Quebec’s ‘completely post COVID’ election campaign has few mentions of deaths, emergency powers
Global News
For some health experts, however, the scant discussion in Quebec about the pandemic represents a missed opportunity to talk about the lessons learned over the past two years.
The French phrase “bain de foule” appears regularly on the agendas of Quebec’s major party leaders during the provincial election campaign.
The term, which directly translates into English as “crowd bath,” is used to describe walkabouts at public places such as markets, regional fairs and busy commercial streets, during which politicians shake voters’ hands, pose for photos and occasionally hold babies.
Politicians bathing in crowds is a sign of the post-pandemic atmosphere of Quebec’s election campaign: masks are rare, candidates are up close with supporters and political rallies are back.
“We are in a completely post-COVID campaign,” Éric Montpetit, a political science professor at Université de Montréal, said in an interview Tuesday.
Quebec’s campaign, which ends election day Oct. 3, is in stark contrast to campaigns conducted during the pandemic in other provinces, such as New Brunswick in 2020, where there were no rallies and where some parties stopped campaigning door-to-door. In Ontario’s spring election, candidates wore masks and the leaders of both the NDP and Green Party were forced to pause their campaigns after testing positive for COVID-19.
For some health experts, however, the scant discussion in Quebec about the pandemic represents a missed opportunity to talk about the lessons learned over the past two years.
“I’m both surprised and disappointed,” said Dr. Donald Vinh, an infectious disease specialist and medical microbiologist at the McGill University Health Centre, in reference to the lack of discussion about the pandemic on the campaign trail.
He said Quebec has not done enough to prepare for a possible future wave. The incumbent Coalition Avenir Québec party, he added, doesn’t want to talk too much about the pandemic because of the high death toll in the province — 16,754 deaths have been attributed to the disease, the highest number in Canada.
