As the COVID-19 crisis has amplified existing inequalities and accentuated the asymmetry of political and economic power in Québec and Canada, it is of vital importance to ensure that it is not exploited by the ruling and corporate classes to further disenfranchise those already with little power.

As the coronavirus hit Québec in mid-March, detainees at Laval IHC held a hunger strike to appeal to the public and authorities to take action on their living conditions. The hunger strike ultimately brought attention not only to the conditions during the COVID-19 outbreak, but it has shown that the present crisis has exacerbated the unfair conditions that have long been the reality for many.

In this interview, former QS co-spokesperson André Frappier speaks with DSA National Political Committee member Megan Svoboda about the state of Québécois politics, the prospects for QS and the broader Québécois left, and the importance of international solidarity today.

Is it time to declare “the party is over” and find ways to begin anew in building a broad anticapitalist left? Easier said than done. At present the Canadian left is fragmented and seems more inclined to focus on organizing and campaigning around particular issues rather than attempting to build a united radical left alternative.

In the last 40 years, rather than taking the lead in social struggles, the labour movement has been mostly on the defensive. One of the most critical challenges for QS is to generate enthusiasm, hope and active support for a renewed left political project among the union rank and file as well as all the other forces of social transformation, while avoiding the pitfalls of its own growing success – all this while mounting a fierce and compelling opposition to a right-wing government bent on sapping what remains of Québec’s social state after decades of neoliberal corrosion.

I am proud to see Québec solidaire taken in hand by the new generations. The left, in the past and even now, has not always recognized this necessary change. Of course, the “young at heart” (including the author of these lines) still have many things to say and do (there were still many white heads at the National Council meeting).

Québec solidaire will make climate change the party’s main political campaign issue in the coming year, both in and outside the National Assembly. The campaign will build on the major proposals in the QS economic transition plan featured in the recent Quebec general election. Among younger voters it was the party’s emphasis on climate crisis and its support for universal free tuition that proved most attractive.

Québec solidaire has proudly proclaimed its alter-globalist roots and sought to contact and deepen relationships with social movements and left organizations across North America and the world. But this is not enough, and a more pro-active approach must be taken towards the burgeoning popular and left movements in the USA and Canada particularly. There is much to be shared on common issues such as immigration and the environment, and a lot to be learned from each other in terms of building popular left organizations rooted in the working classes.

More than 70 people perished in Quebec this summer during an unprecedented heat wave that sent the mercury soaring across the world. Welcome to the new reality: a decade ago, the Global Humanitarian Forum had already estimated casualties in the hundreds of thousands each year as a result of climate change, with hundreds of millions more suffering serious harm.

The various right-wing extremist groups operating in Québec are not necessarily all in conflict with one another. In fact, together they can appeal to a broad constituency for hate and can recruit people based on their favourite target and preferred type of activism: anti-gay, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, arm-chair fascists, grassroots fascists, and so on.