Munk Dialogue with Andrew Coyne: Canada’s separatist moment

The election results are guaranteed to be extraordinary, guaranteed to be unusual, if not unprecedented, not just in Canada, but in any advanced democracy. So that is just those results are going to be interesting and it will be a contest for for

interpretation. Welcome to The Monk Dialogues. I'm Roger Griffiths, chair of The Monk Debates, joined by our regular contributor, Globe and Mail journalist, Andrew Coyne. Andrew, great to be in conversation with you.

Good to talk to you.

Yeah, the last few weeks, tens of thousands of downloads on our conversations with you on YouTube and over on our podcast channel. Lots of interest in Canadian politics. I'm glad for once we're not talking about Donald Trump. I'm sure we'll have lots of time to do that in the run up to the midterms. But what I want to talk with you today about, Andrew, is a consequential election in Quebec that is unfolding as we speak and likely as people listen to this podcast and watch this video today. And then the upcoming Alberta referendum and the potential fallout and consequences of that vote. But let's stay with Quebec today. What are you going to be looking for coming out of the vote in Canada's Belle-Provence to try to figure out where this federation is headed next?

Well, I think the most immediate thing is, I mean, it seems to be a fairly foregone conclusion that the PQ will win the most seats, although there is a lot of movement the last few days and you can't really say anything for certain. But let's say that that's the most likely result. Then the question becomes, do they get a majority or not? Until fairly recently, people might have given them a good shot at that, even though they were only at 29, 30% in the polls. And it's entirely possible they still could, but right now it's looking less likely. But let's suppose they do. First of all, And the election is highly unusual in that you've got five parties with more than 10% or more of the vote. The vote is split extraordinarily. It's very, very rare you would see that. There's only two elections in Canadian history in which you've had that result. Five parties with more than 10% of the vote. The one was the last Quebec election. The other was in the 1997 election. federal election. But what was different about those two elections was there was a clear front run. The Liberals federally in 97, the CAQ in 2022, that was 15, 20 points ahead of its nearest rival. And though they got a very disproportionate result, they wound up getting majorities with only 30, you know, 30 odd percent of the vote, it was still clearly they were the winning party. In this election, not only do you have the vote split five ways, but the leading party is likely to come in under 30%. You cannot find an example of that, of a party winning the popular vote with less than 30% of the vote. That's usually a bad loss. And to on top of that, because the vote is so split, for them to even be close to winning a majority,

among

other things, just shows you what a distorted and crazy electoral system we have. In this case, it would deliver the majority that would give them a mandate, at least as they claim, to hold a referendum sometime during their first