After what has been a singularly dispiriting election campaign, it is difficult to say with assurance which of the parties with a serious chance of forming the next government best merits the confidence of Quebec voters.

It is easier to say which party is least likely to serve the needs and interests of Quebec if elected to govern. That is undoubtedly the Parti Québécois and its leader, Pauline Marois. The PQ and Marois have run a despicable campaign that, in promoting the goal of separating Quebec from Canada, has put forth policy proposals designed to appeal to the most culturally intolerant and xenophobic elements of Quebec society.

At a time when what Quebec needs above all is sound economic management, Marois and her cohorts have served notice that a PQ government’s major preoccupation will be to pick jurisdictional quarrels with Ottawa, demanding more control over areas of administration such as employment insurance and broadcast regulation. Unspoken but clearly evident is the hope that the federal government will feed resentment against Canada among Quebecers by not caving in to the separatist government’s demands.

The prime concern in the first months of a PQ administration would be the implementation of a new and more constraining version of the province’s language law. It would deny adult Quebecers free choice in college education by extending the restrictions on access to English-language primary and secondary schools to CEGEPs. Small businesses with as few as 11 employees would be subject to francization rules and subject to harassment by language-law enforcers.

The right to run for public office would be subject to language requirements, and even before a PQ government obtained majority support for independence, it would expend money and energy on formulating a Quebec constitution and establishing a Quebec citizenship that would be of purely cosmetic value.

Beyond that, it would seek to plunge Quebec into yet another debilitating sovereignty referendum, one possibly triggered by a petition signed by separatist hardliners representing a bare 15 per cent of the population. It would proceed in this endeavour even though polls reliably show that two-thirds of Quebecers are opposed to another referendum in the next government’s term of office.

For federalists, the re-election of Jean Charest and his Liberal Party would be the most reassuring outcome. The Liberals are the only one of the three major parties to offer an unstinting commitment to Canada. They have done a commendable job of keeping the provincial economy on an even keel through the turbulence of the past decade’s major recession. And they offer experience, stability and continuity in government. They feature some outstanding local candidates, such as Kathleen Weil, Geoff Kelley, Yolande James and Jacques Chagnon, who are personally worthy of their constituents’ continued support.

But after three terms in office, the Liberals have the earmarks of an exhausted government. They have notably failed to deliver on promises and expectations in health-care delivery and in upgrading Quebec’s underperforming public-education system. They were right to impose the university tuition increases they did, but their re-election would almost guarantee a continuance of the social unrest that the student protests unleashed this spring.