Jewish Quebecers, faced with the almost certain re-election of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) and, for many, growing disillusionment with the Liberal Party, are in a quandary as the provincial election campaign officially gets underway on Aug. 28.
The fixed-date Oct. 3 election has become a race for second place as polls consistently point to a second majority CAQ government.
The divide between francophones and minority communities has not been this glaring since the Liberals and Parti Québécois (PQ), now very much on the wane, offered a clear choice between federalism and separation.
Today the issues are more nuanced and the party options greater.
The CAQ’s 2019 adoption of Bill 21, the secularism law, and this spring, Bill 96, the language law, has set the great majority of Quebec Jews on edge. They are also dissatisfied with the equivocating response of the official opposition Liberals.
This dilemma is playing out in the only one of the 125 ridings with a Jewish majority, D’Arcy McGee, which includes Côte St. Luc, Hampstead and part of Côte des Neiges.
When its Liberal MNA David Birnbaum announced in April he would not seek a third term, normally it might be expected prospective successors would be lining up for this safest of Liberal seats.
Yet, the Liberals only confirmed their candidate, Elisabeth Prass, who was director of Birnbaum’s riding office until earlier this year, on Aug. 22.
Prass, an experienced Liberal political adviser, said her priority is “regaining the trust” of traditional Liberal voters. Birnbaum left many constituents confused for proposing a Bill 96 amendment that would oblige students at English CEGEPs to take three core courses in French—which the CAQ had not gone as far to do—and then having to back-pedal.
At her introduction, Prass acknowledged the frustration, but reiterated, “we are the one party where all of us can feel at home… We are the only major party that is willing to stand up to Bills 21 and 96. There is no other choice for me.”
Three parties are hoping to capitalize on disenchantment with the Liberals. Reflecting the shifting mood, Bonnie Feigenbaum, until June a D’Arcy McGee Liberal riding association member and a former chief of staff to Mount Royal Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, is running for the Conservative Party of Quebec (CPQ).
On the margins of Quebec politics, the CPQ has been gaining in the polls under new leader Éric Duhaime, a former Quebec City radio talk show host.
Feigenbaum came out swinging at her launch earlier this month:
“Since the 2018 defeat, the Quebec Liberal Party has been floundering with no fundamental values or vision… The initial support of Bill 96 by (leader) Dominique Anglade’s Liberals was the final straw for me and many people in our community.”
She said the Liberals not only take the anglophone vote for granted, but have repeatedly reneged on commitments to the community.
Feigenbaum is having to explain her association with a party that includes opponents of COVID measures and others with controversial views. Her response is that there are “good and bad people” everywhere in life.
Duhaime himself is under scrutiny for past remarks, including his on-air suggestion in 2016 that leaving a pig’s head outside a Quebec City mosque was a “silly joke,” as well as a comment about religious headwear.
The Liberals, who voted against Bills 21 and 96, propose major modifications, if elected, but not repeal.
Feigenbaum said the CPQ has consistently opposed Bill 96. Its position on Bill 21 is not so clear.
One of the main reasons Feigenbaum became a Conservative is the party’s promise of free voting by its caucus.
“Our MNAs have, not the right, but the responsibility to represent the voters in Quebec City,” she said. “It’s my name on the ballot, and people will be actually voting for me.” There is currently one CPQ MNA.
Feigenbaum said, “I will vote to repeal Bill 21 should someone succeed in getting it to the floor.”
The two English rights parties created in the past months are targeting D’Arcy McGee, hoping to repeat the 1989 upset by the long-defunct Equality Party.
Joel DeBellefeuille, an outspoken anti-racism advocate, was introduced as Bloc Montreal’s standard-bearer in June.
The Canadian Party of Quebec’s candidate Marc Perez said he is getting a very positive response on the ground in D’Arcy McGee. A Sephardi Jew whose first language is French, Perez is deeply concerned by Bill 96’s consequences for minorities and what he views as the CAQ’s negative attitude to multiculturalism.
“French is not in danger. The CAQ is using identity politics as a pretext to ignore real problems like health care,” he said.
“People feel the Liberals have betrayed us for the past 40 years. The party has lost its way. The Canadian Party is the one real federalist party… and definitely not just a ‘protest’ party.”
An IT specialist, Perez said the tough new language regulations will make running his small business much harder, especially dealing with non-francophone clients.
The political newcomer was, until running for office, a board and executive member of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue. Perez said he did not know if Sephardim feel differently about the election than Ashkenazim. His fellow congregants have avoided talking about politics with him.
The CAQ, PQ and Québec Solidaire (QS) have candidates in D’Arcy McGee as well.
The CAQ has a Sephardi candidate, Pascale Déry, introduced in July by Premier François Legault as a star in Repentigny, off the eastern tip of Montreal island, where the retiring CAQ MNA won with over 60 per cent of the vote in 2018.
After 15 years as a journalist and anchor with French-language TVA, in 2015 Déry ran unsuccessfully for the federal Conservative nomination in Mount Royal, then was parachuted into Drummond in central Quebec, and lost. Most recently, she was a media relations director at Air Canada.
Dery, whose father William was president of the Sephardi community in the 1980s, said she supports Bills 21 and 96 and describes herself as a “nationalist.”
The two main Jewish community organizations take different approaches to relations with the CAQ, a centre-right party founded in 2011.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs was extremely pleased that the government – but not the National Assembly – adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism last year, and championed a unanimous motion denouncing antisemitism during the Israel-Hamas conflict in May 2021.
This March, Economy and Innovation Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon became the first CAQ minister to lead a trade mission to Israel, returning with an agreement on life sciences research exchange.
B’nai Brith Canada is severely critical of Bill 96, which it says is discriminatory and “harms” the Jewish population. B’nai Brith is joining with other minority communities to press the government to withdraw certain provisions of the law. If that fails, B’nai Brith will consider a lawsuit.
Worrisome to the community is the popularity of the Québec Solidaire, which now has 10 MNAs, three more than the PQ. The left-wing party has long formally endorsed the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, and a few months ago its entire caucus signed on to the “Together Against Apartheid” campaign promoted by the anti-Zionist Independent Jewish Voices.
