Attention Quebec Progressives: The PQ Doesn't Need You Anymore

Parti Quebecois ends preferential treatment of SPQ Libre

Once upon a time, Syndacalistes du Progessives du Quebec Libre had a very special relationship with the Parti Quebecois.

That is, until Pauline Marois tired of him. Now, the very special relationship -- replete with special memberships for the members of the SPQ Libre and special representation at party events -- is over.

According to SPQ Libre leader Marc Laviolette, it's apparently unmistakable: the PQ is shifting rightward.

“I think it’s obvious the PQ is turning to the right,” Laviolette insisted. “We’ve seen it with Mme. Marois’s declaration on the public sector demands and now this decision by the executive.”

Laviolette insists that Marois can broke no dissent within the party.

“There can be a minority point of view in a party. It should allow the expression of various points of view," Lavoliette continued. "Only Madame Marois doesn’t like it if you go against her point of view. I’m sure that if we’d said yes to everything we would have continued to be recognized as a political club.”

For her own part, Marois insists that the SPQ Libre's special status was alientating other members of the PQ.

But it's hard to overlook the timing of Marois' move: she's cutting the SPQ Libre off just as the Action Democratique du Quebec is reaching a point of critical weakness.

Should the ADQ manage to collapse entirely, that could leave significant portions of conservative voters in Quebec effectively up for grabs. It seems unlikely that a hardline separatist group like SPQ Libre would shift its allegiances to the federalist provincial Liberals (unless, of course, they believed they could sway the party to the cause of separatism).

Pauline Marois and the Parti Quebecois may even be content to let SPQ Libre break away entirely and form its own separatist party if the benefits it can accrue by attracting marooned members of the ADQ.

Of course, the Parti Quebecois has never legitimately been a progressive party -- the racist ideology the party was founded on seems to preclude true progressivism.

Pauline Marois and the PQ don't seem to need progressives like SPQ Libre anymore, and is ready to show it's true colours -- that of an extremist movement that is willing to do anything it needs to do in order to achieve its goal.