The sentence was launched as a joke. And yet she embodies all the ambiguity of the moment.
“I feel like Al Pacino in The Godfather 3. I want to get out, and they’re dragging me there again,” Bernard Drainville asked yet another question about his sovereignist past in the Parti Québécois.
However, Bernard Drainville no longer wants to talk about sovereignty. Quebecers are elsewhere, he says. He is a nationalist. He returned to politics to serve Quebec. And that’s all.
If only it were that simple. If only his own leader hadn’t rekindled the flame of eventual independence by evoking “the survival of the Quebec nation”.
The S-word
This survival of the nation, the federal straitjacket, the minority status of Quebec in “a Parliament that is controlled by a nation other than ours”, Bernard Drainville no longer talks about it.
His passion will serve nationalism rather than sovereignty. The end of the overlaps with the federal government, he will try to negotiate them within Canada rather than accomplish them within a Republic of Quebec. He will now fight for new powers, rather than independence.
“I don’t feel like fighting this battle. »
Not the taste, but does he still believe in it? That, Bernard Drainville will never say.
At the CAQ, the federalists have the right to display themselves, but not the sovereignists.
It is now clear that this is the price to pay for serving under the most popular prime minister in decades. The price of his third voice.
To enter the CAQ, you must not kiss your hand, you must deny the sovereignist project.
The True Godfather
François Legault dictates the rules of the game.
He has put enough effort into opening and then imposing his third nationalist way, he will not let the Trojan horse of sovereignty put it in jeopardy.
Because the day his ministers openly show themselves to be sovereignists, what credibility will they have when it comes time to criticize Ottawa? How will they be listened to by their federal counterparts?
Imagine for a moment an openly sovereignist Quebec minister trying to convince his federal colleague to give him full powers in immigration. An openly sovereignist health minister calling for unconditional funding.
The answer would be quick, simple and consistent. No thanks. François Legault knows it.
This is why he wanted to free Quebec from the sterile pendulum between federalism and sovereignty. By evacuating this threat, he challenges Canada to respect once and for all its recognition of the Quebec nation.
Is it even possible?
A possible second mandate of the CAQ will tell us. Hoping that the Supreme Court on Bill 21, like the New York mafia in The Godfather 3drags him back into the vortex of old discords from which he seeks so much to free himself.
Reference-www.journaldemontreal.com