In Paris last month, during the official visit to France made by all new Parti Québécois premiers, Pauline Marois let slip her own doubts about whether she is a “worthy” successor to René Lévesque and Jacques Parizeau.

Classic Marois. Unlike Jean Charest and other politicians who manage to be always “on message,” Marois has the fault – for a politician – of saying just what she thinks.

The Marois team, elected on Sept. 4, has been following her example. Natural Resources Minister Martine Ouellet, not waiting for the results of a two-year study on shale gas safety, said the day after she was sworn in that shale gas would never be developed in Quebec.

Ouellet also pushed for shutting down Gentilly-2, Quebec’s only nuclear reactor – before Hydro-Québec released a report that said refurbishing the CANDU-6 reactor would cost $4.3 billion, making it uneconomical at a time when the utility has an energy surplus.

But people living in the Gentilly region and nearby Trois-Rivières took to the streets in demonstrations reminiscent of Quebec’s student protests over a tuition hike last spring. The Gentilly demonstrators invoked an argument the students used: they had not been consulted.

Cartoonists imagined higher-income Quebecers grabbing their Le Creuset and Alessi pots and pans when Finance Minister Nicolas Marceau announced the PQ government would go ahead with its plan to abolish the $200-a-head health tax, making up the shortfall with retroactive increases in income taxes, capital gains and taxes on dividends. And those higher taxes would be retroactive.

But in the face of a united Liberal/Coalition Avenir Québec Opposition, Marceau backed down, putting off the changes until next year and making the health tax progressive.

If these changes go through, people earning less than $18,000 a year would be exempt and the tax would drop to $100 a year for those making up to $42,000 annually. On income between $42,000 and $130,000, the tax would remain $200 a year. Beyond that level, the tax would rise gradually to $2,000 a year. As well, there would be a new top income-tax bracket that is 1.75% above the current 24% top rate.

But unless the PQ minority government can persuade at least one Opposition party to buy into this plan, the PQ could lose power, as Marceau put it, “for keeping its election promises.”

A poll, one month after the new PQ government was sworn in, indicated that 56% of Quebecers are dissatisfied with the Marois administration.

Joking at the PQ’s expense, Jean-Marc Fournier, the interim Liberal leader, said the PQ has replaced the provincial cabinet table with an improvisation stage.

A leadership convention to replace ousted former Liberal premier Charest will be held on March 17. The Liberals want to reinvent themselves, but while Marois is unpopular, the recent poll shows the PQ remains 2% ahead of the Liberals.

One drag on Liberal hopes for an early return to power is testimony before the Charbonneau commission into corruption in Quebec’s construction industry.

Just being “not the PQ” may not be enough for the Liberals anymore. IE

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