First, an admission. Back in March 2014, I wrote a piece about Pierre Karl Péladeau’s political debut. Breathlessly entitled, “Will This Be The Man Who Will Break Up Canada?”, the piece just as breathlessly predicted Péladeau — scion to and CEO of the Québecor media empire — would upend Quebec’s political landscape with his Parti Québécois candidacy.

“Péladeau, 52, brings business bona fides and a conservative bent to the Parti Québécois,” I wrote.

Time makes asses of all of us. In my case, it took about a month. Péladeau’s triumphant (and unplanned) vow to “make Quebec a country!” — uttered within moments of his political coming-out — wasn’t the game-changer I predicted. More of a wet firecracker, actually.

Péladeau went on to win a fairly safe seat in the exurb riding of St. Jérôme, though his separatist bon mots scared voters into the bosom of the Coalition Avenir Québec, which promised the same brand of nationalism sans messy separation from Canada. This in turn helped push the PQ in the 2014 election to the worst showing in terms of the popular vote in the party’s history.

Following the defeat, Péladeau went on to lead the Parti Québécois for exactly 355 days before ‘family matters’ forced him back into the private sector. Call it a cautionary tale for prognosticating journalists and would-be political saviours alike.

Clearly, Péladeau hasn’t learned any lessons. This week, the 56-year-old let it be known that he is open to a return to politics. The pedestrian among us would do so discretely, in conjunction with our favoured parties and with a certain respect for their current leadership. Péladeau, being Péladeau, made his declaration on the radio, with the PQ leadership already in quasi-crisis, by quoting the words mouthed by French President Charles de Gaulle and other major figures of French and Québécois history.

As it shuffles towards the outer edges of the mortal coil, still firmly entrenched in a foreign country called Canada, the PQ’s base has become positively squirrelly. As it shuffles towards the outer edges of the mortal coil, still firmly entrenched in a foreign country called Canada, the PQ’s base has become positively squirrelly.

“Je suis en reserve de la République,” Péladeau said when asked if he wished to return to politics. The sheer pomposity of his phrasing makes translation difficult, but essentially the CEO of Quebec’s biggest media company was indicating his willingness to return to the Parti Québécois should the situation become urgent enough. A would-be saviour for party and country, in other words.

On the face of it, Péladeau’s statement is a monument to both bad timing and bulletproof chutzpah — a trial balloon that looks an awful lot like the Hindenburg. Today’s PQ is a Gong Show at the best of times, beset as it is by dwindling electoral results and declining demographic interest in its raîson d’être of Quebec sovereignty. It has flailed about looking for a new core policy — most recently with the odious ‘Quebec values charter’, which sought to ban religious symbols from the bodies of anyone drawing a provincial government paycheque. Thankfully, this appeal to the baser fears of Quebec’s electorate failed miserably.

Right now, the situation is particularly dire for PQ leader Jean-François Lisée. For the past year, the party has declined precipitously in the polls, according to poll aggregator Philippe Fournier of QC125.com. Four PQ MNAs recently announced they weren’t going to run in the next election — including Alexandre Cloutier, 40, a political wunderkind and the party’s best hope for demographic renewal.

Lisée, who once compared himself to Thomas Jefferson in the pages of the New York Times, has the Jeffersonian task of righting this teetering ship in time for the election in October. Péladeau isn’t only a needless distraction; given his notoriety and ambition, he presents a direct challenge to Lisée’s leadership just by opening his mouth. It’s almost like Péladeau operates not on political instinct but out of pure, indulgent selfishness.

And yet there is nothing particularly novel in the timing or intent of Péladeau’s sortie. The Parti Québécois began life in 1968 as a one-issue party with an appropriate base of motivated Baby Boomers. This base has grown all the more restive over time and after the referendum losses in 1980 and 1995. As it shuffles towards the outer edges of the mortal coil, still firmly entrenched in a foreign country called Canada, it has become positively squirrelly.

While leaders like Lisée find themselves forced by political reality to officially or unofficially shelve the party’s sovereignty project, as Lisée did in 2016, saviours — mouthy ones like Péladeau — promise to restore it, polls and politics be damned.

This sort of armchair quarterbacking has bedeviled every PQ leader except for Jacques Parizeau, who at least had the good sense to martyr himself following his 1995 referendum loss. Lisée, among many others, hasn’t had this luxury.

And so, he finds himself held hostage to the whims and ego of Pierre Karl Péladeau, who hasn’t quite finished playing saviour.

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