The Trudeau Liberals have decided the best way to deal with the Parti Québécois’ new leader, Jean-François Lisée, is to try to ignore him, party officials said.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
The Trudeau Liberals have decided the best way to deal with the Parti Québécois' new leader, Jean-François Lisée, is to try to ignore him, party officials said.
The challenge for the Liberals will be to stick to the plan as Mr. Lisée puts his tactical brain to use in coming years, after winning the PQ leadership on the promise of a six-year freeze on a third referendum on Quebec sovereignty.
A former journalist and PQ strategist, Mr. Lisée is known for his fluctuating positions on various issues, but also for his ability to steadily generate policy ideas and political tactics that keep his rivals on their toes and get under their skin.
In particular, a number of federal Liberals feel Mr. Lisée will try to wedge them in coming years on the thorny issue of identity politics and religious minorities, in the hopes of sparking another Canada-Quebec battle.
Some federal Liberals feel Quebec voters are already well aware of and respect Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's strong support for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but others feel vulnerable on this front, given the strong push toward secularism in the province.
Senior Liberal officials in Ottawa have already held meetings on the best way to deal with Mr. Lisée, sources said. The rallying cry in Liberal circles is to keep the "high road" and avoid responding to every one of Mr. Lisée's attacks and ideas.
"We want to stay above the fray," said a senior Liberal official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
But Mr. Lisée has spent more than two decades attacking federalists, which can make it hard for them to stay silent.
When asked to comment on Mr. Lisée's victory this week, Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion started off by saying this was a question for his Liberal counterparts "on the provincial stage." Still, he couldn't resist taking a shot at Mr. Lisée, who won the PQ leadership by promising that he wouldn't hold a referendum in his first mandate.
"The only thing that I would allow myself to say on this issue is that, from the point of view of national unity, it is quite significant that the candidate who distanced himself the most from a referendum on secession is the one who won the leadership race in the Parti Québécois. That is very significant," Mr. Dion said.
Mr. Lisée, who made his start as the PQ Leader in the National Assembly this week, did not agree to an interview for this story. Still, he has already laid out some of his plans to take on the federal government.
"Don't think we will miss out on the 150th anniversary of Canada [in 2017] to lay out the 150 times that we were cheated by Canada. It's going to be a great educational opportunity," Mr. Lisée said after his leadership victory.
In the past, he has advocated a number of ideas to boost support for Quebec independence, including holding a referendum on a transfer of federal powers to Quebec. If it was rejected, his thinking went, support for sovereignty would go up.
During the leadership race, he played heavily on issues related to identity, saying he'd consider banning burkas for "security" reasons. After his win, he said he was ready to "recalibrate" his position, although he made clear that he does not plan to drop the topic.
Mr. Trudeau, by contrast, has offered his full support to individual and religious liberties, including the right of any woman to wear the niqab. He defended the position in the last election, in which he won 40 of 78 seats in Quebec.
To this day, Mr. Trudeau is still surfing on a strong wave of popularity in Quebec, with a CROP poll this week stating that his Liberal Party had the support of 61 per cent of the electorate.
The same survey showed Mr. Lisée's victory had led to a bump in PQ support in the province, solidifying his party's hold on second place (30 per cent) behind the governing Quebec Liberal Party (37 per cent).
The hard reality for Mr. Lisée, however, is that support for sovereignty in the poll stood at only 32 per cent – confirming that he will have to dig deep in his bag of tricks if he wants to persuade Quebeckers to vote "Yes" in the referendum that he wants to hold in 2022.