King Arthur enters politics
Controversial Quebecer wins independent seat in Canada’s new government
Signy Holmes Staff
In the aftermath of an election that fulfilled ambitions and crushed dreams, there’s one surprise that has taken awhile to register. Canada, or to be more specific, the Quebec riding of Portneuf-Jacques-Cartier, has elected the first non-incumbent independent MP since 1984. The man in question is former radio personality André Arthur, and it’s been a long time since he last flew under the radar.
In fact, Arthur, whose career has spanned over 30 years and several radio stations, has earned himself the nickname “Roi Arthur,” or King Arthur. Well known for right-wing rants and his apparent quest for the world record in “times sued for defamation,” the only thing Arthur seems to have in common with your average tight-lipped politician is his status as a white male with greying hair.
Amid reports that Arthur ran for office on less than $1,000, not to mention his rather unpromising prior record of losing elections both at the municipal and provincial levels in 1998 and 1994 respectively, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that even he himself didn’t really expect to win.
In an interview with Quebec City radio station CHOI FM on January 9, Arthur confessed that he thought he would come in second at best because of the campaign “machine” of the Bloc Québécois and the resources at their disposal.
Even coming in second might seem optimistic for an independent candidate in a province that is in the midst of a political power struggle. In the very same interview, however, Arthur reported that people had been coming up to him to say that they hadn’t planned on voting, or that they would have had to cast their vote “with regret,” but were actually excited to vote now that he was in the running.
Of course, that’s just what he says. Who believes a candidate’s own hype? Well, it turns out that Arthur was right, although somewhat pessimistic about the final results. On election night, the Bloc candidate, Guy Côté, lost by 7064 votes — hardly a narrow margin. Arthur ended up with the victory and nearly 40 per cent of the vote.
Lawsuits and controversy
Arthur may not have much in the way of political experience, but so many politicians have sued him that some of their savvy may have worn off on him. Not only has he been forced to retract statements about Lucien Bouchard having an affair with René Lévesque’s widow, it seems he also got in some fairly serious trouble for accusing former Quebec Liberal leader Daniel Johnson of being in a conflict-of-interest situation.
That makes two former premiers of Quebec, for those keeping count, but these are far from the most notable cases of defamation brought against Arthur. A few years ago, Farès Bou Malhab, then president of Quebec’s Taxi Drivers’ Association, sought to launch a class-action defamation lawsuit on the behalf of around 1,000 Haitian and Arab taxi drivers in Quebec.
The suit claimed defamation based on comments by Arthur in 1998 in which he said, among other things, that he can’t understand taxi drivers because he doesn’t speak “nigger,” and that all the garbage on the streets ends up in taxis driven by Arabs.
This is not the only time that Arthur has made comments that can, at best, be called questionable. He has referred to Université Laval as “one of the biggest universities in North Africa,” going on to say that the students sent to study abroad from African countries are the children of “plunderers” and “cannibals.”
Where will he stand?
In spite of Arthur’s controversial history, tens of thousands of voters felt enough kinship with Arthur to vote for him.
Twenty-one years ago another man felt a kinship with Arthur — his name was Denis Lortie, and he left an audio tape for the radio host before he headed to the Quebec parliament building, dressed in army fatigues, with two submachine guns. It appears that he intended to assassinate René Lévesque and other members of the government. Instead he killed three government employees before being talked down.
Certainly Arthur did not endorse Lortie’s actions. One would hope that Quebec’s voters don’t see the same things in Arthur that Lortie did. But what do they see? Just what sort of impact will a man like Arthur have on Canada’s federal government?
Arthur has always been straightforward about his personal convictions: he is a federalist, not a separatist, and he has spoken against socialist policies. He has also said that, although he does not plan on joining any of the federal parties, the Conservative party most accurately mirrors his own beliefs.
This could lead to an interesting numbers game. Combined, the Conservatives, the NDP, and Arthur make up 154 of the 308 parliamentary seats. That’s just one short of a majority. All it would take is for one disgruntled Liberal to switch sides — hardly implausible in recent years — and the fate of the country could rest in Arthur’s hands.
It’s a role similar to the one Chuck Cadman played in Canada’s previous government. Cadman, who passed away from cancer last summer, was originally elected as a Reform party candidate, and then as a member of the Canadian Alliance. When the Conservative party was formed, Cadman lost the nomination but won the election as an independent. In May last year, Cadman voted in favour of the Liberal budget, allowing them to scrape through the confidence vote. If Cadman had voted the other way, we would have had a summer election.
Whether Arthur will be placed in a similar position remains to be seen. Cadman has said he voted in favour of the budget not out of support for the Liberals, but because he believed his constituents did not want another election so soon. Arthur, who has said he doesn’t see himself running for another term, may be equally unwilling to see the government fall.
Then again, who knows, really? Arthur has also said he’s going to keep working part-time as a bus driver, so perhaps he’s angling to topple the government at the first opportunity and wants to make sure he has a back-up job?
Voter frustration evident
Perhaps it makes sense that Arthur has been elected at the same time that Canada has undergone a change in government. Both of these changes seem to stem from rebellion against the status quo. It is questionable whether or not Arthur would have been elected if voters weren’t fed up with current Canadian politics; certainly his political campaigns have been unsuccessful in the past.
We can only speculate what it was about Arthur that drew voters to him, but it could be that his evident and vocal frustration with corruption in the government played a role.
In an interview with CFOM FM on January 11, Arthur was asked to comment on whether he was running for the residents of his constituents, or, as his opponents had suggested, to resolve his issues with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The government body once suspended the CHOI FM license after complaints about comments made by Arthur and another host.
Naturally, Arthur’s response was that he was running for the constituents. With the evasive skill of any politician, he avoided the CRTC issue entirely, changing the subject by commenting provocatively on the Liberal party.
He asked why any Liberals were running in Quebec, since it certainly couldn’t be with the intention of being elected — perhaps, he suggested, it was with the hope of being appointed a judge or to get contracts.
Later on, he said that while he intends to represent his constituents in Parliament, one of his goals is to go to Ottawa, see what really goes on, and come back to report it to his listeners.
Until now, Arthur has been the one mocking the politicians. He’s even said that politicians are people who have compromised their conscience. Now he’s a politician himself.
Quebec has had time to adjust to Arthur’s abrasive style. He may be a hard pill for English Canada to swallow, and the 62-year-old Arthur has said that he doesn’t plan on changing just because he’s now a Member of Parliament.
Arthur is walking a fine line. He said in his interview with CFOM that it’s the party politicians who are the problem, who sell out, and he differentiated himself from other politicians as an independent. But is the difference really so great?
Technically, he does have an advantage in that he has no party affiliation and as such will be under less pressure to resign in the event of a particularly scandalous comment. And such a scandalous comment is hardly unlikely given Arthur’s past comments and his insistence that he will not censor himself in Parliament.
Arthur has said he will not run for re-election, and so there is little holding him accountable for his actions in Parliament. He has made racially and personally insensitive comments on numerous occasions and faced several lawsuits for his comments and accusation. He has never before held public office. The idea of this man potentially holding the balance of power in Parliament is unsettling, but it serves to illustrate the precarious balance of politically divided Canada.
For now, all we can do is speculate on what the future will hold. But we might be wise to keep a wary eye on a certain MP from Portneuf-Jacques-Cartier.
You can be sure he won’t be flying under the radar for long.
