Elected officials who encourage strikes: Upset!

It’s not easy to be in the opposition, I know that. We often find ourselves in the wrong role, stuck between a rock and a hard place and in danger of coming across as complainers. However, one must maintain a certain level of sense of responsibility and act as someone who could find themselves in power.

So what should we think of opposition parties whose elected officials are touring protest sites these weeks to encourage strikers? They will say they support the improvement in public services demanded by striking employees.

But there is a very fine line between encouraging strikers and encouraging a strike. Is it appropriate for an opposition representative, while schools are closed and surgeries have been postponed, to support the strike? I tend to answer no. Worse still for the leader.

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Solidarity Quebec

And I make an exception for Quebec Solidaire, a resolutely left-wing party that has never governed and is not about to get there. His pro-Union inclination is well known and declared.

Picket lines are as natural a habitat to the Quebec solidarity activist as eucalyptus forests are to the koala. If one day the QS government comes to negotiate with state employees, public sector unions will dream of a windfall.

But for liberals who have negotiated frequent agreements and who have always negotiated firmly, what can we say? Smartly, they sent popular representative Marwa Rizqi to meet the protesters. This seems to have been well received.

But seriously, just a few years ago, the same unions were harping on the carnage the Liberal government was causing in schools. Austerity! How can the Quebec Liberal Party play the political game to the point of going to the picket lines today and demanding that the government ease fiscal restrictions? And do it without laughing.

Parti Quebecois

As for the Parti Quebecois, the leader and MPs were present enough to support the strikers. I even saw new MP Pascal Paradis speaking at a Common Front demonstration. “Don’t give up. We’re still with you! Isn’t this a direct encouragement to strike?”

The MP could also have included in his speech that the last time such a strike occurred, his party decided that schools should reopen after three weeks. He could have explained that his party’s founding leader then passed one of the toughest private laws to force teachers back to work.

Strikes are legal, but should only be used as a last, but very last, resort. The opposition can encourage both sides to negotiate. It can publicly blame the government for its shortcomings or blunders in negotiations. The CAQ does not deserve to be congratulated for its strategy.

But encouraging a strike? not.