{"id":1101,"date":"2006-10-03T19:11:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-03T23:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1101"},"modified":"2006-10-03T19:11:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-03T23:11:00","slug":"on-quebec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1101","title":{"rendered":"On Quebec"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s abundantly obvious that the one knock on Gerard Kennedy\u2019s candidacy at this point will be the \u201cQuebec issue\u201d. To be frank, his French is a lot worse than that of the other frontrunners and his performance in La Belle Province <\/em>this weekend was embarrassing.<\/p>\n

I think the criticisms of his French are fair. This country\u2019s Prime Minister must be bilingual and while Kennedy is technically bilingual, he\u2019s going to have to improve his French. I\u2019m sure he\u2019s dedicated to improving it and with a French family at home, he\u2019ll certainly have time to practice. I\u2019m convinced he\u2019ll be up to Harper\u2019s level by the next election and that\u2019s good enough for me. If you think Kennedy\u2019s French is a liability in Quebec, you have to concede that Dion\u2019s English will be a liability in the rest of Canada.<\/p>\n

What I don\u2019t think is a fair criticism is saying that because Kennedy did poorly in delegate selection meetings, that he can\u2019t win Quebec in a general election. Less than 1% of Canadians are members of the Liberal Party and those who are members will vote Liberal regardless of who the candidate is. Equating the general population to the Liberal Party is what led to ridiculous polls showing that Ken Dryden would come out of this weekend in first place. Now we\u2019re seeing the same mistake being done in reverse. During the last CPC leadership race, Belinda Stronach cleaned up in Quebec. However, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s unreasonable to assume that she would have been destroyed there in a general election. Instead, Harper was the right choice for the Tories in Quebec and he showed that last election. Belinda won Quebec because she had the best organization there and Kennedy\u2019s weak showing in Quebec this weekend was because of a weak organization. And while organization is often an indicator of a candidate\u2019s popularity among Liberals, it\u2019s hard to infer those results to the population at large. Joe Volpe won more delegates than Scott Brison but does that mean he\u2019s a better candidate than Scott? Nope. Ignatieff was first in Saskatchewan and fourth in BC \u2013 does that mean he\u2019d win seats in Saskatchewan but lose them in BC? Not really. Any Dion or Rae supporter who says Kennedy couldn\u2019t win Quebec because of his weak showing there is effectively saying that Gerard is more electable than their man in Ontario.<\/p>\n

Given his perceived left leaning nature and progressive policies which I think should appeal to many in Quebec, I don\u2019t see how electing Kennedy would be writing off the province in a general election. Gerard isn\u2019t known there now but that means he\u2019s not tied to the \u201cold Liberal Party\u201d of the Adscam years and he\u2019d enter the province free of any baggage. It’s a lot better to fail to get supporters because you’re unknown than because you are <\/em>known in my opinion.<\/p>\n

Leadership races and general elections are two completely different animals. Obviously Kennedy will need to address the perception that he\u2019s less electable in Quebec than other regions. That will mean calling Quebec delegates, doing events there, and trying to get endorsements from a few prominent francophones. It will also mean working on his French because how he speaks en francais<\/em> on his Friday speech at the convention might very well determine whether or not he wins this race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s abundantly obvious that the one knock on Gerard Kennedy\u2019s candidacy at this point will be the \u201cQuebec issue\u201d. To be frank, his French is a lot worse than that of the other frontrunners and his performance in La Belle Province this weekend was embarrassing. I think the criticisms of his French are fair. This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}