Two more words: Le Hir.
The infamous Richard Le Hir and the rest of his buds were elected to power on Sept. 12. Even though the PQ got only 16,000 more votes than the Liberals, Le Hir’s party won 77 seats compared to a measly 47 for the Liberals. Democracy is a strange thing, isn’t it?
In the riding of Duplessis, the Innu will again be represented by Denis Perron, the rabidly pro-Great Whale and pro-SM-3 PQer. The Algonquins are fortunate enough to have three MNAs speaking for their interests—two separatists (Remy Trudel in Rouyn-Noranda and Andre Pelletier in Abitibi-East) and one Liberal (Rejean Lafreniere in Gatineau).
And, yes, hurray for our favourite David Cliche, who scraped by in a Laval riding with something like 150 votes. “It’s like Monsieur Levesque told me, I have the good head of a pig,” Cliche gushed to a reporter on election night.
As for the Crees and the Inuit, their territory covering the top two-thirds of Quebec is all in one big riding called Ungava. Along with a couple of other towns like Chibougamau and Matagami thrown in. The person now defending this region in Quebec City is the PQ’s Michel Letourneau, who was put into office with a vengeance.
He was elected with 7,276 votes, compared to a mere 5,375 for Victor Murray of the Liberals. Thomas DeMarco of the Green Party was way back with 407 votes. That was just slightly ahead of Marlene Charland, the Natural Law Party’s Yogic Flying hero. She definitely has a core of supporters to work with in Ungava with her 372 votes.
One oddity about Ungava is the small number of people who voted—13,430. The average Quebec riding had almost three times as many—32,000. Maybe Romeo was heard.
So what does it all mean? Perhaps Jacques Parizeau said it best when it came his turn to give a speech: “We will ask Quebecers the question that will make a country of a people: ‘Do we want to be a normal people?”‘
