Quebec Liberal Party

Quebec Liberal Party Parti Libéral du Québec
Leader	Jean Charest
President	Marc Tanguay
Founded	July 1, 1867 (1867-07-01)
Preceded by	Parti rouge Parti canadien
Headquarters	7240 Rue Waverly, Montreal, Quebec, H2R 2Y8 1535 Chemin Sainte-Foy, suite 120, Quebec City, Quebec, G1S 2P1
Ideology	Quebec federalism Social liberalism
Political position	centrist
Policies	Fiscal: centrist Social: liberal
Official colours	Red
Seats in the National Assembly	64 / 125
Website
www.plq.org/en/index.php
Politics of Quebec Political parties Elections

The Quebec Liberal Party (French: Parti Libéral du Québec, PLQ) is the main federalist political party in Quebec. It has been independent of the federal Liberal Party of Canada since 1955.

The party has traditionally supported Quebec federalism: i.e., in favour of Quebec remaining within Canada, and operating within Canadian federalism. The party also supports a strong role for government in the economy and is a socially liberal party.

The Quebec Liberals have always been associated with the colour red; each of their three main opponents in different eras have been associated with the colour blue. In 2007, however, the Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ), whose official colours are blue and red, temporarily became the official opposition in the National Assembly of Quebec.

History

Pre-Confederation

The Liberal Party is descended from:

1. the Parti canadien, or Parti Patriote who supported the 1837 Lower Canada Rebellion, and
2. the Parti rouge, who fought for responsible government and against the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in Lower Canada.

The most notable figure of this period was Louis-Joseph Papineau.

Post-Confederation

The Liberals were in opposition to the ruling Conservatives for most of the first 20 years after Canadian Confederation, except for 18 months of Liberal minority government in 1878-1879. However, the situation changed in 1885 when the federal Conservative government executed Louis Riel, the leader of the French-speaking Métis people of western Canada. This decision was unpopular in Quebec. Honoré Mercier rode this wave of discontent to power in 1887, but was brought down by a scandal in 1891. He was later cleared of all charges. The Conservatives returned to power until 1897.

The Liberals won the 1897 election, and held power without interruption for the next 39 years; the Conservatives never held power in Québec again. This mirrored the situation in Ottawa, where the arrival of Wilfrid Laurier in the 1896 federal election marked the beginning of Liberal Party of Canada dominance at the federal level. Notable long-serving Premiers of Quebec in this era were Lomer Gouin and Louis-Alexandre Taschereau.

By 1935, however, the Conservatives had an ambitious new leader, Maurice Duplessis. Duplessis merged his party with dissident ex-Liberals who had formed the Action libérale nationale. Duplessis led the new party, the Union Nationale (UN), to power in the 1936 election. The Liberals returned to power in the 1939 election, but lost it again in the 1944 election. They remained in opposition to the Union Nationale until one year after Duplessis's death in 1959.

In 1955, the PLQ severed its affiliation with the Liberal Party of Canada, and, at times since then, relations between the two parties have been strained.

Post-1960

Under Jean Lesage, the party won an historic election in 1960, ending sixteen years of rule by the conservative Union Nationale. This marked the beginning of the Quiet Revolution, which dramatically changed Québec society. Under the slogan maîtres chez nous (masters in our own house), the Quebec government undertook several major initiatives, including:

• full nationalization of the electricity industry through expansion of the government-owned Hydro-Québec — this major initiative of the government was led by the minister of natural resources, René Lévesque;

• creation of a public pension plan, the Régie des rentes du Québec, separate from the Canada Pension Plan that exists in all other provinces of Canada;

Under Lesage, the Liberals developed a Quebec nationalist wing. Some Liberals, including senior Cabinet minister René Lévesque, left the Liberals to join the sovereignty movement, participating in the founding of the Parti Québécois under Lévesque's leadership.

Relations soured between the Quebec Liberal Party and the federal Liberal Party under Lesage, and particularly under Robert Bourassa.

First elected in 1970, Robert Bourassa instituted Bill 22 to introduce French language as the official language in Quebec, and pushed Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau for constitutional concessions. Reelected in 1973, his government was also embarrassed by several scandals. Bourassa resigned from the party's leadership after the loss of the 1976 election to René Lévesque's Parti Québécois.

Bourassa was succeeded as Liberal leader by Claude Ryan, the former director of the respected Montréal newspaper, Le Devoir. Ryan led the successful federalist campaign in the 1980 Quebec referendum on Québec sovereignty, but then lost the 1981 election. He resigned as Liberal leader some time later, paving the way for the return of Robert Bourassa.

When Bourassa returned as Premier in 1985, he successfully persuaded the federal Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney to recognize Quebec as a distinct society, and sought greater powers for Quebec and the other provinces. This resulted in the Meech Lake and Charlottetown constitutional accords. Both of these proposals, however, were not ratified. While a Quebec nationalist, Bourassa remained an opponent of independence for Quebec.

Daniel Johnson, Jr. succeeded Bourassa as Liberal leader and Premier of Québec in 1994, but soon lost the 1994 election to the Parti Québécois under Jacques Parizeau.

In 1993, after the failure of the Charlottetown Accord, many nationalist members of the Liberal party led by Jean Allaire and Mario Dumont, including many from the party's youth wing, left to form the Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ) because the Liberal Party dropped most of its autonomist demands during the negotiation of the Charlottetown Accord. As in 1980, the PLQ campaigned successfully for a "no" vote in the 1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty.

Modern era

The contemporary Québec Liberal Party is a broad-based coalition including among its members some supporters of the federal Liberals and some supporters of the federal New Democratic Party. In terms of voter support, it has always been able to rely on the great majority of non-francophones in Québec.

The Liberals regained power in the 2003 election. Premier Jean Charest is a former federal Progressive Conservative cabinet minister. The Liberal government proposed a policy of reform of social programs and cuts to government spending and the civil service, and established a controversial health system fee for all taxpayers.

It has also softened language policies. For example, in response to a Supreme Court of Canada decision overruling a loophole-closing stopgap measure enacted by the Bernard Landry government, the Liberals enacted Loi 104 which provides for English-language, unsubsidized private school students to transfer into the subsidized English-language system, thus receiving the right to attend English schools in Québec for their siblings and all descendants, should the student demonstrate a bureaucratically-defined parcours authentique within the English system. Meanwhile, the Office québécois de la langue française under the Liberal government has also opted for a demand-side strategy for the enforcement of language laws, using a number of publicity campaigns, including stickers which merchants may voluntarily affix on their shop windows stating that French service may be obtained within, allowing for consumers to "choose" stores which will serve them in French.

Midway through its first mandate, polls indicated the Charest government had the highest dissatisfaction rates ever recorded for a government in place in Québec. There were highly controversial proposals to reform education, labour and social policy, stalled attempts to "streamline" the provincial civil service, and growing labour unrest.^{[citation needed]}

The Liberal party suffered a major setback in the 2007 election, which saw them reduced to a minority government, having lost francophone support to the surging ADQ. However, the party regained a majority in the 2008 election, which saw the collapse of ADQ support and the return of the Parti Québécois as the main opposition party. Election turnout was the lowest in Québec since the Quiet Revolution.

Since its most recent election the Liberal government has faced a number of scandals, including historic losses at the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the attribution of highly-sought subsidized daycare spaces to Liberal Party donors, as well as allegations of systemic construction industry corruption which arose notably during the 2009 Montréal municipal election. After public pressure, the Liberal government eventually called for a public commission of inquiry. Jean Charest's personal approval ratings have at times been lower than those of other premiers.

In 2011, the opposition Parti Québécois was weakened by internal dissension and a number of defections by sitting MNAs, but the same year saw the emergence of the CAQ as a political force. In January 2012, the CAQ merged with the ADQ. The CAQ has won a significant amount of support, with January 2012 poll results showing only a 3% difference between the Liberals and the CAQ (29% for Liberals, 31% for CAQ), while the Parti Quebecois is down to 20%.^{[citation needed]}

Opposition

The Québec Liberal Party has faced various opposing parties in its history. Its main opposition from the time of Confederation (1867) to the 1930s was the Parti conservateur du Québec. That party's successor, the Union Nationale, was the main opposition to the Liberals until the 1970s. Since then the Liberals have alternated in power with the Parti Québécois, a Quebec sovereigntist, self-described social-democratic party.

Party leaders

Further information: Quebec Liberal Party leadership conventions

• Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière (1867–1883) (premier 1878–1879)
• Honoré Mercier (1883–1892) (premier 1887–1891)
• Félix-Gabriel Marchand (1892–1900) (premier 1897–1900)
• Simon-Napoléon Parent (1900–1905) (premier 1900–1905)
• Lomer Gouin (1905–1920) (premier 1905–1920)
• Louis-Alexandre Taschereau (1920–1936) (premier 1920–1936)
• Adélard Godbout (1936–1949) (premier 1936, 1939–1944)
• George Carlyle Marler (interim) (1949–1950)
• Georges-Émile Lapalme (1950–1958)
• Jean Lesage (31 May 1958 – 28 August 1969) (premier 1960–1966)
• Robert Bourassa (17 January 1970–1976) (premier 1970–1976)
• Gérard D. Levesque (interim) (1977–1978)
• Claude Ryan (1978–1982)
• Gérard D. Levesque (interim) (1982–1983)
• Robert Bourassa (1983–1994) (premier 1985-1994)
• Daniel Johnson, Jr. (1994–1998) (premier 1994)
• Jean Charest (1998–) (premier 2003–)

Election results (since 1867)

General election	# of candidates	# of seats won	% of popular vote
1867	40	12	39.8%
1871	38	19	40.5%
1875	46	19	40.5%
1878	59	31	29.7%
1881	46	14	39.4%
1886	49	33	39.5%
1890	68	43	46.4%
1892	62	21	44.2%
1897	78	51	54.6%
1900	77	67	54.8%
1904	87	68	65.7%
1908	76	57	54.2%
1912	83	62	53.5%
1916	85	75	64.0%
1919	99	74	65.4%
1923	92	63	52.9%
1927	86	75	60.3%
1931	90	79	54.9%
1935	91	48	46.8%
1936	89	14	40.0%
1939	87	70	54.1%
1944	91	37	39.4%
1948	93	8	36.2%
1952	92	23	45.8%
1956	93	20	44.9%
1960	95	51	51.3%
1962	97	63	56.40%
1966	108	50	47.29%
1970	108	72	45.40%
1973	110	102	54.65%
1976	110	26	33.77%
1981	122	42	46.07%
1985	122	99	55.99%
1989	125	92	49.95%
1994	125	47	44.40%
1998	125	48	43.55%
2003	125	76	45.99%
2007	125	48	33.07%
2008	125	66	42.06%

Youth Commission

One of the particularities of the Quebec Liberal Party is its Youth Commission. This standing committee is responsible for youth involvement in the party and has the office of members 16 to 25 years. This is the most powerful youth wing within his political party and what in the world with a minimum of one thirds of the delegates secured, the Congress of Members QLP (the supreme decision of the party). One of its bodies, the conference allows young people from across Quebec to spend a late week of debate on the political orientations of the CJ (Commission-Jeunesse in french). Every summer over thousand young Liberals meet for this congress. The Youth Commission has a number of QLP's struggles history both inside and outside his party. It marked the Quebec by proposing the creation Sun Card, fighting against Claude Ryan the 80 against the thawing of tuition and by requiring that QST is no longer collected on the sale Book Quebec in particular. In the 1980s, annual meetings of the Youth Commission drew near 1500 people year after year. She knew less pleasant moments, including during the deposition of Allaire report, which caused a tear within the Liberal Party and an exodus of members, leading to the creation of the ADQ (Action Démocratique du Québec). Chairman of the Youth Commission at the time was Mario Dumont, leader ADQ's 1994 to 2008. Among the debates led by young liberals note Teaching English in the first year of primary, the introduction of the Medicare card, abolition of junk food in schools, maintaining financing plan loans and scholarships, and Generations Fund.

See also

• Liberalism
• Contributions to liberal theory
• Liberalism worldwide
• List of liberal parties
• Liberal democracy
• Politics of Quebec
• List of Quebec general elections
• List of Quebec premiers
• List of Quebec leaders of the Opposition
• National Assembly of Quebec
• Timeline of Quebec history
• Political parties in Quebec
• Quiet Revolution

External links

• Parti libéral du Québec official site (English)
• National Assembly historical information (French)
• Liberal Party Election Performances (French)
• EQUITAS Rule of Law Commission - Québec File Independent Supervising Body providing forensic analysis of QLP form of governance.