French Kiss: Stephen Harper’s Blind Date with Quebec

Chantal Hebert’s first book is both a post-mortem of the Canadian federation that died on January 23, 2006, the night of the last federal election, as well as a brilliant examination of our changing political future, one that involves living with Quebec rather than just wooing it.

On that night, award-winning political writer and broadcaster Chantal Hebert stood in a Calgary convention hall with 2,000 Alberta Conservatives, who were raucously cheering the election of ten Tory MPs from Quebec. The Conservatives would not have gotten their man in office without Quebec, and now the future success of the Harper government hinges on turning this one-night stand into a long-term relationship.

More than ten years ago, the Quebec-Alberta coalition cobbled together by Brian Mulroney dissolved, leading to the births of the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party. As a result, Alberta and Quebec took their marbles out of federal play, and Ontario got to run Canada.

Have we now come full circle? By the time this book is published, the Liberal Party of Canada may have morphed into the Liberal Party of Ontario (or Toronto). And the Canadian Left will have chosen a camp in preparation for a decisive federal election battle.

Provocative and always worth listening to, Chantal Hebert is at her savvy and insightful best in French Kiss. No Canadian can be truly informed on the subject of Canadian politics without the benefit of her non-partisan commentary.