Time to go for Legault

The man who compared himself to Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa is saying goodbye.

It may be surprising – after all, the fight he was referring to was the one for his own job – but the man who had been unpopular in Kahnawake for more than seven years is now the most unpopular premier in the country (the most popular is Manitoba’s Wab Kinew, the country’s first First Nations premier), and even he could see it was time to go. And with fierce competition in the upcoming election, it’s not really that surprising when you think about it.

Where along the way a premier who won a second majority government in 2022 lost his support, it’s hard to say – a scandal here, a scandal there. Every politician has an expiration date, and his has come and gone. But the sad thing is that the uglier parts of the man’s personality were on full display long before Quebecers were ready to reject a third term.

After all, from day one, Monsieur Legault was hawking identity politics of the white francophone variety, and that never changed. Even as he oversaw a healthcare system that cruelly took the life of Atikamekw woman Joyce Echaquan, whose last act was to document nurses mocking and dismissing her, he couldn’t even bring himself to utter the words systemic racism, except to say it didn’t exist.

And he never changed his mind.

This is the profound closed-mindedness that gets you the likes of Bill 21 and Bill 96, which use the government’s might to crush plurality within the province’s borders. Legault’s French-speaking haters might call him a “mononcle” (meaning, mockingly, my uncle), but it’s the paternalism of his government’s instincts that made it think it was a good idea to spurn Kahnawake’s demands for an exemption to Bill 96 (the new French-enforcement law) and instead offer up an Indigenous languages law that nobody wanted or asked for.

These kinds of moves require an apparatus, and the rest of his party is still in place. So while Quebec will get a new premier when the CAQ replaces Legault, not much is changing.

One thing that could and should change, even if time is short for this government, is the lack of respect the province shows when it comes to nation-to-nation relations. After all, while Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) grand chief Cody Diabo and Legault met to sign a “Statement of Understanding and Mutual Respect,” it was always pulling teeth and then some to get this premier to sit down with Kahnawake leaders.

It was nearly four years from the time he was elected before he agreed to meet the MCK face to face, which only happened once Council suspended political relations with Quebec in 2022 in response to Bill 96’s passage.

Yet despite Legault’s capitulation on that front, Diabo found occasion to write to Legault only recently to express his displeasure with Kahnawake getting lost in the shuffle when the CAQ health minister Christian Dubé stepped down over the disastrous Bill 2.

And what about in the election the next CAQ leader will quickly face, this October at the latest?

Well, that’s not looking very pretty. While the frontrunner of that contest, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon of the Parti Quebecois, visited the Mohawk Council lately, his party is even more aggressively nationalistic than the CAQ. Where will that leave Kahnawake?

There are so many urgent priorities with the province, it’s hard to know where to begin. Just last week we heard from Kahnawa’kehró:non who are sick and tired of being denied a tax exemption to which they’re entitled. When will the province take action to make sure this stops happening, like fining businesses in contravention of the rules?

Where was the province when dump trucks were pouring into Kanesatake by the hundreds carrying contaminated soil? Court filings show the government sat on its hands until it was practically dragged into intervening.

And in Kahnawake the big story this week is the alleged contamination of the Seaway by a battery recycling facility. While the charges are a federal action, the city of Ste. Catherine is also facing charges. And despite the company at issue, Terrapure, receiving complaints for a long time for its activities, its permit was renewed by Quebec just last year.

Most insulting of all, even though these charges were laid in October, nobody bothered to let Kahnawake know, even though the site is within the Seigneury of Sault St. Louis. Again, this was a federal action, but it’s just disrespect on disrespect.

Governments of all shapes and sizes like to pledge these days that they are partners. Legault didn’t act like it, and now he’s going away.

Whoever gets the seat next, at least long enough to keep it warm, has a big responsibility to Kahnawake and Kanesatake, and community leaders and media outlets have to hold their feet to the fire.

Here’s a start we’d like to see, in case any future premiers are reading: it’s time to acknowledge the existence of systemic racism and get to work unravelling it.

TED Staff