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The Current Transcript for October 3, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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Parti Quebecois commercial.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: It was a simple and powerful message that resonated across Quebec back in the 1970s. The Parti Quebecois and its charismatic leader Renee Lévesque with its goal and promise of a separate country, a Quebec for Quebecers. It would influence the political trajectory, not only of one province, but of this entire country for decades. From constitutional fights to financial flight, from referenda to politics steeped in alienation in Quebec and in the West. The threat of separatism shadowed this country and now after this week's election, the Parti Quebecois is an electoral shell. In an hour we're asking what this really signals. Also today.

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VOICE: I like that sentence so much, I'm going to say it again. The single largest private sector investment in the history of Canada.

AMT: The massive new liquefied natural gas project centred in Kitimat, will see a 670 kilometre pipeline snaked through northern B.C. in a deal embraced by more than 20 First Nations. In half an hour, we're asking what makes this pipeline project so different from the fight over Trans Mountain. But we're starting with the encouragement wrapped up in Donna Strickland's remarkable accomplishment of a Nobel Prize in physics.

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VOICE: I'm not a woman whose been looking at all of these prizes, thinking why isn't there a woman. I sort of haven't thought like that, but I know a lot of people I guess do look at that.

I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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3 women have a Nobel Prize in Physics. This UBC professor aims to eliminate the gender bias

Guests: Jessica Wade, Marina Milner-Bolotin

AMT: Well Canadian Donna Strickland is the toast of the scientific community and the country, after she was named recipient of this year's Nobel Prize in Physics yesterday. Her work on chirped pulse amplification, maybe beyond what most people can readily understand. It led to the development of among other things laser eye surgery. But the fact was not lost on anyone that Professor Strickland is the first woman to be so honoured since Maria Goeppert-Mayer back in 1963. Speaking at the University of Waterloo yesterday, Donna Strickland explained that she'd cited Maria Goeppert-Mayer's work in her own dissertation, but got one little fact wrong.

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VOICE: First of all, I will also admit, I actually called her he in my thesis, except that one of the people reading the thesis said shame on you Donna and changed it to she. Because I knew of the work and did not know that she was a she. And it was after that that I read about her and how you know she never got a paid job. There she is and actually what I cited before was she was and a theorist can do things that experimentalists can't because they don't have to wait for the laser to be invented. So in 1939 she predicted that an atom could absorb two photons. Nobody had thought of that before. And it was a woman that thought of it and changed how we do that area of science.

AMT: Times were different then.

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VOICE: And yet she didn't follow her husband from job to job, while became a professor and went up the ranks and moved universities to do that as a chemist and she would be allowed to teach if she wanted to and she was allowed to have an office, if she wanted to sit there and do some research on her own, but didn't get paid until the 50s. And yet the work I cited her was from 1939 and so obviously women have come a long way. I feel like it paid the same and I felt like all along, I've always been paid the same and treated the same.

AMT: Well despite Professor Strickland's sanguine assessment, the fact remains that 55 years is a long time to go between female laureates in the field of physics. And so while celebrating her accomplishment, we're using this as a jumping off point for what many view as a gender equity problem in physics. Jessica Wade is a physicist and researcher at Imperial College London in the UK. That's where we've reached her. Hello.

JESSICA WADE: Hello.

AMT: Well how did you react when you heard Donna Strickland had won the Nobel Prize in physics?

JW: It's just such fantastic news. I think everyone in physics departments everywhere was jumping up and down with excitement. She sounds like such a wonderful and humble and modest woman, as well. I loved the story yesterday that she hadn't bothered to apply for a professorship because she just couldn't be bothered to fill out the forms and that wasn't fun enough. And to think that someone who is obviously so incredibly intelligent and wise and innovative with the way that they've used lasers as you introduced, I think to think that she's being recognized in this way is just so wonderful for scientists all over the world.

AMT: And so what do you make of the fifty five years since the previous female recipient and then before her, the only other was Marie Curie in 1903. Sparse recognition, are there so few women doing physics or have they just not been recognized?

JW: Well I think it's kind of a combination of both. There are very few women in senior positions in the physics community and that's got to change and hopefully that will start to change now with inspirational people like Donna Strickland leading the way. But then also the work of women has largely gone unrecognized. And I think that the Nobel committee is finally waking up to the way that modern science is done. It's done by big collaborative team. It's done by people at every stage of their degrees and of their studies. I read yesterday that Donna Strickland won the Nobel Prize for her first academic paper that she did this you know she did this when she was a PhD student with her supervisor. And for the Nobel Committee to now recognize that the students of that level can contribute to such exciting research is so important.

AMT: It is very exciting isn't it? We should mention too the news today, American scientist Francis Arnold is among three sharing the Nobel in chemistry. She the fifth woman and interestingly enough the first was, again Marie Curie. Marie Curie won in 1903 for physics and again in 1911 for chemistry. After that the next winner in chemistry for a woman in the Nobel was Marie Curie's daughter.

JW: It's just phenomenal and I think if you look at the years, it's the first time ever that a woman has won both the physics and the chemistry one. So we've never had women in both categories before. So that is just so cool. And when you think about the challenges that Marie Curie faced when she was studying and working in science like so eloquently introduced by Donna Strictland. Like they weren't being paid properly women scientists. They couldn't graduate from universities, they couldn't become fellows of the Royal Society. So obviously we've come an awful awful long way since then and women are now obtaining really senior positions, but I think that there are still kind of structural biases that are holding women back from succeeding in these careers. And we need to start having those discussions.

AMT: Well that brings me to my next question because this news of course is juxtaposed against some other news from the world of physics. Last Friday at a workshop by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, a senior Italian physicist Alessandro Strumia gave a presentation. You were there. What happened?

JW: And so in the presentation a professor from Italy got up and said that physics had been invented by men and was not by invitation and that the women that he saw contributing to his area of physics in high energy physics and string theory, had only been allowed to get that due to tokenism. Because people wanted to improve diversity and that been promoted too early and not because they were kind of bright enough or ingenious enough, they're just been given the positions because they were women. And I think that the most incredibly offensive and bizarre parts of all of this was he was saying to a room of early career women working in high energy physics. So this was a professor basically telling an audience of really young scientists, the only reason you'll ever get anywhere in your career is because you're a woman. And then he produced all of this kind of data where he'd compared himself to senior women who had been promoted before him, which was just the most kind of obscure thing to do. And I think that is such a perfect time as someone is humble and wonderful as Donna Strickland to win the physics Nobel Prize because it was such a different story. It wasn't from a place of kind of anger and frustration. It was from a place of ingenuity and innovation.

AMT: You know we voiced one of his slides. The video hasn't been released, but we've got the presentation and I just want our our listeners to hear part of it. Here we go.

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VOICE: This is some examples of discrimination against men. Oxford University extends exam times for women's benefit. In Italy free or cheaper university for STEM female students. At Melbourne University Stem positions for women only. And in many places the administrations want 50 percent irrespective of merit. Physics is not sexist against women. However truth does not matter because it's part of the political battle coming from outside. And it's not clear who will win.

AMT: Just wait. What was the reaction in the room?

JW: I think people were genuinely quite stunned. When you think about the early stages of a scientific career. Everyone is there on a really short term contract. So the scientists in the room who were really early career researchers, they maybe got three years on this project and they're working somewhere as great as CERN or university and collaborating with them. But their career ultimately depends on these kind of gatekeepers. This professor, a senior one at the university and someone with a big position at CERN and he'll be involved with hiring these people. With reviewing their grant applications, with looking at whether they should get awards or not. And to think that someone who obviously possesses such bias against women and who knows what he thinks about other underrepresented groups could ever impact those people's careers is such a terrifying thought and then they're too frightened to speak up. Because if they speak up and call this kind of behaviour out, it could directly impact them. So I think you have this kind of double thing of frustration and anger, but also just fear that this can impact their career later on.

AMT: We should mention that CERN has suspended Alessandro Strumia because they say that his presentation was unacceptable and contrary to the CERN code of conduct. What does the research actually say about the kinds of bias women in science have to face?

JW: Well it's actually really interesting when you look at that kind of progression through an academic career and it's very similar all over the world. So when you start out looking at kind of schools participation in physics. You see that there's obviously a lack of representation of girls at really young levels, at kind of 15 16 17 years old and that's because of lots and stereotypes in society that have historically told girls that they're not good at these subjects and then those get taken on and adopted by teachers and parents, who consciously and unconsciously push them on these young women. So we really need to change and counter that. And I know that you're going to be discussing how we can teach physics effectively in a few minutes.

AMT: I am. I'm going to ask you about what you're doing with Wikipedia though because.

JW: Ok great. Well then a kind of as you move through your career, there are biases invoked with the promotion and kind of retention of women. So if you look at the peer review area, which people can look at online because it's a bit too complicated to describe, but when you publish your scientific research in a paper, you send it off to a bunch of scientists who look at it and review it and decide whether they think it's good enough. And that process is single site blind. So the scientists who are reviewing it, know who you are as the author, but you have no idea who they are. And that has been shown to have a huge bias against women and non-Western scientists. So at that level there's some bias. There's also horrific bias in the way that students evaluate teaching. So students in kind of undergraduates who attend lectures are very biased against women academics , which is horrific because that's also something that's used in kind of job promotion and whether you'll become a professor. And then also this idea that when you go to apply for a grant or apply for senior prize, professors like this Italian gentleman, have these gatekeeper roles where they make the decision and if their bias is against you as a woman, then you'll really have a hard time. So all of those things kind of add together and then obviously as with the rest of the working world, when women take time out due to maternity leave it's incredibly difficult to get back into scientific research again. So the really innovative universities and I know lots in Canada are doing this, have really really streamlined programs to reintegrate women back into the kind of research scientific world and to preserve their funding in students, while they take time out.

AMT: The other thing is when people want to look up who the women are out there, even Ms. Strickland, Wikipedia wouldn't even accept her page two years ago. Am I right?

JW: Isn't this incredible. So no I think this is as early as May, someone had written out the Wikipedia page for Professor Donna Strickland and Wikipedia's other editors had said no this person isn't notable enough. And just only a couple of months later she went on to win the Nobel Prizes, which basically makes her the most notable person in the entire world. I think Wikipedia is obviously a phenomenally useful and important resource that we have to keep a history of today alive for ever. Keep the stories that we have toda alive forever. And it's used so regularly, it's the fifth most access website in the entire world, but there just like with these gatekeepers in science, you've got the majority of editors are men. It's about 80 to 90 percent of the editors are white men. And then the majority of content they create are about things that men are "interested in." So you have a huge bias in the biographies on Wikipedia. Only 17 percent of the biographies on English-Speaking Wikipedia are about women. So there's a need to change it and while Donna Strickland is certainly notable enough.

AMT: And I know that you are doing some of that by making sure that women are recognized on Wikipedia, as well. But Jess Wade, we have to leave it there. Thank you for your thoughts today.

JW: Thank you so much and well doen Canada.

AMT: Jessica Wade, physicist and researcher at Imperial College London. We reached her in London, England. Well in Canada, women continue to be underrepresented in physics. In fact some studies find fewer women are entering the field. According to a study from last year the percentage of women getting degrees in physics dropped from 30 percent to 12 percent between 2000 and 2009. My next guest is one of the people aiming to change that. Marina Milner-Bolotin is an associate professor of education at the University of British Columbia. She studies how to teach physics. She has a degree in physics and how to get girls and other underrepresented students interested in matter, energy, time and the structure of the universe. Marina Milner-Bolotin is in Vancouver. Hello.

MARINA MILNER-BOLOTIN: Hello thank you for inviting me.

AMT: Why do you think physics in particular lags behind other areas of science in terms of representation of women?

MMB: That's a great question. I think there is no one right answer. There are many, but one of them in my view would be that it is an abstract subject area that requires a continuous construction of knowledge in a way you have to build this knowledge throughout your elementary school and then high school. And unfortunately in my view, we do not have enough girls who receive and actually boys solid education in those fields in elementary schools and for girls it's even more problematic because a lot of them do not believe they can do physics or science so they do not have a strong background and they don't think they can even do. They just disengage. So we have very few girls deciding to pursue physics in high school so that's how it starts in my view.

AMT: And why did you decide to pursue physics?

MMB: Oh that's a great question. I was born in the Soviet Union and I was not born in some ways in a normal family. Most of my grandparents, parents, most of my family had degrees and I would say more than half of them had degrees in physics. So I was born in a place where studying physics and being a girl doing physics was absolutely normal. I never thought it was something special. it's just what people do. They love it.

AMT: And so you see a difference in how physics is seen in the classroom here in the classrooms you're dealing with versus what you grew up with.

MMB: Oh absolutely. When I moved from the Soviet Union I lived in Israel first, then I pursued my PhD at the University of Texas, the first graduate physics course in quantum mechanics. I was I think maybe the only one woman out of 30 plus students or maybe there were two. I do not remember, but it was shocking for me because I'd never I've never had that experience before where I was the only one. So I didn't know that this can happen.

AMT: And so we often hear this line that women and girls are not as interested in physics as men and boys. How do you how do you tackle that?

MMB: That's a good question as well. So you're asking me about nurture versus nature. Is it an inherent thing that women are not interested. I have not done research on that particularly, but what I have done, I've seen how important the influence of teachers and the family is. And if you have the rights surrounding, I think more people would have been interested in science and physics in other fields. And that's what my focus is. I want to educate teachers who will be able to inspire boys and girls in physics. We do not have a lot of boys who are interested in physics either. So the issue today in my view that we have to focus on how to educate teachers and the other thing, which might surprise you, is we have to focus on parents as well because parents also have a huge influence on the children. What they want to pursue, what the kids want to study, if the parents encourage it. And a lot of parents don't believe that girls can be good in physics. So in my view it is more than the teachers. It's teachers and parents and as educators who work with parents as well.

AMT: So what are some of the initiatives you're involved in, in to try to get girls involved in physics?

MMB: We have quite a lot going on. For example every November, we are organizing our faculty of education Family Math and Science Day where we have free day of hands-on-activities where we have a lot, of more than a hundred different experiments, not only in physics and math and biology, chemistry, computer science, but we want our teacher candidates, our future teachers to know how to engage children and their families in science. That's a hands on day very influential for parents and the families and of course the teacher candidates. And my colleagues said, if you want to do activities where they involve girls in science, we're doing the physics Olympics every year. Last year was the 40th anniversary, where we have teams and I'm emphasizing it's the team competition for kids from all over British Columbia, where they come to UBC and participate in hands on science, which is not something a lot of students have had. Have an opportunity to do in high school. So we do a lot of things to show to people that there is room in science for people who are interested and also want to emphasize that science is not a thing that is done by one person. Science is an endeavor that is done by usually by teams, where people collaborate and contributions of different people matter.

AMT: And how important is someone like Donna Strickland now in inspiring young women to pursue physics?

MMB: I think it's very important because when you see people like you when I was growing up, I saw many women doing physics getting PhD in physics. I didn't even think that it was unusual. I personally will celebrate the day where we do not need women in physics groups because it will be normal that women are in physics or in engineering or in science. I personally believe that the goal should be that every person who has a desire to pursue science, should have an opportunity to do that, independently of where they come from, what their gender is. Science should be inclusive of different people because we all have a contribution to make, but to get to that point we have to help every child in Canada to get high quality education and to have the support from the parents, from the families.

AMT: And to see what's possible.

MMB: I do believe it's possible. If I didn't believe it was possible, I would have quit my job.

AMT: OK. Well Marina, thank you for speaking with me today.

MMB: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Have a great day.

AMT: You as well. Marina Milner-Bolotin is a professor of education at the University of BC. We reached her in Vancouver. Let us know what you think. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. And stay with us. In our next half hour, right after the news, we're talking about one pipeline that looks like it is absolutely going to be built. We will hear all about the politics, the environmental impact and the Indigenous reaction to the big announcement of a $40 billion liquefied natural gas project in BC. It involves a 670 kilometre pipeline through northern BC. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, online on cbc.ca/thecurrent, on podcast and on your radio app.

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$40B natural gas investment could be undermined by China, warns environmentalist

Guests: Vaughn Palmer, Karen Tam Wu, Ellis Ross

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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AMT: Still to come, this week's election in Quebec was historic for many reasons. For one, it may just have been the end of an era for the Parti Quebecois. In half an hour, we're going to look into the fate of the party that once seemed to hold the fate of Quebec and the country in its hands. But first, the LNG project and everything it is running through.

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VOICE 1: Today is a good day.

VOICE 2: Energy Canada is immediately today moving into construction.

VOICE 1: It's a good day for Canada today.

VOICE 3: Today. Today LNG Canada has sent a signal to the people of the world.

VOICE 1: It's a good day for Canadian workers.

VOICE 3: British Columbia and Canada are open for business. The people and the ingenuity and the resources of British Columbia are there to make life better for everyone.

AMT: Well, sounds from yesterday's announcement that a massive new liquefied natural gas or LNG project is now officially underway. Andy Calitz, the CEO of LNG Canada was joined by B.C. Premier John Horgan and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for a news conference announcing all of that. And in a bullet point that was repeated several times, the trio told reporters that at $40 billion this will be the largest private sector investment in Canadian history. Though the prime minister took pains to assure Canadians that this energy infrastructure investment would not come with a hefty environmental cost.

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VOICE: We can't build energy projects like we did in the old days, where the environment and the economy were seen as opposing forces. Those days are gone. What people didn't realize then, is that in the 21st century we don't have to choose between a healthy environment and a strong economy. They must go together. And today is proof of that.

AMT: Well this is an energy project and a pipeline project and those are never free from controversy. So we'll get to concerns about the environmental impact and the question of Indigenous peoples support for LNG, but we're starting with the political context of yesterday's big announcement. Vaughn Palmer is the Vancouver Sun's political affairs columnist and he joins us from Victoria, B.C. Hi Vaughn.

VAUGHN PALMER: Good Morning Anna-Maria.

AMT: So how significant is this politically?

VP: Oh I think huge. We've been talking about it in British Columbia more or less continuously for seven years and in fact as Premier John Horgan pointed out yesterday, the first B.C. politician to promise LNG was 1982 if anybody can remember who was running the country back then. So no it's it's been talked about for a long time. The world markets have hit the magic mark where Shell and its partners, a huge consortium there that have looked at this site for several years and done some preliminary work, decided there's a market. Let's go and pears that construction's going to start fairly quickly. Most of the permitting is in place and for a B.C. energy project there's a lot more support for it than there is for most of the things we talk about out here.

AMT: So for Prime Minister Trudeau and the federal government this is a win?

VP: Oh yeah. Oh yeah and provincial government as well. I mean the Prime Minister he showed up yesterday right and the first thing he said was you know we can get these things done in Canada, if we do them right. And I guess if you were going to take the LNG playbook and say how can you do this exactly the way they did it here, one thing is very clear. The pipeline company, which is TransCanada and Shell and its partners, which are going to build this giant terminal, spent years building support with First Nations in British Columbia. Many benefit sharing agreements signed, both for the pipeline and the terminal and there were First Nations leaders involved in the project, who actually have a piece of the action at the meeting yesterday praising it. So I think that's one of the biggest hurdles they've cleared here is there is a way to get first nations onside, but you have to do an awful lot of work and natural gas projects are easier to build support for than those involving oil. First of all, when the natural gas pipeline ruptures, the stuff ventures into the atmosphere. We know what happens with oil.

AMT: So tell us a little bit more about this this product. First of all, liquefied natural gas.

VP: Yeah. So you pipe the stuff out of the ground, the way we get natural gas that comes to your house and it gets piped to a terminal in Kitimat. This enormous terminal, most of the money will be spent building this giant terminal in Kitimat and what it basically is is a giant refrigerator. Natural gas to be transported by tankers, has to be liquefied and to liquefy the stuff you have to get down to the chilly temperature of 162 degrees below zero centigrade. And that takes an awful lot of pressure and it takes, as I say, it's a giant refrigerator. So these terminals consume a lot of power to make the LNG and then tanker loads it up and away it goes to Asia. The advantage we have here in Canada and with this the port of Kitimat, our American competitors down on the U.S. Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Texas, 20 days for them to get their product to Asian markets through the Panama Canal. When Canada's up and running, it'll be five days. So that's a big advantage. There's another advantage, I told you the temperature we have to get to well Kitimat isn't at 162 degrees below zero, but it has a much lower ambient air temperature than Louisiana and Australia and most of the places that produce natural gas, so they have a head start on the air temperature and apparently that actually saves a certain amount of power in getting the stuff liquefied.

AMT: Okay. And this goes by pipeline from?

VP: From the gas fields in northeastern British Columbia mostly. There's a very large area of natural gas in that region called the Montney Shale, but it's mostly in B.C. This big Malaysian company that is one of the partners in this, Petronas. They already own a lot of gas in Canada. They bought a big company in Calgary a few years ago and they own gas. So a lot of the gas will come from there. A lot of the gas, will be gas that we already produce. So about 40 percent of the gas that goes through the pipeline and it gets liquefied and sent overseas, will simply be transferred from the gas that currently we sell for not as good a price to the rest of the country and the rest of the continent. So only part of this is an increase.

AMT: And there's also a South Korean company right? It's their first foray into.

VP: Yes. Japanese, Malaysians, Chinese and Royal Dutch Shell. So Royal Dutch Shell is the lead partner, but the others are all there too and if you look at the list of companies you've got a pretty good idea where some of the gas will be going to. They signed long term contracts and I think they've already got some of those commitments in place.

AMT: Okay so I need to ask a little bit more about the politics. Andrew Weaver, the leader of BC's Green Party says his party will not support any legislation related to this LNG project because of climate implications, also economic ones. Let's listen to him.

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VOICE: There's a lot of bluster going on right. $40 billion dollar investment and if you do your good hard work, you'll realise that most of that investment is actually in Asia because that's where the LNG facilities will be built or it's already being spent on the acquisition of the upstream fields. Secondly, the 10,000 construction jobs cannot be met by the present labour market, will be supplied with temporary foreign workers. These are the realities. The next question is the giveaway. How are we going to provide the electricity? Well the ratepayer is going to actually have to have their rates go up in order to deliver electricity to the LNG sector, at half of what you and I are paying.

AMT: What do you make of those criticisms Vaughn Palmer?

VP: Well provincial government put out a big technical briefing for us here yesterday to address some of the issues that Weaver has raised. I mean he is a partner in sharing power with the government. So the first thing they said was they are working with Weaver and the Greens on a climate action plan that will reconcile the LNG terminal, which comes online in 2024 with the provincial government of a four goal legislative of a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. So they say they're going to hit the reduction target and that's by 2030. They say that the plan they're working on will get us 75 percent of the way there and there will be a second plan released after consultation next year and it'll get us the rest of the distance. It will be accomplished by largely electrifying large other sections of the BC economy, including homes and transportation.

AMT: Now the NDP minority government depends on the Greens. Do they risk losing that support?

VP: That was the most interesting thing in the briefing yesterday, which was where would Weaver get the opportunity to vote against any of this. Most of the changes that are being done, are being done without legislation. The first tax break for this company they did by Cabinet order yesterday. Some of the other changes will be done. There is one provincial tax that they have to repeal, but that doesn't have to be repealed until the terminal is up and running because it's a tax on the gas itself and that doesn't need to happen until 2024. So Weaver will have the opportunity when the legislature sits next year and we bring in a budget and a throne speech to vote against the government, if he chooses and bring down the government over that. But over LNG, I don't think he'll get the opportunity. Of course, Anna Maria, the other thing to remember is the Liberals, the opposition now, but they worked to get this thing happening. They were running around taking credit yesterday I can tell you. So the thought of the Liberals giving any votes to bring down the government over LNG, I just don't think it happens. Weaver has three votes he may cast a protest vote at some point, but I don't think it's LNG that will send us into another election in British Columbia.

AMT: OK. Well we do have a Liberal MLA waiting in the wings. So we'll go from there. Vaughan Palmer, thank you.

VP: Bye bye.

AMT: Bye bye. That is Vaughan Palmer, Vancouver Sun's political affairs columnist. He's in Victoria and before we get to the Liberal MLA waiting in the wings, Ellis Ross, I'm going to speak to Karen Tam Wu. She is the Pembina Institute's managing director for BC. And as we heard the prime minister say, he was insisting that this new pipeline will not come at any environmental expense. So let's hear what Karen Tam Wu has to say about that. She's in Vancouver. Hello.

KAREN TAM WU: Good morning.

AMT: How comforted are you by those assurances those environmental Scheurer assurances by the prime minister.

KTW: Well I think yesterday's announcement with LNG Canada coming on line, it will definitely make it much more challenging for BC to meet our legislative climate commitments, which Vaughn outlined earlier and that is for B.C. to reduce our carbon pollution by 40 per cent by 2030. At least today, I'm feeling a little bit relieved that we do have a clear picture of the additional carbon pollution on the way and now we know how ambitious and how bold BC's new climate plan that the government has committed to deliver in the fall needs to be. And that also means that we then need to really be picking up the pace in terms of how we move towards low carbon buildings, low carbon transportation and of course low carbon industry.

AMT: So how much will this increase the the emissions?

KTW: So the numbers that the government has released yesterday as part of the tactical briefing is a 3.5 million tonnes of carbon pollution for the first phase of LNG Canada. So yesterday, the partners announced agreement to go forward for the first phase, but they have been approved for two phases, so that number could be double that and that would be equivalent to more than half of BC's budgeted carbon emissions for 2050. So this single project could take up a significant portion of our 2050 carbon budget.

AMT: But you say you're a little encouraged that there are plans to combat that. Howa re they going to do that?

KTW: Well BC has a track record of demonstrating that we can have strong climate action, that does result in carbon reductions and still continue to have a thriving economy. In 2007 when Gordon Campbell stood on stage with Arnold Schwarzenegger announcing BC's climate action plan, he also announced North America's first revenue neutral carbon tax and a whole suite of climate policies. And for the first four years, we did see our emissions actually come down and our provincial GDP continued to grow at a pace that was actually stronger than that of Canada's. So we have this track record to build on. I mean I guess I could also point to the previous track record of the liberal Christy Clark's Liberal government, when she froze the carbon tax and repealed a bunch of programs. We saw emissions start to rise again. So we have some evidence that putting in place strong climate policy does bring down emissions. I'm one of the members of Minister of Environment and Climate Change Solutions Advisory Council. We provide advice to government on how we can set a strategy for climate action that will see emissions reductions across the economy, including in how we are building buildings and how we retrofit our buildings. How we need to rethink and redesign our transportation systems and of course, how are we driving emissions down from industry.

AMT: And so, can I ask you because we know that this is coming from the Montney Shale region. Is there concern over fracking?

KTW: The concern of fracking in the Northeast does exist. Because the communities are less populated than in the United States, we haven't seen as much profile given to some of the issues that the communities are facing in those regions. Some of the analysis of studies that we've done at the Pembina Institute have pointed to issues with water contamination, that's largely due to the management of wastewater as well as operations and there is growing evidence that there are health impacts from fracking. So we've seen some or the evidence is showing that some chemical constituents from frack fluid is showing up in pregnant women. These are issues that we've raised with the scientific panel on hydraulic fracturing, which was pulled together by the government this summer and said that we recommended that more studies need to be done to understand the impacts of fracking more fully.

AMT: How do the risks of an LNG pipeline and freighter traffic compare with the risks related to piping and shipping bitumen?

KTW: Well as Vaughan pointed out, it is very different in terms of when a pipe carrying crude oil or a tanker carrying crude oil, whether the pipe leaks or the tanker has an accident. It's much more difficult to recover bitumen and crude than gas and gas dissipates, but if you do have a tanker carrying liquefied natural gas, have an accident on the coast, we've had quite a few accidents in that remote area of northwestern BC, where the fuel running the boat, whether it's diesel or bunker fuel leaks into the ocean and it is a remote area and cleanup is is difficult.

AMT: There is hope that natural gas from this project would help China replace coal, which is a huge source of CO2 emissions. To what extent do you think that's true?

KTW: China has proven to be a powerhouse in renewable energy development. They are now the world's leading solar panel producer. At one time it was Germany. So China has committed to getting off of coal and any country getting off of coal is really good news for the climate, as well as health impacts. There's a global movement to power past coal. But as China is increasing its research and development investment into renewable energy, it shouldn't come as a surprise if one day China turns around says, we don't need natural gas anymore because we are fully self-sufficient on renewable sources of energy. So natural gas could be a short term solution, but replacing one fossil fuel with another, isn't a long term solution for reducing carbon.

AMT: Given the investment that's going into this, could it not see the life that it's expected have then?

KTW: I think that's a real risk. The terminal and this project has somewhere between 40 and 60 year lifespan. And I think that the rate at which China has outpaced anyone's expectations in terms of uptake of renewable energy, as well as just in general the pace at which technology is coming online for battery storage and other sources of fuels. It's definitely a risk.

AMT: OK well we have to leave it there, but thank you for your thoughts.

KTW: Thanks so much.

AMT: That's Karen Tam Wu. She's the Pembina Institute's managing director for BC. She joins us from Vancouver. Many Indigenous groups are supporting the LNG Canada project. They see it as a lifeline to more jobs and better local economies. Ellis Ross is a member of the Haisla Nation. He served as its chief counsellor. He has also spent 14 years working on trying to bring LNG projects to the area. Ellis Ross is the Liberal MLA for Skeena and he joins us from Victoria. Hi, you are the Liberal MLA waiting in the wings. Hi.

ELLIS ROSS: That's right. Good morning.

AMT: What does this project mean to the Haisla Nation and other Indigenous communities in your area?

ER: Well I won't speak to other Aboriginal communities, even though I know that they've been included in terms of the benefits in terms of jobs and contracts and training whatnot, but for the Haisla, I'm going to say again, even though my counsel at the time begged me not to say it anymore. To put this in perspective, the dependency of First Nations Canada means they are totally reliant on Ottawa for funding. That's what it means in a nutshell. So in terms of LNG for Haisla, one project, two projects, the Haisla would have the ability to say OK Ottawa, we don't want your money. We don't need it. We can cover our own programs, we can cover our future. We can address our issues on our own terms. I'm not saying that's the plan for them, but when I look at the benefits coming to Haisla, yeah I could see it.

AMT: So you're talking about a level of autonomy through the economy?

ER: Yes definitely. And without signing a treaty. Without giving a rat's behind about the Indian Act. I mean it all became irrelevant. Treaty negotiations, the Indian Act, everything became irrelevant when we saw the opportunity of getting engaged with the economy.

AMT: How many jobs will be coming out of this project?

ER: Well there's a lot of speculation on that. There's a lot of different numbers being thrown around, but I tend to rely on experience. I mean Kitimat was formed mainly as an industrial town that actually belonged to,they developed it. So people are saying oh there’s only 800 jobs at the plant. Yeah that's right. But if you look at all the spin offs that came and actually created the foundation for the community,I mean you can't just talk about construction jobs and that's it. And then maybe plant jobs and that's it. There's a lot of jobs that go into this if you include the spinoffs.

AMT: The estimate is about 10000.

ER: For construction. That's right. There's a lot of politicking going on about how many jobs will be put in the plant. And I don't think people are putting enough effort into understanding how many contracts will continue to be issued after operations, as well as all the businesses that will pop up in Kitimat again because they've all left right now and they're all coming back.

AMT: Now we we know that there I think it's 25 First Nations that have been in agreement with this, but there is some passionate opposition to the project. Chief Namok says the hereditary chief of the Wet'suwet'en nation in the interior of B.C. Listen to what he says.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The hereditary chiefs, we listen to our people and our people have said no. And when our people decide that certain projects carry too high of a risk for our lands, water, air, people and all people who reside on our territory and we as hereditary chiefs we'll move forward in protecting it, whether it be by legal means or on the land. We have home places along this proposed route and those home places will remain.

AMT: How significant is that opposition, Ellis Ross?

ER: Well that's a hereditary organization. The communities themselves have elected there their band councils to represent them and to represent the rights and title, have all signed onto the projects. In fact if anything that's one of the biggest issues now facing British Columbia First Nations. And the membership are stuck in the middle. It's a battle between OK who speaks for First Nations rights and title, who speaks on behalf of the land, who speaks on behalf of the people. And I'm sorry, but there's a lot of ignorance in terms of the membership just watching this fight. And if anything, it's going to stop First Nations from actually achieving any of their goals that they might have because they're not understanding this power struggle between the elected and hereditary leaders. And again, most First Nations have been working with people to get this going and you've been working on this. Given all the turmoil over Trans Mountain, what made the consultation process different?

ER: To be approached by the companies without a doubt and their approach by the BC government. I mean you've got to remember back in 2004, nobody I'm talking about the history, government, the First Nations, nobody truly understood what consultation accommodation meant as per the Haisla court case. And court cases when you're talking about the case law to decide these principles, you know they decide on a principle, but they're so vague. They're so undefined. So back in the embassies for instances, like I didn't know what consultation, good consultation looked like, but I could tell you what bad consultation looked like. Without a doubt and the case law for principles actually defined that.

AMT: But you're saying essentially that this was a conversation that went on for years. It wasn't a quick thing. It was like.

ER: Oh yeah. In fact with the consultations I was Canada, I was warning the companies, look this is wrong. You guys are going about this wrong. Why don't you guys take a page out of the BC government book and do some proper consultation. I mean when we consulted with LNG and the BC government it was a continuous consultation. It was daily, weekly, monthly for years. In fact that the protocol we signed with BC.government at the time, we made it simple. If we have an issue, my staff should be able to pick up the phone, phone the BC staff and say I got a problem and we deal with this over the phone.

AMT: OK. Ellis Ross we have to leave it there. We're out of time, but thank you for giving us a little bit of a peek into that world. Ellis Ross, member of the Haisla nation, Liberal MLA for Skeena. We reached him in Victoria. Stay with us. We're talking about the Parti Quebecois and what happened in the election this week and what it means for Quebec and the country.

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Parti Québécois promise not to pursue sovereignty let voters drift away, says Bernard St-Laurent

Guests: Bernard St-Laurent, Graham Frasier, Valerie-Anne Maheo

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I never thought. I never thought I could be so proud to be a Quebecer, as proud as I am tonight.

AMT: The 1976 Quebec election was a huge win for Rene Levesque and his new Parti Quebecois, bringing the issue of Quebec sovereignty to the top of the agenda and helping drive politics both within the province and across the country.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: This central promise doesn't change the fact at all that from the bottom of my heart, the bottom of our collective heart, I hope. I hope that in consultation with our fellow citizens of Canada, we can arrive at a country.

AMT: Fast forward more than 40 years and on Monday night the Parti Quebecois lost official party status, with a historic low in the popular vote. Instead voters chose François Legault and his centre right Coalition Avenir Quebec.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: And I want to assure the rest of Canada of my will to build a stronger Quebec within Canada, in a win-win relationship.

AMT: It is being called the biggest political realignment in Quebec in 50 years. Where that leaves the party faithful, the sovereigntists movement, the rest of Canada, all still open questions. But if there's one person who can help make sense of it all, it's my next guest Bernard St-Laurent is well-known to long time CBC listeners, as a veteran radio host, a political journalist, a political commentator and he is in Montreal. Hello.

BERNARD ST-LAURENT: Good morning Anna Maria.

AMT: So where do we start Bernie? You've always been able to kind of sense the mood around you and the conversation unfolding. What's going on today? What are you hearing, what are you feeling in the air?

BSL: Well I think the first thing to understand is that the driving force in the last election campaign was really about change. The Liberals had been in power for the better part of 15 years. And the question was do we give them another four years or do we try something new? And what Francois Legault has managed to do is to break the dynamic of elections in this province, where it was usually defined by whether you were a federalist or a sovereigntist. And so he was able to bring nationalist liberals to his coalition and disillusioned sovereigntist to his coalition. And I think that's what allowed him to win. And if you add to that the fact that young people in Quebec don't have the same drive for sovereignty as the Baby Boomer generation did and after the last election or during the last election, when the whole debate over the Quebec Charter of Values was being played out. Young Quebecers just basically rejected the PQ because of that, because of that charter so-called. And as a result of that, the PQ has found itself basically speaking only to the generation that founded it, essentially the baby boomers.

AMT: And we know that Jean Francois Lisee, the PQ leader who lost his seat and then resigned, positions sovereignty differently than those PQ leaders who preceded him in this election campaign. He made a promise and he kept hammering it home. I think he made the promise in 2016 throughout the campaign. Let's listen to him.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I say under no circumstances would there be a referendum in the first PQ mandate. And if there's some crisis you know and people say well we want everything OK, is this a big crisis? OK well let's wait for 2022. But at least we're going to have four years of competent government.

AMT: So he effectively takes sovereignty off the table. What impact did that have?

BSL: Huge. I think that that's what made it possible for particularly traditional Francophone Liberal voters, who were afraid of the sovereignty option, to move away from the Liberals and go over to Francois Legault's CAQ. And the same for sovereigntists who figured, OK well if we're not going to be talking about referendum, maybe the next best thing is the CAQ and their nationalist policies. So I think that that strategy at the end of the day is probably what has contributed to the demise of the PQ in this last election.

AMT: I mean were you surprised to see it lose party status? You've been tracking them for a very long time.

BSL: You could feel it coming, after the second televised debate. Up until then Lisee had been running a good a good campaign. But then in the second televised debate in French, he turned on the left wing Quebec Solidaire party and started challenging them and people were wondering what are you doing? Well what he was doing, he was trying to save seats on the island of Montreal because he could feel the pressure coming from the new generation of voters, who are rejecting the PQ and moving to the new Quebec Solidaire. And in fact what that did, is it turned people off even more to a point where they now have no MNAs on the island of Montreal, one in Joliet and a few in eastern Quebec and that's it. I mean they finished in fourth place behind Quebec Solidaire, which has only been around for about eight or nine years.

AMT: And I want to ask a little bit more about the policies of the CAQ in a minute, butlet's just stick with this. So Quebec Solidaire has its own sovereigntist platform, but what does it say about sovereignty because as you know, that has tentacles that reach right across the country.

BSL: Of course. Well what it says is that the movement is in disarray. I believe that Quebec Solidaire, a lot of the voters are driven by other issues, primarily the environmental issues, more than sovereignty. It's as if I mean for the younger Quebecers, the whole idea of having your own country doesn't fuel emotions in the same way, even as environmental issues do and social justice and Quebec Solidiare focused their campaign on those issues. And they gave progressive voters an alternative that was appealing compared to the PQ.

AMT: And when you talk about the other issues that are at play, we're going to I guess see more of that. Yesterday the Premier designate, Francois Legault of CAQ, said he would invoke the notwithstanding cause if necessary to ban civil service workers, including teachers from wearing religious symbols or clothing. What's been the reaction to that?

BSL: Well among, I would say you have to divide it into two. On the island of Montreal, where most of the immigrants live, there's a sense of a rejection of this banning of religious symbols. But in the rural areas of the province, there is a greater concern that French language and culture are threatened. I don't think that concern will ever go away. Now it's being manifested in terms of you know, we have too many immigrants or they're not speaking our language. They're not adapting to us, we're being expected to adapt to them. That still has energy in the province. But what we're heading, I think what Legault has done is he's going to, we're going to have to deal with this, why he wants to use the notwithstanding clause is because he says his argument is, we've been talking about this now since the Bouchard-Taylor commission back in 2007 and we haven't gotten anywhere. We're going to make a decision. Quebec is a secular society. No religious symbols for police officers, judges, prosecutors and teachers. And that's it. And he's hoping that that will just put an end to the debate I personally, I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think that debate will go away and that may end up being one of his biggest problems in government.

AMT: It's interesting, the first use of the notwithstanding clause was Quebec over language law.

BSL: Actually. Yeah, but the Quebec people in 1981, I'm sorry, but in 1981 when the PQ, when the Constitution was adopted as a protest against the fact that Quebec had not signed, the Parti Quebecois government decided to use the notwithstanding clause on every law passed by the Quebec legislature and even Robert Bourassa used it in 1978 when the Supreme Court said that it was illegal to ban English from public signs. They eventually changed it, but lost a significant amount of the vote in the English population, as a result of that decision.

AMT: I want to bring another voice into this. Graham Fraser is waiting in the wings. He's a visiting professor at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. He's a former commissioner of official languages. He's also the author of several books on politics including, "Rene Levesque and the Parti Quebecois in Power." Graham Fraser is in Ottawa. Welcome.

GRAHAM FRASER: Thank you.

AMT: What do you think Rene Levesque would be thinking about the results for the Parti Quebecois?

GF: Well I think he would shrug. He would take, inhale on his cigarette and he would say as I wrote in my memoirs, parties should only last a generation, two generations at the most. So I think that he would take a fairly philosophical view that this is part of the cycle. One of the things that is remarkable about Quebec politics is that the oldest deepened party with the deepest roots in Quebec is the Quebec Liberal Party. 151 years old and the only way the Liberal Party loses is when another party groups together, a coalition of all of the elements that are not liberal. And that's what the Union National did. That's what the Parti Quebecois did and that's what Francois Legault has done with the Coalition Avenir de Quebec.

AMT: Well remind us what it was like and the shock waves that were sent to Ottawa and the rest of English Canada when the Parti Quebecois first came along.

GF: Oh there was really from 1970, when Levesque made the breakthrough and had 23 percent of the vote, but only 7 seats through to the election of the Parti Quebecois in 1976. It was seen and not wrongly, as the next existential threat to the future of Canada and that existential threat shaped Canadian politics and in some ways it was the successes of Parti Quebecois led to Quebec's language legislation, led to other pieces of progressive legislation like the transformation of voting, political party financing, which the federal government later adopted right through to universal childcare. There was on the other hand, the failures of the Parti Quebecois in the 1980 referendum and the 1995 referendum, led to gains for the rest of the country. Had there not been the failure of the 1980 referendum, we would not have had the patriation of the constitution in 1982.

AMT: And then the fights that continued on from there Graham, the Western alienation. Like a lot of the fights circled around Ottawa and Quebec's relationship, did they not?

GF: Absolutely, absolutely. It became the defining element from through the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s and in some ways the turning point, which I would say would be the principal seeds that led to the election on Monday night was in 2007 when the Parti Quebecois finished third and that was a kind of existential crisis for a large chunk of the political class in Quebec.

AMT: I want to bring one more person into this now and that is Valerie-Anne Maheo. She has researched the decline of the PQ and she's been tracking what's been happening and what voters are thinking. She's a political scientist and a guest researcher at the University of Montreal and she joins us from Montreal. Hello.

VALERIE-ANNE MAHEO: Hello.

AMT: So tell us a little bit more about that the PQ losing favour in Quebec because you did a study with your colleague Eric Blanche on how that happened. What did you find?

VAM: Well the thing is that we've seen a continuous decline in that support for the Parti Quebecois and dates back to the 1980s, where it reached like almost 50 percent of the vote shares in the 1981 election. But since then it's been declining more or less continously and we saw on the election on Monday that it attained the biggest low, since it started to be in politics and we saw that this decline was mostly due to the generation of the millennials that was rising in the electorate and occupying more space, political space in Quebec.

AMT: And so tell me more about the generational demographics and what you saw.

VAM: So this year they're the biggest point was that the millennials occupied a third of the electorate and the baby boomers just represented a third of the electorate, while it used to occupy more space and to be more important in the electorate in Quebec. And we know that the Parti Quebecois is according to was a generational party and that it was really supported by the baby boomers since it started really driving through the project of the sovereignty. Well the millennials now occupying more space in the electorate do not support as much the sovereignty of Quebec.

AMT: And so what does this say about sovereignty overall, Valerie-Anne?

VAM: Well the thing is that we see that there is less and less support among generation X and Millennials. The issue of sovereignty is not as important, is not on the top of the list of important issues that mobilize and motivate people to go to vote and to be involved in politics. And so while we've seen that there's kind of a de-alignment around the issue of sovereignty, around the axis of the sovereigntist and federalist axis. And so it is becoming less salient and so we will be seeing a realignment in Quebec politics.

AMT: Graham Fraser does sovereignty ever go away or does it just stay in the background sometimes? Like how do you interpret this?

GF: Well don't forget that the Quebec Solidaire has made sovereignty one of its principal driving forces as part of its left wing version of what the future of Quebec. And if you add up the PQ vote and the Quebec Solidaire vote you come to 33 percent, which and while it's not front and center and it's not on the agenda right now, were there to be a party that were to call a referendum, there are certainly CAQ voters who would vote yes in a referendum. I think that the sovereignty issue for many Quebecers is seen the way union membership is seen for many members of unions. It's something that they're not necessarily going to vote for a strike, but they would not vote to abolish their union. And they are prepared to use that union if they feel that they are being unfairly treated by their employer.

AMT: Bernard St-Laurent, Legault has said he will not use the threat of a referendum. Do voters believe him?

BSL: Well francophone voters absolutely believe him. Anglophone voters don't trust him right now because he was a cabinet minister. He was a prominent cabinet minister in the Parti Quebecois government and what you hear anglophones say, you know once a separatist, always a separatist. I don't trust him. It's also true that Legault, part of his platform is to try to negotiate more powers from Ottawa, particularly over culture and immigration. So there is a possibility that there will be clashes there, but Legault has repeated over and over and over again that his goal is to make it work and to not break it up.

AMT: And we certainly see clashes with other with other premiers. Graham Fraser, I'm wondering how you think this changes sort of the undercurrent coming out of Ottawa. I mean Quebec remains a populous province, obviously a big player. But do you see the undercurrent changing?

GF: Oh I think the dynamic of federal-provincial relations has over the last years changed dramatically. It'll change even more if Jason Kenney becomes premier of Alberta. We've already seen this morning Doug Ford exalting at the election of Francois Legault and saying he's a great guy and we agree on lower taxes and more money in the pockets of taxpayers. So all of a sudden the major provinces were represented by Justin Trudeau's allies and they're now represented by Justin Trudeau's adversaries. So that changes the dynamic system in fundamental ways.

BSL: Although I wouldn't associate the policies of Doug Ford with those of the CAQ.

GF: No neither would I. Neither would I.

BSL: If the CAQ were a party in Ontario, it would be considered a leftist party.

GF: That's right. And one of the interesting things about Mr. Legault's news conference yesterday was, he did not raise the notwithstanding clause. It got raised at the very end of the English portion of the press conference. What he has said was his priorities were the three areas in which he is personally comfortable with the economy as a former businessman, education as a former education minister and health as a former health minister. So his priorities are the areas that he is personally comfortable with.

AMT: I want to get back to the PQ. I've got a clip here that I want to play. This is Shaheen Ashraf, a national board member of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women. And speaking about the PQ.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: So when I came in September 1976, the elections were just taking place and Parti Quebecois came into power and I was made to feel very welcome. In fact, I even worked for Elections Canada for the Parti Quebecois because I was a member of the Parti Quebecois at that time. Then the Parti Quebecois stance changed and you know in 2013 Madame Pauline Marois came and she didn't make us feel very welcome. And after, that everyone got on the bandwagon of making the immigrants, especially English speaking immigrants, feel unwanted. You know it's been a downslide. Any leader that comes in you know, doesn't make me feel welcome.

AMT: Bernard St-Laurent, what's she identifying there?

BSL: She's identifying the reaction that a lot of people had to the proposals for the Quebec Charter of Values and the differences though I think that charter was I think has largely contributed to the demise of the Parti Quebecois because it was rejected by younger francophone Quebecers. See the big difference, what I think that what changed everything was Bill 101, the Quebec language law. It required immigrant children to go to French schools and as a result of that, it meant that French kids and immigrant kids were together, so that when a government comes up and tries to exploit differences between languages and cultures, it has a hard time because I can't hate so-and-so because we used to play Nintendo together or we're on the same hockey team. And it's very, very difficult to mobilize people towards a dislike of newcomers in that way. I think that that largely contributed to the demise of the PQ.

AMT: So I'm wondering as we look forward and we mentioned Quebec Solidaire, Valerie-Anne Maheo, what do you see in what you've been tracking and where they fit into this equation today?

VAM: In terms of Quebec Solidaire?

AMT: Yes.

VAM: The thing is that we've seen that Quebec Solidaire is more open to diversity. It's certainly taking a different stance than the Parti Quebecois in the past years and especially around the Charter of Values of Quebec. But it's definitely clear that they're moving towards more left oriented policies, more inclusive, more inclusive of women, of immigrants, of different communities and I think this plays out really well among younger people. But the question that remains to be seen how they play out the sovereignty card because it's come up more during the latest campaign electoral campaign. But as Berand was saying, I don't think that people who have voted for Quebec Solidaire are voting for a sovereigntist option. I think they're voting for the left wing, left oriented policies. And especially among young people, young people are some of the people that are voting more for Quebec Solidiare, but as we said, they're not going for the sovereignty option. They're not supportive of that project. So Quebec Solidaire will have to see how they develop their project and the options that they offer to the Quebec population and especially young people in the future.

AMT: Go ahead.

GF: The other thing to notice is the electoral map. Quebec Solidaire has replaced the PQ as the party of the poor and working class urban voters. So it got that part of east end Montreal, which has always been a PQ stronghold. It had a breakthrough in Sherbrooke and Lowertown Quebec City. So those are, not the suburban areas, but the working class and in some case the student parts of populations of Quebec. So that is a significant change.

VAM: OK, but also what you can see is that actually Quebec Solidaire was really well placed in second or third place in many races around Quebec and it really sidelining the PQ as another option. So they've done really well. Even though they didn't win seats outside of the main areas where there were more students and Montreal, they were doing really well on the races.

AMT: So obviously none of this happened overnight, just on Monday and you have all made the point that this has been a gradual thing, but we have seen a shift here. The end of an era seemingly for one party that was so dominant. Bernard St-Laurent what do you expect of Canadian politics because of all of this shift in Quebec now?

BSL: Well the PQ has argued that without a strong sovereigntist threat in Quebec, Quebec would not be able to get what it wants or concessions from Ontario and the rest of Canada. I don't think that that dynamic is there anymore. It'll be interesting to see how Francois Legault does deal with Doug Ford and other conservative premiers because you know federal provincial negotiations, I don't think that Quebec will have a strong a voice as it may have had in the past, but really since the 1995 referendum, it's been largely absent from the national debate.

AMT: OK we have to leave it there. Thank you all of you for your insights today. Fascinating stuff.

BSL: Thank you.

GF: Thank you.

VAM: Thank you.

That is Bernard St-Laurent, veteran CBC Radio host, political journalist, political commentator. He's in Montreal. Valerie-Anne Maheo is a political scientist and guest researcher at the University of Montreal. Graham Fraser is a visiting professor at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, former Commissioner of Official Languages and the author of several books on Quebec politics including, Rene Levesque and the Parti Quebecois in Power. He joined us from Ottawa. That is our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. British broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough is on the program on Q today. Remember you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app, free from the App Store or Google Play. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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Oct 3, 2018 episode transcript

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