All’s quiet on the protest front

Far be it from journalists to be cynical, but, judging from the spate of photo opportunities with sitting MNAs (one Friday, one Monday), the re-nomination of Robert Baldwin MNA Pierre Marsan, and the frequency of government news conferences and press releases we think the Liberal government might be setting the table for a spring election.

Not that we don't think the Liberals are honest in their efforts to serve their citizens, but we've just seen this particular song and dance before; near the end of its mandate, governments get wracked with guilt over its inability to properly get things done – except shaft the residents of de-merged municipalities who had the gall to exercise their right of self-determination by voting themselves out of the $400-million-in-the-hole-and-counting mega-city in 2004 with tax increases controlled by someone who doesn't even answer to them — during the first three years of their mandate.

In the last year of its mandate, the government always gets downright generous with your taxpayer dollars, to say nothing of the $10 million an investigation into the Laval overpass collapse will cost us. But let's forget about that for a moment, won't we? The government would like you to, which is why the charm offensive has begun.

Photo ops abound, MNAs are suddenly everybody's best friends, and re-nomination meetings are held for MNAs even though no election has yet been called. But don't worry. The Liberals are confident that their bungling (de-mergers, broken tax-cut promises, etc.) will be trumped by Parti Québécois leader André Boisclair's happy-go-lucky partying habits as an issue in any upcoming campaign, and that the residents they stuck it to so nicely with the de-merger debacle will once more show their gratitude by voting overwhelmingly Liberal. The Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ) has yet to convert any star candidates in the West Island, and no news is good news for the incumbents, as every day that goes by without a third option for West Island voters is another day that forces the overwhelmingly federalist riding to choose the Liberals.

So, no sign of the rumoured West Island/Westmount/West End "protest party" that the suburban mayors spoke so forcefully of in the early days of the agglomeration council, and as the leaves tumble from the trees, be conscious of the notion that, the next time you see your lawn, you might very well also be casting a provincial ballot.