Hanes: Which François Legault do we believe now that the election is over?

Premier François Legault was magnanimous in victory Monday night, as his Coalition Avenir Québec swept to an even stronger second majority.

In his speech to party faithful — and a wider audience of Quebecers — he reached out to younger generations, pledging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He spoke of “reconciliation” with Indigenous Peoples and a law to protect their languages. He called immigration a source of great “wealth” and promised “respectful” debate on striking a balance between integrating newcomers and protecting French. He vowed to work with the opposition parties, which lost seats to the surging CAQ. He even threw in a few words of English, saying he will be the premier of all Quebecers “from all regions, of all ages, of all origins.”

On Tuesday, at a press conference on Île d’Orléans, he echoed this message, extending a hand to anglophones and cultural communities “to work together” to safeguard French.

In other words, Legault said all the right things — all the things a leader re-elected with a resounding majority should say to the people, whether they voted for him or not.

But after a campaign in which he was at times ill tempered, testy and touchy, minimized the climate crisis, repeatedly vilified immigration, was forced to apologize for making hurtful statements, pitted Montreal against the regions and accused his critics of insinuating he is a racist, Quebecers can be forgiven for experiencing cognitive dissonance.

Which Legault should people believe: the one who stoked prejudice in order to drum up support, or this statesman opening his arms wide to embrace anyone and everyone in his vision of the Quebec nation? What was just rhetoric and what is the real reflection of the premier’s thinking? And what should those stinging from his earlier rebukes do now — let bygones be bygones? How do people trust someone who expressed such contradictory sentiments in such quick succession?

“An election divides, yet I think there are many more things which unite us than things which divide us,” Legault said Monday and reiterated Tuesday, seeming to explain away his more objectionable comments as mere election shtick.

This would sound more reassuring if Quebecers, especially Montrealers from diverse backgrounds, hadn’t been lulled into a false sense of belonging before, only to end up alienated by divisive CAQ government policies.

The passage of Bill 21 — forbidding certain public sector employees in positions of authority from wearing religious garb — excluded, stigmatized and marginalized some minorities, most notably Muslim women seeking to teach in the province’s understaffed classrooms.

Anglophones were told Bill 96, to bolster protection of the French language, was “nothing against the English Quebecers” and yet the community found its interests, rights and services under attack on all fronts.

The concerns of Indigenous communities about the protection of their own languages went ignored during the debate over Bill 96.

Legault’s repeated denials that systemic racism exists in Quebec were at odds with the basic facts surrounding Joyce Echaquan’s death. His more recent gaffe claiming that everything is fine now at the Joliette hospital where staff verbally abused the Atikamekw woman was a new and insensitive blow to Echaquan’s family on the second anniversary of her death.

Many people were deeply wounded by Legault’s recent attempts to link immigration with “extremists” and “violence,” his claims that too many immigrants would be “suicidal” for Quebec, and incumbent immigration minister Jean Boulet’s whopper that 80 per cent of immigrants “go to Montreal, do not work, do not speak French or do not adhere to the values of Quebec society.”

Legault insists he is an authentic guy who sometimes speaks without thinking first but is willing to apologize for his blunders later. That would be an admirable quality if he didn’t seem to make the same mistakes, on the same issues, injuring the same people time and again.

The premier’s actions will speak louder than words over the next four years. If he means what he said and said what he means, then Legault must follow through on the commitments he made during his victory speech.

If he genuinely values immigration, he must refrain from making it a wedge issue, no matter how tempting politically, as Quebec seeks more powers from the federal government.

If he truly wants to be the premier of all Quebecers, Legault must be a true partner to Montreal. Even if the CAQ didn’t manage to make gains in the city — keeping its total of two seats from 2018, by losing one and picking up another — Montreal is the economic engine of Quebec and the metropolitan region is home to half the province’s population. Legault can’t afford to keep playing the city and the regions against each other — a rift from the campaign he did not explicitly vow to smooth over. He must work to bridge Montreal’s political isolation while recognizing its voters made different choices than most of Quebec.

“The premier lives in Montreal, I’m from Montreal, I know Montreal, I like Montreal,” he said Tuesday, though it hasn’t always felt like it.

And if he is as magnanimous as he sounded, Legault must avoid the arrogance that could easily stem from a second term with a bigger majority. He must keep in mind that while the CAQ took 90 of the National Assembly’s 125 seats, it only won 41 per cent of the popular vote. He must remember that the now diminished opposition parties that will hold him to account together represent the will of more than half of Quebecers — even if their seat counts don’t show it.

Quebecers of all origins and backgrounds may want to believe Legault has turned over a new leaf. Indeed, they may desperately wish it to be so. But they will rightfully be wary until they see what he does.

1. Hanes: Cultural heft vs. weak political clout is the Montreal paradox

2. Hanes: By bashing immigrants, CAQ bites the hand that feeds Quebec

3. Complete Quebec election coverage