EMSB revokes statement denying Quebec nationhood
On the blog, I haven’t followed all the to-and-fro this week about Quebec nationhood and whether criticizing Bill 21 and Bill 96 is tantamount to Quebec-bashing. But it’s local news that the EMSB has revoked its statement denying Quebec’s nationhood.
Although Quebec’s cultural and language tensions have been a backdrop to my whole life, I’ve always been satisfied at how, on the whole, Montreal’s city politics have proceeded without getting too drawn into the whirlpool of the Quebec nationalism debate. But Denis Coderre removing Joe Ortona as a candidate because he had endorsed the original EMSB statement drags the municipal election perilously close to the brink. We should not make loyalty to the principles of the CAQ a prerequisite to participation in municipal politics.
j2 21:38 on 2021-09-11 Permalink
“Damage is already done”
“Quebec bashing”
These people are really scary because they don’t understand what they are saying.
ant6n 06:20 on 2021-09-12 Permalink
How can Denis Coderre remove a candidate? I thought a candidate would be running on his own accord, with the help of signatures they gathered locally from electors. Or did the candidate get expelled from the party, which should be nearly impossible and involve some sort of tribunal? (The lack of democracy within Canadian parties keeps surprising me)
Kate 08:37 on 2021-09-12 Permalink
Denis Coderre is in charge of Ensemble Montreal and can hire and fire candidates leading up to the election. You can’t run for a party if the party chief has punted you out.
steph 09:01 on 2021-09-12 Permalink
He could run & win his seat as an independent.
ant6n 09:05 on 2021-09-12 Permalink
In actual democracies, it doesnt work like that. Parties themselves should be democratic, the leader isnt some internal dictator who can willy-nilly replace political candidates.
But even in Canada, with its lack of democracy, it doesn’t make sense. A candidate applied to run in their riding, collected signatures from electors, got themselves on the ballot. even if the party kicks the candidate out of the party (which is not something the boss should be able to decide), they can’t really remove them from a ballot. Or at least they shouldn’t, I don’t really know how it works.
I guess it fits this thing where the Ensemble Montreal caucus made Coderre boss again (rather than an all-member vote at a party convention), but I keep finding it baffling how undemocratic party structures in Canada are, and that nobody seems to notice or care.
Kate 09:22 on 2021-09-12 Permalink
ant6n, I think this may be partly because parties at the municipal level are sort of improvised, and don’t necessarily follow the same Westminster-style procedures as at provincial or federal level. Our municipal parties often crystallize around one leader, and then collapse when that leader quits, dies or loses an election. The Civic Party didn’t survive Jean Drapeau’s defeat, and the Montreal Citizens’ Movement didn’t survive Jean Doré’s. Projet was an exception in that it didn’t go to pieces when Richard Bergeron bailed on it, which is testimony to the members at least having an urban philosophy in common.
As far as I know, there’s no constitutional structure that ordains a ruling party and an official opposition at city hall. It’s just how it’s shaken out over time.
In fact, if you look at the list of mayors of Montreal on Wikipedia, you’ll see parties didn’t exist till Drapeau invented the Ligue d’action civique in 1954. When he came back in 1960 he had conceived the Civic Party and since then we’ve always had municipal parties, not directly related to any provincial or federal party.
steph 09:42 on 2021-09-12 Permalink
People get kicked out of parties & keep their seat as independents. I suppose Ortona isn’t interested to run as an independent and is quitting ahead of time (which speaks to his political character IMHO).
Kate 09:46 on 2021-09-12 Permalink
Ortona was hoping to hitch his wagon to Coderre, and that’s not necessarily a sign of weakness, only of opportunism. In fact, that’s precisely the thing that’s held most of our municipal parties together – opportunists gathering around a charismatic leader. If Ortona doesn’t think he has much chance of winning as an independent, I can’t fault him for avoiding the expense and effort of running a campaign he knows is going nowhere.
It’s different if you already have a seat. You’re entitled to keep it till the next election regardless of party status, although I’m not clear on how much you can actually get done for your constituents if you’re an independent at city or borough hall.
On the other hand, we’ve learned something over the last four years about the power wielded by unelected fonctionnaires in at least some boroughs, so maybe things just putter on as they were.