Today PKP announced his resignation as leader of the Parti Quebecois and Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition for the National Assembly of Quebec. For those not familiar with Quebecois acronyms; PKP stands for Pierre-Karl Peladeau owner-operator and largest shareholder of Quebecor a multimedia conglomerate comprising newspapers, cable companies and media interest primarily in Eastern Canada. The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney is chairman of the board Quebecor shares rose nearly 2%, 65 cents on news their former chairman and largest shareholder was ending his political career.
I don't think anybody saw this coming from the PQ caucus to Phillippe Couillard to Rheal Fortin and Mario Beaulieu. The parliamentary leader and party president of the Bloc Quebecois. Never mind the news media usually Chantal Hebert or Lysianne Gagnon at the Globe and mail catch a whiff of intrigue and write a hypothetical column or produce conjecture about the reasons M. Peladeau would want to stick around or not. Today nothing. Alas Pierre-Karl we hardly knew ye. We really didn't he hadn't made a mark except on the PQ's poll numbers still consistently lower than the increasingly unpopular government of Phillippe Couillard and the Quebec Liberal Party. On the left PKP was getting hammered by the arch-socialists of Quebec Solidaire and the significant union presence within the PQ itself while his right flank was nearly entirely taken by the fiscally prudent nationalism of Francois Legault. The poll numbers don't lie since, the creation of the CAQ with Legault as leader the PQ has suffered failing to reach 40% (and the theoretical line to win a majority government) in every opinion poll.
PKP has called for a unity amongst the sovereignty camp, political mergers perhaps or maybe a shared nomination processes, something, anything, that would somehow by hook or through crook make the Parti Quebecois competitive against the governing Liberals at the next election in two years time. It was not to be. Simply put there were not many takers. Peladeau did boost PQ fortunes for a time but has since fallen into a trading range between 25-35%. The CAQ and Francois Legault are not interested as they have nearly equal; support to the PQ and Quebec Solidaire apart from not wanting to sully their socialist credentials through coalitions with a capitalist billionaire have seen their support increase since the last election.
PKP's resignation does tell us something mainly things are not well with the PQ and sovereigntist camp. The Independence movement has officially split with fiscal and traditional conservatives the so called "soft nationalist" voting for the Coalition Avenir Quebec and left-wing sovereigntists divided between Quebec Solidaire and the Parti Quebecois. I'm sure PKP saw the hopelessness of his position without a unified movement he would never be premier and a man of his talent and wealth has better things to do than stand in the National Assembly everyday criticising minutiae of government policy. Running Quebec as premier is one thing being a lowly opposition leader forced into endless travel to rally the troops away from home and family for a prize he is unlikely to win must have seemed like a poor trade-off. Peladeau made the right choice. Family is always the correct choice. One only gets about 70 years in this life-good ones anyway. Time is the greatest challenge of all and with an election in two short years not on the PQ's side. Alexandre Cloutier who finished second to Peladeau in the last leadership race seems like a good bet to succeed him. An accomplished lawyer from the staunchly nationalist Lac-St-Jean region at 38 he is young enough to have a few campaigns in him. Perhaps time enough to land in the premier's office.
