence remains deeply unpop-
ular, both in polls and as reflected
in recent provincial elections. The
Quebec vote just one year ago left
the main political vehicle for sep-
aratism – the Parti Québécois – a
leaderless third party.
While the Bloc still supports in-
dependence, as it did when it
dominated the Quebec federal
electoral map from 1993 to 2011, it
did so quietly in this election
campaign. The party rose instead
on Mr. Blanchet’s steady leader-
ship and communication skills. It
also rode the coattails of the pro-
vincial Coalition Avenir Québec
(CAQ) and popular Premier Fran-
cois Legault, the right-leaning na-
tionalists who eschew seeking in-
dependence but demand autono-
my.
“Quebeckers want a strong
Quebec nationalism, within Can-
ada,” said pollster Jean-Marc Lég-
er, whose firm covers Quebec in-
tensively. “They want to stay in
Canada, but they do not want to
be told what to do. The rise of the
Bloc is not the rise of sovereignty.
It is really the extension of the
CAQ victory from last year.”
If projections of a minority
government prove true on Mon-
day, Mr. Blanchet said he will pro-
mote Quebec’s interests, but not
block Canadian progress. “If it’s
good for Quebec, we’ll vote for; if
it’s bad for Quebec, we’ll vote
against; and in between, we’ll ne-
gotiate,” Mr. Blanchet said at a
campaign stop in Montreal on
Thursday. “We can have very cor-
dial relations. If Canadians and
Quebeckers send a mosaic to Par-
liament, maybe it’s what they
want. Maybe they want that kind
of collaboration.”
Mr. Blanchet said he intends to
push for compensation for dairy
producers for losses stemming
from the latest trade agreement
with the United States and Mexi-
co, and better pensions for se-
niors. He would stand against any
new oil pipeline across Quebec.
“We will not be at the service of
any particular political move-
ment,” Mr. Blanchet said. “We are
not an instrument or accessory of
one group or the other.”The brand of nationalism
emerging in Quebec returns to a
long history that predated the in-
dependence movement, to the
days of the Union Nationale. Po-
litical scientists Éric Bélanger and
Richard Nadeau, specialists in
voting behaviour, presaged the
development in a book on state-
less nationalism last year, in
which they described a contin-
uing desire in Quebec for forceful-
ly promoting the province’s inter-
ests and affirming its identity,
while promoting independence
has faded badly. “Gaining more
power for Quebec is the most
popular position, not status quo
nor independence,” they wrote.
They predicted “some kind of re-
configuration of the Quebec par-
ty system.”
Six months after the publica-
tion of the book,The National
Question and Electoral Politics in
Quebec and Scotland, the CAQ won
a provincial election for the firsttime, and now the Bloc is poised
for recovery.
Dominic Vallières, a Bloc and
PQ adviser from 2011 to 2018, said
the main national parties were
not shy about straying into areas
many Quebeckers believe they
should control. “This election
shows that while Quebec isn’t
ready for independence, it’s not
ready to give an inch on manag-
ing its own priorities, either,” he
said.
From Quebec’s secularism law,
to pipeline opposition, to de-
mands for additional power in
immigration, language and taxa-
tion, Mr. Blanchet’s campaign
message was clear: Ottawa
should get out of the way. The
leaders of the big federal parties
had to try to take positions work-
able in the rest of Canada.
The national leaders delivered
these messages in French of un-
even quality, while Mr. Blanchet
used refined language, and didnot need to deal with divided re-
gional interests. “He came across
as authentic in a way Mr. Scheer
and Mr. Trudeau did not,” Mr. Lég-
er said.
Mr. Blanchet, a 54-year-old na-
tive of Drummondville, Que., had
a career managing musicians –
mainly Quebec rocker Éric La-
pointe – before winning a PQ seat
provincially in 2008. Friends and
adversaries have described him
as occasionally arrogant and
abrasive. He was known as “the
goon” for his fierce defence of PQ
leader Pauline Marois during a
challenge to her leadership in- His media appearances in
the National Assembly were filled
with long sermons and frequent
clashes with reporters who, he ad-
mits, knew how to push his but-
tons.
Mr. Blanchet was defeated in
the 2014 election. In 2016, he
joined a daily Radio-Canada polit-
ical television program calledLe
Club des Ex,in which gave him a
lot of experience in both debating
and maintaining collegial rela-
tions.
Meanwhile, the Bloc Québé-
cois, decimated by Jack Layton’s
NDP in 2011, was a rump of 10
seats after the Trudeau Liberal
victory in 2015.
The Bloc churned through
eight acting or permanent leaders
since 2011, culminating in a cau-
cus revolt under Martine Ouellet
last year that led to seven of the 10
Bloc MPs leaving the party. Mr.
Blanchet was handed the reins in
January, a moment he described
this week as one of “humility and
modesty.”
The key turning point for Mr.
Blanchet came during the first
French-language debate, on the
TVA network on Oct. 2, his first
time on a truly national stage. “It
was a moment where we could
speak directly to hundreds of
thousands, even a million Que-
beckers,” Mr. Blanchet said. “That
was major.” After the debate, Mr.
Blanchet said his partner, Nancy
Déziel, reminded him before-
hand to stay humble. “I always re-
mind myself to stay humble, but I
was never as bellicose as all that,”
Mr. Blanchet said this week.
Blocseeks‘cordial’relationswithrestof Canada
Theparty’spopularity
isontheriseinits
homeprovince,but
Quebeckersshow
littleinterestin
seekingsecession
LESPERREAUX
BlocQuébécoisLeaderYves-FrançoisBlanchet,seenininBeloeil,Que.,onWednesday,hassaidheintends
topromoteQuebec’sinterestswithoutblockingCanadianprogress.RYANREMIORZ/THECANADIANPRESSMONTREALBloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet
did not push hard for Quebec independence during the
federal election campaign but he has strong words for the
Canadiangovernment’s defence of human rights for Cata-
lan separatists in Spain.
Mr. Blanchet said exiled Catalan separatist leader Carles
Puigdemont should be allowed to enter Canada for a
planned visit. And he slammed Liberal Leader Justin Tru-
deau for hisgovernment becoming “a little mouse” when it
came to calling out state violence against Catalans.
“There are some rights that have to be respected and
there is no reason forthe Canadiangovernment not to
allow Mr. Puigdemont to come to Canada,” Blanchet told
reporters at a community centre in east-end Montreal.
He was reacting to news that Mr. Puigdemont’s Quebec
lawyer wrote to the federal government this week, giving it
until Friday to render a decision on the exiled leader’s
request to visit Canada or face possible legal action.
The former Catalan president, who fled Spain in 2017 to
avoid prosecution after hisregionalgovernment held an
unauthorized referendum on independence, has been
trying for months to get a permit to meet with Quebec
independence activists in Canada.
Maxime Laporte, president of a Montreal-based sover-
eigntist group that wants to play host to the Catalan leader,
told a news conference Thursday that Canada was treating
Mr. Puigdemont like a criminal.
“Like every human being on the planet, Mr. Puigdemont
claims his right to freedom of movement and to visit the
countries he wants,” said Mr. Laporte of the Société Saint-
Jean-Baptiste. “He is not, of course, a criminal; they want to
make him look like a criminal.”
Mr. Puigdemont is the subject of an international arrest
warrant. His renewed request to visit Quebec independ-
ence activists comes as violence has erupted in Spain over
a court decision this week to convict 12 former Catalan
politicians and activists for their roles in the 2017 secession
movement.
A Spanish Supreme Court judge on Oct. 14. issued an
international warrant for Mr. Puigdemont following the
sentencing of 12 of his pro-Catalonia independence col-
leagues.THECANADIANPRESS
BLOCLEADERCALLSONOTTAWATOALLOW
EXILEDCATALANLEADERTOENTERCANADA
Montreal is hoping to stop per-
fectly good food and unsold
clothing from ending up in land-
fills as part of a plan to signif-
icantly cut waste by targeting the
source.
The city’s point person on the
environment announced the
proposed measures Thursday as
part of a five-year master plan for
Waste Management Inc. between
2020 and 2025.
Councillor Laurence Lavigne
Lalonde, the executive commit-
tee member in charge of ecolog-
ical transition, cited an urgency
to act owing to climate change
and the fact that the city’s main
dump is slated to shutter by
2029.
“The plan that we’re propos-
ing today will enable us to
achieve the ambitious targets
that we set in terms of reducing
greenhouse gas emissions and
managing residual material,” Ms.
Lavigne Lalonde said.
In the case of food, she said it
doesn’t make sense that perfect-
ly consumable items end up in
the trash while children and oth-
ers go hungry.
“We will prohibit large grocery
chains, educational institutions
and hospitals from throwing
away food they no longer think is
fresh,” Ms. Lavigne Lalonde said.
Food waste is a widespread is-
sue across the country: Accord-
ing to a study commissioned ear-
lier this year by Toronto-based
charity Second Harvest, one-
third of Canada’s discarded food
could be recovered.
Quebec already has a super-
market recovery program in
place that some stores take part
in, sending food to various shel-
ters. Ms. Lavigne Lalonde said
the city wants to work with the
province to ensure such pro-
grams are expanded.
Montreal will also move to for-
bid clothing and textile compa-
nies from throwing out unsold
clothes, instead encouraging
them to give unsold products to
community organizations or in-
troduce them into the circular
economy so they can be reused.
Councillor Jean-François Par-
enteau says the city also hopes to
encourage the Quebecgovern-
ment to allow used clothes to be
made into stuffing or insulation,
noting it’s the last province tohave rules in place forbidding it.
“We are conscious that some
companies are more concerned
with the trademark and not the
shirt itself, so we’ll look at ...
how they can develop different
partnerships to find a use for
those products,” he said.The move is the latest in Mon-
treal’s attempts to reduce its
waste – and by extension, its car-
bon footprint. In April, the city
announced it would introduce a
bylaw banning single-use items
such as plastics and polystyrene
foam containers by spring 2020 –
promising a slow transition to al-
low businesses to make the
switch.
In 2018, it issued a ban on plas-tic bags that covers the distribu-
tion of lightweight bags with a
thickness of less than 50 microns
as well as biodegradable bags,
which contain an additive that
causes them to decompose in
heat and light.
Ms. Lavigne Lalonde said the
goal is to make it easier for citi-
zens to reduce their waste.
In the case of clothing and
food sellers, Mr. Parenteau said
they could be subject to yet-to-be
determined fines if they violate
the new rules.
He pointed to France, where
laws obliges grocery stores to do-
nate edible food and levies hefty
fines if they don’t, but added in
Montreal, that’s not the main
goal of the law.
“The first goal is not to fine,
but to change the mentality,” Mr.
Parenteau said.
A public consultation will be
held on the plan, but the city’s
objectives are to divert up to 70
per of residual waste away from
landfills by 2025 and 85 per cent
by 2030.
In that time, the city wants to
reduce the amount of waste pro-
duced by each Montrealer by 10
per cent in 2025 and 20 per cent
in 2030 – which works out to 10
kilograms a citizen per year.THECANADIANPRESSMontrealtobanstoresfromdumpingunsold
clothesandfoodaspartofplantocutwaste
SIDHARTHABANERJEEMONT/EALVariousvegetablesaredisplayedforsaleattheJean-TalonMarketin
Montrealin2016.AccordingtoastudycommissionedbyToronto-based
charitySecondHarvest,one-thirdofCanada’swastedfoodcould
berecovered.PAULCHIASSON/THECANADIANPRESSMontrealwillalsomove
toforbidclothingand
textilecompaniesfrom
throwingoutunsold
clothes,instead
encouragingthemto
giveunsoldproducts
tocommunity
organizationsor
introducethemintothe
circulareconomyso
theycanbereused.