Against good government

>> Last June, Bruno Viens, one of the Parti Québécois' most vocal grassroots members and a critic of the Bouchard government, abruptly resigned his position as President of the Montreal-Centre riding association, after a series of disputes with party leader Lucien Bouchard and a number of PQ MNAs. No interviews were allowed at the time of his resignation. In the interview excerpts below, Viens breaks his silence with Mirror News Editor Philip Preville--and tears off a strip of PQ brass in the process.

I resigned from my position and from all the committees I was on, but I kept my membership card. Even so, I would never work for the PQ again without a profound change of party strategy.

I am against the strategy of good government. Between 1976 and 1980, during Lévesque's first term, historians are unanimous: it was the best government in Quebec history. We passed new laws on election financing, consumer protection legislation, auto insurance, Bill 101... but we lost the referendum in 1980 anyway. So this strategy of good government--the idea that if you manage the economy, eliminate the deficit, then people will automatically support sovereignty--simply does not work.

Our opponents understand the situation very well. They emphasize the fundamentals of identity: the flag, with Sheila Copps; territorial integrity, with the partition movement; and passport and citizenship issues. We figure that if we merely act like a nice, well-run provincial government, we can then ask Quebecers to make us into our own country and they'll say Yes. Why would they? I don't get it.

There's always been a conflict between the PQ as a party and as a government. Our party program calls for an independent state with sweeping reforms in all sectors of government. I admit some of it looks like space-cadet stuff, but it's a serious platform. Then, when we finally elect a government, we turn into managers, caretakers for the province. What the government doesn't understand is that no one will vote for sovereignty if they don't identify with it profoundly. We can have the best public finances in the world, but if people still identify themselves as Canadians, they'll vote No again.

Anglophones tell us it's normal and legitimate for us to defend our language. But not on signs, not in commerce or industry, not at work or in school, not in health services and public administration, and not on roads. Where can we defend it, then? Soon the government won't be allowed to fund the FrancoFolies Festival because it's discriminatory. Statistics Canada figures show that annual assimilation rates for francophones [those who stop using French as their primary language] are higher on the West Island than in Saskatchewan. We're the ones at peril here.

Ever since Lucien Bouchard gave his speech to anglophones, I've been saying, "When do we get a speech for francophones? What is the government's commitment to us?" Many things make me angry and by June I had had it up to here with MNAs who kept saying to me that 'we're not just MNAs for the PQ, we're MNAs for all Quebecers.' Who got you elected? Who financed your campaign?

The existence of political parties is the basis of British parliamentary democracy. To become a head of government, you must first lead a party, which is by definition a partisan organization. So why is it that, once we get into power, we are no longer allowed to show our partisan colours? We battle our political opponents by saying there's une autre façon de gouverner, by coming up with new ideas, and then once in power we're told "We can't be different anymore nor have any new ideas."

Do the Liberals ever shy away from being partisan? They are never criticized on the front page of La Presse for delivering on partisan promises.

I haven't lost hope, but I no longer make sacrifices for the party. When the next referendum comes around, we have to work something out such that the government is not in charge of the Yes campaign. It should be the sovereignist partners who run the campaign. The education and groundwork is done by the PQ members--not the government itself. The government must recognize that.