In fact, he got spanked. Twice. In going down to defeat, his Liberal Party received the lowest percentage of the popular vote ever, and the man from Sherbrooke lost his seat in the National Assembly.
Now that
the election is over and Jean has been put out to pasture, we can turn our
attention to what is the most pressing political concern: cleaning up
government.
We all know
that Quebec’s political culture is rife with greed and graft. Fortunately, we have the Charbonneau
commission ready to begin its work in earnest.
The process of the investigation, the report of findings,
recommendations to made, and legislation to be adopted will take about two
years, more or less the life span of the caretaker PQ minority government.
In the
meantime, the PQ will have its hands tied, unable to call a referendum on
sovereignty or to adopt any controversial legislation due to its minority
status. In other words, the PQ has been
given the task of simply managing the shop until we find out the extent of the
problem.
Thereafter,
we can then elect a government with the knowledge of how this state of affairs
came about and with measures in place so that we don’t repeat the errors of our
past.
At the
moment, we have lost confidence in the political process and the political
parties that would govern us.
For the
sake of future generations, we must see the process of political reform to its
end and take back the responsibility of governing ourselves.
