Election 2015: Quebec rises again

How the province has dominated this federal election campaign, in ways both historic and unexpected

John Duffy

“You have to understand,” the federal strategist told me in the spring of 2013, “that this whole thing is a massive Quebec play.” Campaign 2015’s fundamental story is the re-emergence of the province’s issues and tendencies at the centre of Canadian politics. These primordial elements of our history have unleashed an epic rise-and-fall drama with three prohibitive front-runners in eight months, the comeback of a seemingly doomed national party and, just perhaps, a vintage Diefenbaker-’57-style, star-is-born moment for Justin Trudeau. Oh yeah, and a near-crisis in the country’s conception of itself.

For almost a quarter of a century since the eruption of the sovereignist Bloc Québécois, Quebec has held aloof from federal politics. This is most unusual. Since the country’s inception, the most reliable means of winning a national election had been to position leader and party as the bridge between Quebec’s cohesive francophone majority and enough of the country’s other constituencies to put together a national government.

Read the whole story at Macleans.ca http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/election-2015-quebec-rises-again/