Where do the regions stand in the election campaign?

Every Quebec election campaign brings back a familiar question: what place will the parties give the regions?

Halfway through the campaign, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the subject is not being addressed head-on. The campaign buses are criss-crossing Quebec, certainly, but it would be difficult to point to a strong commitment, or to a message that speaks specifically to our territories.

And yet expectations are high. Consider what the municipal associations spelled out when they released their election platforms. The Fédération québécoise des municipalités (FQM), on top of infrastructure investment and cellular coverage, is calling for the transfer of 5,000 additional public sector jobs to the regions, a greater share of newcomers and a lighter regulatory burden on municipalities and businesses. On certain sector issues, forestry among them, the FQM goes further and explicitly calls for more decentralized governance.

The Union des municipalités du Québec makes a similar case from another angle. It wants municipalities to take part in setting regional immigration targets and in energy planning, and it is calling for a review of how natural resource royalties are shared. It even proposes holding general assemblies on the responsibilities and revenue sources of the municipal world.

Behind these proposals lies a steadily growing need for autonomy and responsibility, for local governments as much as for businesses. But to this day, no party has come close to meeting those expectations.

Reading the proposals released so far, a first observation stands out: the political parties do not all give the regions the same place in their platform. And above all, they do not all understand the regions the same way.

Some are nonetheless beginning to articulate a genuine territorial vision. The Quebec Liberal Party is putting decentralization and greater municipal capacity to act front and centre. The Parti Québécois insists more on the political weight of the regions and on the need for resource-producing territories to benefit more from the wealth they generate. Québec solidaire proposes instead to regionalize certain national policies, immigration in particular. The Coalition Avenir Québec, for its part, has to defend its record as much as put forward new proposals, after eight years in power and the introduction of various mechanisms aimed at territorial occupancy and vitality.

Other proposals touching housing, infrastructure, agriculture, forestry, energy or labour would obviously have significant consequences outside the major centres. But a measure that applies in a region is not necessarily a local development policy.

That is why the absence of a clearly identifiable regional vision in some parties is worth watching too. It does not necessarily mean they are indifferent to the regions. It may, however, indicate that the subject is seen mainly as a place to apply national policies rather than as a level from which to design them. The familiar one-size-fits-all approach appears to be the preference. And it is precisely the one the people concerned are criticizing.

There is still some time left in the current campaign to adjust the message, but an election campaign is also an exercise in setting priorities. What the parties choose not to put forward is revealing.

In the end, the question may not be who promises the regions the most, but who is prepared to give them the means to decide by and for themselves.