After months of denial and innuendo, François Legault, former Parti Quebecois minister and founder of Air Transat corporation, finally announced the creation of a new political party called the “Coalition Avenir Québec” (roughly translated, the name is the “Quebec Future Coalition”). The new party, which is expected to take control of the remnants of Mario Dumont’s “Action Démocratique du Québec,” is already leading in polls. In a context where the Liberal Party seems to have exhausted its political capital after eight years in power and where the PQ is going through a major internal crisis, the bourgeoisie of Québec could indeed be tempted to support a “new alternative” after 40 years of change-over between the PQ and the Liberals.

Some people —especially in trade unions and community groups— are invoking the spectre of a “right turn” with the possible election of François Legault. It is true that his party stands for a right-wing agenda, in the sense that he intends to govern the Québec State in the service of the bourgeoisie, but we have to ask: how is this any different from what the PQ and the Liberals have done for 40 years? The heart of the program put forward by François Legault’s “Coalition” is to revive the economic development model the PQ has promoted since the late 1970s —a model the Liberals have never dared question, based on the optimal use of the State resources to support the rising bourgeoisie (famously dubbed, “Québec Inc.”).

If this requires that some measures attacking the rights of working people be implemented, Legault will certainly not hold back. In fact, that’s exactly what he did when he supported the Charest government’s decision to raise university tuition fees along with the PQ and the “Action Démocratique du Québec”.

As workers, we are certainly right to fear what a government led by François Legault could do. But we should avoid seeing him as the monstrous symbol for all that is dangerous, and should especially avoid thinking that the Liberals or the PQ would be any better.

The current crisis in the separatist movement and the political realignment of forces within the Québec bourgeoisie may be an opportunity for us to break with the so-called “Québec model” based on consensus, social peace and collaboration with our class enemies.

Neither Legault, Marois nor Charest, but the struggle for our class interests!