The CPC Leadership Race: Who is Jean Charest?

Jordan If you followed federal politics or, of course, Quebec provincial politics, you probably know a little bit about about Jean Charest, but you might not know that much. And if you don’t live in Quebec and you don’t generally follow politics closely, you might not know much of anything about him except for these two things. Number one: Charest is currently the chief rival of Pierre Poilievre in the ongoing race to be the next leader of Canada’s federal Conservatives. And two, didn’t he used to be a Liberal? What the heck is going on here? Well, Charest’s work in politics goes well beyond his time leading the Quebec Liberal Party and his time leading that party and running Quebec as Premier was actually not all that Liberal. If anything is going to foul up Poilievre’s expected coronation at the end of this leadership race, it’s probably going to be Monsieur Charest. So what do you need to know about him and about how the Conservative Party would look under his leadership?

I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Catherine Cullen covers Parliament Hill for CBC News in Ottawa. She has covered the past three Conservative leadership races. She has also previously covered Monsieur Charest during his time in Quebec. Hello, Catherine.

Catherine Cullen Hello, Jordan.

Jordan Why don’t we start with the question that I think everybody has about Charest during this leadership race? Didn’t he used to be a Liberal? Can you explain this background to me?

Catherine Cullen Yes. You know what? This is one of the central, let’s say, turning points of this race. The answer may be a little bit tricky, but very important to understanding what’s happening with the Conservatives. So, yes, you’re right. The thing that Jean Charest has done in recent political history that stands out in a lot of people’s minds. He was Premier of Quebec and he led the Quebec Liberal Party. Now the trick is at the time that Jean Charest was Premier of Quebec, the Quebec Liberal Party really was the most conservative mainstream option on offer. This is like perhaps muddied even more by the fact that there have been more conservative options that have come to the forefront in Quebec in recent years. The governing Coalition Avenir Quebec, you could argue, is more conservative than the Liberals were. But Jean Charest, while the name of the party was Liberal, he says I’m somebody who’s always been involved in Conservative politics. I am a Conservative. I come from a family that was involved in Conservative politics.

The reason it’s so important to the race, though, and I think the reason you’re asking me, Jordan, is because that has been one of the principal attacks against him by Pierre Poilievre. Don’t vote for this guy. He’s a Liberal. He’s basically Justin Trudeau with different hair. Poilievre, not just attacking him because of the party that he led, but pointing to specific policies. So everything from Charest’s record on taxes to his support of the long gun registry, carbon taxes. In fact, what Jean Charest put in place was a carbon pricing system. But Poilievre points into all these things. In fact, before Jean Charest had even formally announced his candidacy to say this is not the guy who should be leading the modern Conservative Party.

Jordan And I think Poilievre neglects to mention in all of those that Charest has already led the federal Conservatives once before as well, right?

Catherine Cullen Yeah. Well, and that’s the way that he came busting onto the scene. And this is part of what makes the story of Jean Charest so fascinating. When Jean Charest was first elected to politics, 1984, he was part of one of the biggest landslides in political history. Progressive Conservative, he came in under Brian Mulroney, Jean Charest became the youngest cabinet Minister in Canadian history at the time, back in the day, back in the ’80s. Jean Charest, though, we have to acknowledge have seen some pretty difficult defeats with the Progressive Conservatives, are certainly some hard times managed to retain his own seat. But he was also around when they were a caucus of just two members, just him and one other MP in years of jokes about the caucus meeting in the phone booth. So he’s certainly seen both sides of the coins as a federal Conservative.

Jordan Well, let’s talk about his recent past because as you mentioned, it is kind of the line of attack during this campaign. So as Premier of Quebec, what is he most known for and what’s his legacy in the province?

Catherine Cullen Yeah. Well, I mean, if you were to ask him and a lot of people have, of course, asked him about his political record recently, what he wants to talk about is the economic picture improving Quebec’s economic record, both himself and the Liberal Premier that followed him to the Cuille. He talks a lot these days about daycare, too, which we have to say Quebec famously had what was at one time $5 a daycare. Of course, the price has gone up and up, but this wasn’t Jean Charest’s idea. And he has even admitted it wasn’t one that he liked very much when he came in as Premier, but one that he was ultimately won over by and continued to sort of shepherd while he was Premier.

I think for a lot of people outside Quebec, when they think of Jean Charest, both as Premier of Quebec and also, frankly, his time right before he became Premier of Quebec, they think about him as this Captain Canada figure. He was an important figure in the 1995 referendum in getting people to vote no and keeping the country together. He famously waved around his Canadian passport and warned Quebec, what are you going to do if you separate? You’re willing to give this up for what? So certainly his battle against sovereignty forces in Quebec a big part of his record.

But I’ll say Jordan, I used to work in Montreal. I covered Mr. Charest when he was Premier and I covered that 2012 election where his party lost and, when his time in government was ending, there were certainly some less than sweet notes surrounding Jean Charest. There were corruption investigations, a lot of questions about what was going on with the Liberal Party, various inquiries being open. And there was also a lot of tumult over a student strike, over the prospect of raising inflation. I still remember standing in the streets with the students. They were marching night after night and they would chant, Libère nous des libéraux, liberate us from the Liberals. And certainly more than a few people have pointed out sort of cheekily that it’s kind of funny that it’s now Ms. Charest, who is offering to liberate Canadians from the federal Liberals when he runs as a Conservative, but perhaps pointing to the fact that what some Quebec certainly remember about him may be less than positive.

Jordan So given all that and a pretty long and mixed, I guess, history in federal politics and provincial politics, but lots of successes, and what you just described, kind of an ending that may not have ended just like he wanted, with some allegations. It’s been ten years since he was working in politics. Why is he back?

Catherine Cullen Yeah, I think it’s probably important to say, Jordan, about those allegations. Ultimately, nothing ever came of them. And interestingly, right before he launched this federal Conservative bid, the police said, yes, there have been years of investigation, but we’re wrapping things up. But the bigger question, why put yourself through that again? I don’t really think we can see any other answer than the fact that Jean Charest badly wants to be Prime Minister of Canada. That would not be his answer if he were the one doing your podcast today. Of course, he would tell you that this is about offering, as he has said many times, this is about offering Canadians a strong Conservative alternative. That the country, he has said many times, is divided. And this is harkening back to the Quebec sovereignty days. But now he’s talking about different kinds of divisions. In east versus west, for instance, the country is divided. He is somebody who believes that he can bring people together.

It was interesting when he was wrapping up his time as Premier of Quebec, he was asked about regrets, things he wished he had done. And he recalls saying, if you were to ask me whether or not I wanted to be a billionaire or live the political life that I have lived, I would choose this life because he said, you only get to sort of drive the bus once. You only get one shot at things. And to be able to make a difference, to be a part of this, I would say to you again, having watched him both federally and provincially, this is a man who is fundamentally a political animal. He enjoys this. And I think certainly when he launched his campaign, he thought he had a real shot at becoming Prime Minister of Canada.

Jordan That’s really interesting that you describe him as a political animal at heart, because we spoke to your Parliament Hill equivalent at McLean. Shannon Proudfoot about Pierre Poilievre, and she kind of had the same description of him. He’s somebody that relishes the fight. He relishes a political debate, and he just wants to live this life. So that’s their similarity, I guess. How different are they? They seem to have very different approaches in this campaign, at least.

Catherine Cullen Oh, my goodness. Polar opposites. What incredible foils they are for one another. Jean Charest, he represents the statesman, the more traditional politics. And so much of what we see him do now, it harkens back to a more traditional vision of politics. He’s somebody, contrasting to Pierre Poilievre, believes in institutions he’s campaigning on, for instance, putting more money into the military. He just thinks, when he talks about these institutions, that the Liberals should be doing a better job with these institutions. He wants to shift things around, tweak them. He’s a huge promoter of trade. He’s been making a lot of really detailed policy announcements.

Contrast that to Pierre Poilievre. Pierre Poilievre is somebody who wants to flip the table right. He wants to upend these institutions. He wants to fire the governor of the bank of Canada. He’s constantly talking about getting gatekeepers out of the way. More often than not, he’s referring to different kinds of bureaucrats or elites, be it when it comes to the immigration system or trying to get more houses built right. I should say, Pierre Poilievre wants to completely defund the CBC, my employer. So he really wants to shake things up in a way that Jean Charest does not. Jean Charest is talking much more about a more Conservative face on existing institutions, moving things around, but not this wholesale upending. And so he has tried to contrast himself with Mr. Poilievre, essentially by suggesting that he represents a bit more of the adult in the room, compared to the message that Mr. Poilievre is putting forward. But as I’m sure Shannon told you, there has been quite an appetite for Mr. Poilievre’s message.

Jordan Yeah. So how is that work going for Charest so far? What do we know about how close he is to Poilievre? And I know polls are very sketchy at this point because there’s a whole formula for how the winner will be chosen. But broadly speaking, where’s the race at between those two?

Catherine Cullen I think, as you say, and it is important to say, it is very difficult to measure the outcome of the Conservative leadership race by polling, because at the end of the day, it’s only the members that are going to vote. And then there’s this whole weighted riding system. Without getting into the weeds of it, essentially, it’s to make the entire country important in terms of its vote. It’s a lot like a general election in some ways, in that all the different parts of the country are weighted to have a similar say.

So it’s tough to say. There are measures, as you say, there are polls. They suggest that Mr. Poilievre is well ahead of Mr. Charest. Also, you can look at things and again, this is essentially not much better than anecdotal. But look at what’s happened. For instance, during the debates that we’ve seen. There have been some interesting moments. The first unofficial English debate, in particular the Canada Strong and Free debate, which was held here in Ottawa. Mr. Charest found himself being booed, which I talked about, those student protests. It’s certainly not the first time that he has been the object of criticism or had a rough ride. No protesters in the streets of Montreal and across Quebec for a very long time. Charest says what he is offering is an opportunity not just to unify the party, but the country. But, of course, the big pressing question hanging all over all of this is can he even unify the Conservative Party? Are there enough Conservatives who want what he’s selling? That is obviously something we’re watching very closely remains to be seen at this point.

Jordan What do we know about Charest’s path to victory? There is a first ballot, a second ballot, and maybe more. He must see a scenario despite the polls, where he beat Poilievre.

Catherine Cullen Yes. And this is where it gets tricky once again. What we do know, right now, the party has said that it has brought in really an incredible number of new members. It’s all the party itself is these candidates. The party has officially said more than 600,000 people. I’ve signed up to be members of the Conservative Party. To give you a sense, the previous record for any political party was less than 300,000, like 260,7000 in the last race, and that was a big deal. So more than 600,000 members to jump that far in such a short span of time, it’s pretty incredible.

We know a lot of people are interested in this race. There’s still a whole sort of period where the different leadership camps can contest the memberships. We don’t have a specific official number, but we know a lot of people are invested. So how many of those people have come because of Jean Charest? Well, Jean Charest’s campaign is not telling us that, it is talking about having signed up tens of thousands of new members. Contrast that with Patrick Brown, who has said that his campaign signed up 150,000 new members. Contrast that with Pierre Poilievre, who says through his campaign team that they have signed up almost 312,000 new members. It’s a stunning number.

Now we can’t sort of cross check these numbers because the party isn’t actually giving us the official list. There’s a whole sort of point of contention about who is able to know who is a member of the party at this point. But I will say in the face of numbers like that, you have to ask yourself, well, what are the other candidates going to do about it? Are they just going to roll over? John Charest’s team insists, listen, they can still win this race because it isn’t about the raw numbers. If any candidate were to sign up 2000 members, but they were all in the province of Alberta, because the different ridings are weighted and they’re all given equal weight in the vote, they’re all centered in one place. It’s not going to be enough. Pierre Poilievre’s team says that’s not an issue for them. They’ve signed up people all across the country. But Jean Charest says, listen, if you look at the way the points system works, we have a lot of support in Eastern Canada. We have a lot of support in Quebec. Talks about Vancouver, Calgary, rural New Brunswick, urban Ontario. He says they have the right number of members in the right places in order to win this thing. Based on what we know about the numbers that have become public, it’s a bit tough to wrap your brain around. But the Charest people do continue to sound confident about this, saying that the path to victory is there for him.

Jordan How much of that has to do with, and we spoke about this on a previous episode when we talked about Patrick Brown, how much of this has to do with his sort of unofficial alliance with somebody who grew up idolizing him?

Catherine Cullen Yeah, it’s such a funny thing because of course, both the Brown camp and the Charest camp are very resistant to the idea that there is any kind of official alliance. But obviously, as my very talented colleague from Canadian Press, Stephanie Taylor told you, there’s a bit of a mutual admiration society. I think you could argue that Patrick Brown is the one doing most of the admiring. But regardless, yes, I think undoubtedly that has to help him. And there’s no doubt that they are hoping for some of those votes. But you have to also ask yourself the question whether or not those votes transfer. So it’s a ranked ballot. But there’s nothing that says that if you’re there to support Patrick Brown, that you’re going to tick off spot number two and choose Jean Charest or anyone else as your second choice. If Patrick Brown is the one that brought you to the dance, you can just stick with Patrick Brown. So I think that remains to be seen.

Yes, there is certainly a kind of ideological alignment and admiration between the two men. I cannot imagine that Jean Charest is not hoping for a real bounce from Patrick Brown. But you also have to consider that there are six candidates in this race. The first few that are going to drop off, it’s not going to be Patrick Brown. It’s going to be lesser known names like Roman Baber, Scott Aitchison. So how many of those 600,000 members are going to make the final cut? How many people are actually going to show up to vote, so much energy goes into recruiting these people. But much like a general election, the voter turnout in the last couple of leadership races averages around 60%. So can everybody motivate their teams to get out there? And will Jean Charest get a bounce from Patrick Brown, if indeed he finishes ahead.

Jordan In a moment, before we wrap up, I’m going to ask you to give us some things to look out for in the next few months of this race. But first, just as you talk to me about Charest’s platform and his campaign focusing on unifying the party, unifying Canadians, keeping those institutions and refreshing them, I don’t mean this to sound like criticism, because it’s really not. But Charest sounds like the kind of Conservative that a lot of the party moved on from three or five years ago. Does he realize and has he spoken about the direction that a large chunk of Canadian Conservatives have moved in recently?

Catherine Cullen The oversimplified answer that you will sometimes get when you talk to Conservatives is the idea that Pierre Poilievre can win the membership, but can he win in a general election? Jean Charest, he could win in a general election, like he has broad appeal, but could he win over the membership? I think that is, frankly, a little bit oversimplified, but in another way, it is the crux of what we’re talking about here. This leadership race is going to tell us so much about, the temptation is to say it’s going to tell us so much about who this party is.

But I think we also have to note that an incredible number of new people are being brought into the party. So it’s actually not going to tell us what the Conservative Party that we knew in the last election was, but much more where it will stand now. Again, Jean Charest has made this pitch that he is what Canada needs right now. He is the one who can bring people together. Is that the message that Conservatives are hungry for? I mean, they are certainly they are so hungry. And this has been true in all the leadership races I’ve covered. This is the third in just so many years. They want to beat Justin Trudeau so badly.

But I think a lot of Conservatives feel that they were, to some extent, meant to apologize for being Conservatives under Erin O’Toole and Andrew Scheer that there was an attempt to make what a Conservative is palatable, to reach out to people or that maybe they had to be sorry for things that Conservatives had done in the past. Pierre Poilievre, as I think a lot of Conservatives just say, well, this feels good. Does Jean Charest make them feel good in the same way? Some Conservatives, a certain stock of Conservatives–absolutely. I mean, the only real test is I can say whatever I like on this podcast, but the only real test is going to be that result on September 10. A lot of signs pointing to the idea that people are leaning towards Pierre Poilievre. But as I say, this is an iceberg. So much of what is happening is underwater. We’re only seeing a little bit of the leadership rights poking out and we’re doing our best to sort of guess at what’s underneath the water.

Jordan As you described that, it really sounded to me like this is the marshmallow test for Conservative members. You can either grab what feels good right now and eat it or you can wait, just wait a little bit longer and you’ll get something that’s even better.

Catherine Cullen Yeah. I guess the counterargument to that is what if you could have both? What if you can have your cake and eat it too, which is certainly what Pierre Poilievre’s people would say, like this is what people want right now, but there is theoretically three years until the next election. And I think we also have to acknowledge that people throw governments out right. When it is going to be time for the Liberals to go, it is because there will be a fatigue with them. Would people be interested in something that’s quite different, the sort of frankly at times irritated or frustrated tone of Pierre Poilievre. Is that how people are going to feel about the Liberals, or are they going to say the Liberals went too far to the left? We need some serious economic management. Jean Charest, here’s somebody who knows what it’s like to run a province, here’s somebody who is a real statesman, here’s somebody who has worked with governments overseas. He represents a really nice foil. It’s going to be up to the Conservatives to decide which one of those feels good for them, but also works in the long run.

Jordan So what happens over the next couple of months, and in particular, what will you be looking for to indicate how Jean Charest’s chances are progressing?

Catherine Cullen Well, we’re at a moment right now where the race switches from the recruitment stage, because now no one else can join as a new member and still vote because the cut off has passed, to the persuasion phase. So I’m going to be watching very closely to see how Jean Charest in particular, but all the candidates and again, we often talk about Jean Charest and Poilievre. But it’s important to say Patrick Brown is a very big player in all of this too. What does that persuasion message look like? I’m really interested in how Jean Charest, not even how, can Jean Charest take someone who has come into the Conservative Party because they love Pierre Poilievre’s message of freedom and putting a stop to these gatekeepers taking power back from the gatekeepers. Is there a way for Jean Charest to win those people over, and if so, how does he try to do it? Because if he has a hope of winning, yeah, some of it is in the weighted system, but surely he would like more support and he would like to win over some of the people potentially voting for the other leadership candidates.

So what does that campaign of persuasion look like and how effective is it? And also and this may seem a little bit overly simplistic, but politics is about being human beings. It’s just his energy in attacking the last few months of this race. Regardless of the enthusiastic press releases saying that Jean Charest has a path to victory, his team has to know that this is a difficult fight for them. So how do we see that reflected in Mr. Charest’s performance? He’s always been painted as somebody who is a street fighter, loves a good debate. He loves a good political brawl. From the moment this campaign was launched, I remember listening to interviews with him that says, like, hey, Mr. Charest, your numbers in the polls, they’re pretty bad. Should you really be doing this? He says, I’m an underdog. I’ve always been an underdog in politics. I love it. You get that old political chestnut polls. The only poll that counts as election day polls are for dogs. All of that business. But do we see that street fighter come out and find some way to win over the day? Or do we sort of see his energy lagging as the hill that he is trying to climb becomes more and more apparent?

Jordan It’ll be fascinating to watch. Catherine, thank you so much for this.

Catherine Cullen You’re so welcome. Thank you for having me.

Jordan Catherine Cullen of CBC News on Parliament Hill. That was The Big Story.

For more, head to the thebigstorypodcast.ca. Find us on Twitter at @TheBigStoryFPN. Talk to us anytime via email [click here!], and keep those phone calls coming. We’re making a bank of all the ideas you’ve left us via voicemail. There’s quite a bunch of them and it’s awesome to hear. You can reach us at 416-935-5935. As always, The Big Story is available wherever you get podcasts and on your smart speaker by asking it to play The Big Story podcast.

Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.

Back to top of page