by PATRICK LEJTENYI

It all started, Françoise David says, in October 2000. The veteran feminist and left-wing thinker and then head of the Quebec's Women's Federation was leading the World March of Women and had presented a list of 20 demands to the provincial péquiste government.

"We'd presented our demands to the government a year before, and the response we got was quite lamentable," she says. "And so, several women got together and said, ‘If such a big demonstration [some 40,000 people turned out] and so much negotiating with the government got us nowhere, well, maybe it's time that we form the government."

Eventually, by 2003, David's plan to rally progressive-thinking women and men under a common banner had started to take shape. Within a year, Option citoyenne was officially in business, not as a political party - it still isn't, officially - but as a movement of like-minded, politically engaged individuals looking to create an alternative type of government and, by extension, society.

There already is a party with the same goal - the Union des forces progressistes (UFP), the coalition of socialists and communists formed in 2001. The two have been in merger talks since last December, which David says are going smoothly, and they plan to jointly announce their new party in mid-January 2006.

Finding common ground

Speaking at Café L'Esperanza on St-Viateur and St-Laurent last Monday, Aug. 22, David talks about the hopes she has of presenting a viable alternative. The confines are cozy, and 40 or so people, the majority middle-aged women but with some older men and younger individuals, are listening in. David speaks with confidence, standing erect and without consulting notes. In an even, thoughtful tone, she broadly outlines Option citoyenne's whys and wherefores. She speaks in French - the movement's anglo recruiter, Sujata Dey, spoke prior - and talks politics. She warns that autumn will be uncomfortably hot for the current government, led by Liberal Jean Charest, dominated by labour strife that will surely alienate the electorate even further.

In conversation with the Mirror before the speech, she talks about having to "change the mentality" behind gender relations, politics and economics, as well as the upcoming merger with the UFP.

The state of the talks are "exceeding my expectations," she says. "We diverge on some issues, but we are finding ways of ironing that out." She acknowledges the two groups come from different backgrounds, have a different membership base and have different political cultures. "But we both very much want it to work, and to find a solution that satisfies both sides."

The differences, she says, are fairly minor, revolving around provisional statutes leading up to the next election and the question of collective membership. Option citoyenne doesn't want voting blocks within the party but, "If some people want to get together to discuss something that's preoccupying them, or to do research on an issue, we would allow for the creation of a collective," she says. "We want to allow political pluralism, but when we adopt a program, we want our members to rally behind it."

Social justice before sovereignty

Of course, politics in Quebec is nothing without the sovereignty question. Here, neither party is explicitly clear. The UFP, many of whose members are former péquistes disillusioned with the party's move to the political centre, has a definite sovereigntist bent, although independence is not the top priority. As for Option citoyenne, they're still trying to figure that one out. David says the national question will be decided at a three-day congress in late October.

"One thing is clear already," she says. "Whatever our constitutional position may be, Article 1 of the Option citoyenne program will be neither sovereignty or federalism, but the social program based on the common good and social justice, and the question we'll ask ourselves at our congress this fall will be, do we need sovereignty to achieve our social program? Or can a radically overhauled federalism satisfy us, and if yes, is it an achievable option? Are there people across the country who are interested in radically redefining federalism?"

But, according to David, the real challenge is re-connecting voters with politics. "We have to confront the population's cynicism and disenchantment," she says. "It's a challenge for all political parties, but we want to tell them that it's possible to do politics differently. Or at least we're going to try."