Trump's win highlights gap between people and policy, Quebec politicians say

The election of Donald Trump as the next American president is casting a long shadow over Quebec politics.

At a meeting of Quebec Liberals this weekend, Premier Philippe Couillardtold his party that Trump's victory could be attributed tothe growing distance between average citizens andpoliticians.

"On the one hand, there are policies and programs. And on the other, people ask 'what will that change for me, my family, my village'," Couillard said during a speech Saturday in Laval.

"For me, there is a lot of this distance between the policies of a government and citizens with their real problems."

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Couillard referred to the American election as part of a broader callfor a renewedrelationship between his party and its members.

But this was no idle speculation on the relevance of American politics. An internal party memo, leaked to the media earlier this week, described Liberal members as disaffected and indifferent to the politicians whorepresent them in the National Assembly.

"Our membership base is in significant decline and it is important to get out of ourtorpor to reverse this trend," reads the report, which was penned byJrme Turcotte before he stepped down from the party's executive committee.

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The report notes that the party's membership dropped from 52,401 in June 2014 to 37, 020 in December 2015. At that rate, according to the report, the party "will find itself without any members leftin just over three and a half years."

Turcottealsosuggestedthe premier's office is unresponsive to policy proposals from party members.

In his speech on Saturday,Couillardsaid he welcomedTurcotte'sobservations, addingthe party needsto modernize itself.

He promised party members would have the chance to be more involved in policy development in the run-up to the 2018 provincial election.

"We need a membership for our century, not the last century," Couillard said.

Legault 'close to the people'

Trump's election also coloured a meeting Saturday of the Coalition Avenir Qubec, considered the most right-wing of the province's three major parties.

Both the Liberals and the Opposition Parti Qubcoishave compared CAQ Leader Franois Legault to Trump in recent days, in an effort to criticize his policies.

Legault responded on Saturday, saying that while he rejects Trump'sstyle of politics, he doesn't consider the comparison entirely negative.

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"I'm at ease with [the comparison] given the fact that Mr. Trump is concerned with the desires of citizens," Legault told reporters at a party meeting in Drummondville.

"Currently, people are not satisfied with the government, they find their government to be far from the people. I consider myself to be someone who is close to the people."

Before entering provincial politics, Legaultwas the president and co-founder of Air Transat. Along with his wife, Legaulthas around $10 million in assets, according to figures released in 2014.

Quebec's political parties will have the opportunity to test how close they are to Quebec voters on Dec. 5, when the province will hold four byelections.

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