Here's the first of what is likely to be many pieces written on this man. He's almost sure to run for the leadership of the PQ given Duceppe's decision, setting up a two horse race with Pauline Marois.
Boisclair's candidacy will be interesting to watch. Most of what you need to know about him is in the above-linked Globe article.
His becoming leader would be a double-edged sword for the separatist movement. On one hand, he could bring new life to the party. He represents a new generation of separatists: bilingual, articulate, and doesn't play up the ethnic nationalism card that has made this movement easy to criticize.
On the other hand, Boislcair doesn't seem to be a man of deep thought. He is almost like a professional speaker. I saw him speak at the PQ convention a couple of weeks ago when he was tasked with thanking the outgoing PQ vice president, Marie Malavoy.
Frankly, I was underwhelmed. He is definitely charismatic but broke the cardinal rule of thanking a speaker: he spoke longer than the speaker. He also has no experience outside of politics: he dropped out of university and was elected at 23. He's done nothing else career-wise since.
And as Chantal Hebert noted yesterday, he is also openly gay, which would make him the first openly gay leader of a major provincial party. This isn't an issue for most people, including myself, but it may not play well in rural, socially conservative, francophone Quebec, where the PQ wins a lot of seats.
Boisclair set up a blog last year to keep up his visibility while studying at the Kennedy School at Harvard. (He was admitted to their mid-career MPA program despite never having finished undergrad.) Check it out. If he does run -- and all signs are he will -- I'm willing to predict that he'll beat Mme. Marois.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 9:44 AM
