Quebec Changes Colour
The overwhelming defeat of the Liberals in the Quebec provincial elections is a strange business, for which a number of different factors, personal, racial and political, are responsible. The dominant figure in the province, the Liberal leader, M. Tasehereau, resigned a few months ago, as the result of a financial scandal in which members of his family were involved, and now a new party, con- sisting of Conservatives and dissident Liberals, under the name of the National Union Party, has captured 75 seats out of 90 on a programme which rather dangerously stressed French racialism in conjunction with a loudly- trumpeted attack on banking and business interests generally. The sweeping majority behind M. Duplessis, the leader of the new party, may or may not hold together. In any case the election cannot safely be interpreted in terms of Federal politics ; Mr. Mackenzie King expressly dissociated himself from the contest. Quebec, with its predominantly French population, is a distinctive province with its own. political outlook and traditions. A swing- over in Ontario would be much more significant.
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