Although it's been a while since he left office, former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard is weighing in on Quebec politics, throwing some rather pointed political barbs. What's different this time is that Canada isn't his target...
Lucien Bouchard not pleased with PQ over its apparent hostility to shale gas$1:
By The Canadian Press
MONTREAL - The new Parti Quebecois government is earning some unflattering reviews from one of its former leaders even before completing its first half-week in office.
Lucien Bouchard issued a statement Friday condemning comments about shale gas made by the new PQ minister in charge of the industry.
While an environmental review process is only barely underway, Natural Resources Minister Martine Ouellet has already said the resource can never be developed safely. Before entering politics, Ouellet was an environmental activist, mechanical engineer, and official at Hydro-Quebec.
She can now add another line to her CV: Bouchard foe. A popular former leader of the PQ and premier from 1996 to 2001, Bouchard is now the president of the Quebec Oil and Gas Association.
"Confusion reigns," Bouchard said.
He listed six questions raised by Ouellet's comments: Is the ongoing environmental review cancelled? Should that review be allowed to complete its work? What did Ouellet mean by the "complete moratorium" she appeared to be announcing this week? Has the government already written off the industry?
Bouchard also asked why Quebec would have such an attitude when, in the U.S., the Obama administration is eager to exploit the resource in order to reduce fossil fuel emissions and achieve energy independence. Finally, he asked, why not consider studies that suggest shale gas can be exploited safely while creating jobs?
"In any case a government decision to formally impose a moratorium would be a little bit like kicking in an open door," Bouchard added.
"Because for the last two years, and certainly for the next two or three, there has not been and there won't be any exploration — let alone production — of shale gas on Quebec's territory."
Ouellet was not available Friday to comment on Bouchard's remarks, according to a staffer who answered the phone at her riding office.
In interviews Bouchard gave after the Sept. 4 provincial election, he criticized some of his old party's campaign promises and he suggested it was time to focus on priorities other than achieving independence. The PQ took office Wednesday.
The remarks about shale gas also drew criticism from another ex-leader of the PQ, Andre Boisclair, who also works for the industry. Premier Pauline Marois has since tried to downplay the remarks, saying the government is keeping an open mind.
The reaction of Marois' predecessors echoes a frequent complaint from the PQ's opponents since the cabinet was sworn in.
Much of the opposition attacks since Wednesday, and media punditry, has focused on the notion that the composition of the PQ cabinet tilts heavily toward environmental activism but isn't quite so business-friendly. Bouchard has in the past lamented that his old party has shifted too far to the left.
But environmentalists have celebrated the PQ's shale comments.
Exploitation of the resource has been linked to water, soil and air pollution, along with an increase in earthquakes.
When it comes to PQ feelings toward Bouchard, there has been no love lost for him from some members of Marois' brand-new cabinet.
A video posted on YouTube in October 2011 shows Daniel Breton, who was named environment minister this week, tearing into Bouchard for comments the former PQ premier made about the shale-gas industry.
Breton, an environmentalist who spearheaded the provincial Green Party and ran for the federal NDP in 2008, was not an elected politician at the time.
In the footage, he calls Bouchard's support of shale gas "truly ridiculous."
"It really takes dinosaurs to push the same old solutions of lazy intellectuals who say, 'Rather than digging up new ideas, let's dig holes in the ground like our ancestors,' " Breton says.
And that wasn't even the biggest shot Bouchard has taken in the last couple of years. Here's an article from February 2010...
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/766859--sovereignty-no-longer-possible-lucien-bouchard-saysSovereignty no longer possible, Lucien Bouchard says$1:
Quebec sovereigntists woke up to a political migraine Wednesday induced by their most popular living leader.
Lucien Bouchard, the charismatic former Parti Quebecois premier who brought Quebec to within a whisker of independence, launched a broadside against his old party.
It was a rare comment on current affairs from Bouchard, who has steadfastly refused to talk publicly about politics since his 2001 retirement.
His comments were summed up in a front-page headline Wednesday in Le Devoir newspaper: Sovereignty is no longer achievable, Bouchard says.
Not only is independence on the shelf but it’s not something Quebecers should be focusing on, Bouchard said during a public forum the previous evening in Quebec City.
“I learned about it this morning. But if I’d learned about it last night I wouldn’t have slept,” said Bernard Landry, the man who replaced Bouchard as premier, in an interview with LCN.
“(Bouchard) is a great and complex man. . . This deeply disappoints me.”
Landry and other sovereigntists defended their cause, and said they will continue fighting for it even if Bouchard won’t.
Bouchard argued that his old party should be focusing on education and economic issues instead — like public debt.
In an additional blast at his old mates, he suggested the party was becoming radical and pandered to prejudices.
For the PQ’s current leader, Pauline Marois, it was business as usual Wednesday. She began the day by brushing past reporters seeking to ask her about the Bouchard comments.
Then she started the day’s question period by asking the government why it had changed the law to allow Orthodox Jewish schools to offer classes on Saturday.
Premier Jean Charest snapped back that she should have taken her former leader’s advice before the day’s question period.
The Jewish-schools question is only the latest so-called identity issue being stressed by the PQ in recent months as it seeks to win over nationalist voters once tempted by the now-faltering ADQ party.
It’s also the issue that caused Bouchard to launch his broadside. During a public forum on Tuesday night, he was asked about the issue.
Bouchard replied: “I don’t like what I’m hearing from the Parti Quebecois.”
He invoked the memory of the party’s most beloved figure, founder Rene Levesque, who went out of his way to demonstrate respect for religious minorities.
“I think of Rene Levesque,” Bouchard said.
“Rene Levesque was a man of generosity. He didn’t ask questions like that, Rene Levesque. He didn’t think our identity was threatened.”
He then went on to say that the sovereignty battle should be shelved for the foreseeable future.
Bouchard was so popular in Quebec that, during the 1995 referendum, supporters would strain to touch him as he delivered a series of speeches to adoring nationalist crowds.
His pro-Independence Yes side started the referendum campaign at a major disadvantage, before Bouchard — then a federal politician leading the Bloc Quebecois — took leadership of the campaign.
Under his leadership, the Yes rallied to within less than a percentage point of winning breaking up the country.
Bouchard then became premier, and spent most of his time in office saying he would wait for the so-called “winning conditions” — like eliminating the budget deficit — before holding another referendum.
That go-slow approach annoyed the PQ’s most ardent faction.
After one final dust-up with that wing of the party — a fight which, ironically, also started with a dismissive comment about Jews by a prominent Pequiste — Bouchard angrily left the PQ.
In his retirement speech, he cited the so-called Michaud affair and told a shocked Red Room of the national assembly that he had failed to rekindle the flames of Independence.
That was on Jan. 11, 2001. Bouchard has maintained a public silence on that issue ever since.
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