Jean-Franois Lise, the Parti Qubcois ideas man, takes the helm
How a backroom adviser became the PQ's new leader
Jean-Franois Lise spent years sharing his ideasas a backroom adviser tosome of the Parti Qubcois's most iconic leaders.
He shared them more widely, later, as a prolific author, ubiquitous social criticand prominent cabinet minister. Lise's ideas will now get their grandest platform yet as he takes the helm of thePQ.
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His win Friday night was something of a surprise. Alexandre Cloutier was considered the establishment favouriteand formonths ledthe polls.
But as voting dayapproached, Lise waged a merciless campaign against his rival. He attacked Cloutier for wishing Muslims a Happy Eid a violation of Quebec'sethos ofsecularism, Lise charged.
Then, as the two clashed over identity issues, he attempted to link Cloutier to controversial imam Adil Charkaoui.
Cloutierbecame the target of a surge of online hate, which prompted him to alert provincial police. Lise struck a more civil tone afterward, but the damage was done.
Backroom operator
Lisehas alwaysfashioned himself an ideas man.
After picking up a law degree from theUniversity of Quebec in Montreal, he worked for many years as a journalist. He won a Governor General's Award in 1990 for a book of essays about Quebec's relationship with the U.S.
Lise became aspeechwriter and adviser to PQ Premier JacquesParizeau in the run-up to the 1995 referendum. He reportedly wrote the question that appeared on the ballot, which was either brilliant or deliberately confusing, depending on yourpolitical allegiance.
He stayed on after the referendum, working underLucien Bouchard.In the corridors of power,Lise earned a reputation as a cunning strategist.
His interpersonal skills, though, were less well received. Ministers often complained he operated behind their backs.
After leaving politics in 1999, he took up a position at the University ofMontrealand began publishing books at a breakneckrate. He also appeared on multiple current affairs shows and penned columns for L'actualit.
Return to politics
Few were surprisedwhen, in 2012, Liseleft his university post to return to politics, this time as a candidate.
His ambitions were obvious to many.Lisedidn't fit the profile of a quiet but loyal backbencher.
"His destiny will be higher than that," former premier Bernard Landrytold La Presseat the time.
Pauline Maroismade Liseminister of international relations in her short-lived minority government. But he was best remembered for helping to advocate for the party's fractious secularism charter, which sought to impose strict limits on religious clothing in public institutions.
After the PQ'sdefeatin 2014,Lisewrote a bookabout his time in office, claiming he actually opposed the charter and was ready to vote against it.
But hiscampaign for the leadership took up many of the charter's most controversial positions. His proposal to ban the burka in public, in fact, takes it further.
"I'm seeing that there are three enormous challenges for us Quebecers, and the rest of the planet, in the 21st century," Lisetold CBC'sQuebec AMlast month.
"The first is global warming. The second is inequalityand the third is the rise of Islamic fundamentalism."
The Lise gambit
Notably absent from this list is sovereignty, or federalism for that matter. Lise campaigned on the promise to shelve talk of a referendum on independenceuntil 2022, that is, until the second term of a PQ government. (The next provincial election is scheduled for 2018.)
Referendum talk makes the party easy prey for the Liberals, Lise argued during his campaign, and there can be no sovereignty if the PQ is perpetually in opposition.
That's where they've been since 2003, save the Marois interregnum.
Getting PQ members to put aside talk of sovereignty is no mean feat. But the party seems willing, at least for the moment, to play along with Lise's gambit.
His part of the bargain now is to deliver the next election. It's not yet clearhow he plans to do that, but you can be sure Lise will have an idea.
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