My Road to Quebec

J.L. Granatstein, distinguished research professor emeritus of history
at York University, is the author of Who Killed Canadian History?, and
co-author of The Canadian 100: The 100 Most Influential Canadians of the
20th Century and the Dictionary of Canad

Jean Charest was and remains one of the most attractive politicians in
Canada. Young and vigorous, intelligent, blessed with an attractive wife
and family, he seemed ready-made to be a major player in Canadian
politics. Brian Mulroney spotted him early and brought him into the
Cabinet, only to see Charest self-destruct with an injudicious telephone
call to a judge. Then Mulroney gave him control of a crucial committee
during the effort to cobble together a Meech Lake Accord compromise;
while Charest did the job well, his committee report led to Lucien
Bouchard’s resignation from the Mulroney Cabinet and the creation of
the Bloc Québécois. Charest’s effort to become Conservative leader
and prime minister almost succeeded, but Kim Campbell took the brass
ring instead and swiftly corroded it, leaving Charest as the sole
possible leader of a party without prospects or MPs. And after the 1997
election, when he began to bring the Tories back, Charest faced
irresistible pressure to leave Ottawa for Quebec City to become Liberal
leader against Bouchard’s Parti Québécois. In the subsequent
election, he did adequately, but he was not the savior many had hoped
for.

If this account makes Charest out to be a Jonah-like figure, then
perhaps it should. Charest rose because he was a moderate nationaliste
in an era during which Quebec wanted to toy with independence. A
federalist by conviction but a trimmer by nature, Charest can give
passionate speeches and appeal to the nascent Canadian patriotism in
Quebeckers’ tormented minds, but there is little sign in either his
autobiography or journalist André Pratte’s able biography of much
intellectual power. While it would be unfair to paint Charest as a man
without ideas, it is not so to question whether he has any original,
new, or credible ideas on how to tackle Canad’s—or
Quebec’s—problems. Indeed, he seems to have spent his political life
obsessed with Quebec and its place at the federal level. The transition
to Quebec City, admittedly at the head of a Liberal Party he had always
opposed, made clear that he did not understand the provincial dossiers,
let alone know the key players. But the two books also make clear that
Charest is a fast study, someone able to master the files put before
him.

What is clear—from Pratte’s book more than from Charest’s—is
that this is a career that is not yet over. He has a good chance of
defeating Bouchard or a PQ successor in the next election, if only
because Bouchard appears to be self-destructing on the rocks of health
care and labor problems. Then, and only then, will we see whether
Charest can run a government and whether his federalism is really
stronger than his nationalism.