Chantal Hébert: Maxime Bernier is still an answer in search of a problem
(The Star Fashion & Style)

As he travels west in search of support for his breakaway conservative party, Maxime Bernier has taken to introducing himself as “the Albertan from Quebec.�Albertans will have to decide from themselves whether a leader who reflects their values would, among other things, have Canada turn its back on the global fight against climate change and decline to share the country’s first-world wealth with the planet’s neediest people. Or whether they believe, like the founder of the People’s Party of Canada, that governments should leave industries — from auto to aerospace to pipelines — to sink or swim on their own, even in the face of job-killing, taxpayer-funded foreign competition. Or whether they too fear that so-called barbarians are at Canada’s immigration gates, ready to flood the country at Justin Trudeau’s invitation and with the help of a complicit federal Conservative party.But there is a big grain of truth in Bernier’s depiction of himself as it pertains to his relationship with his home province.Read more: Bernier introduces new People’s Party of Canada to Calgary in first Alberta rallyOpinion | Thomas Walkom: Mad Max is proving he’s a political forceOpinion | Echoes of Trump resound at Bernier’s Calgary rallyIn Quebec, the Beauce MP has long been a square peg in a round hole. His decision to turn his back on the Conservatives to set up a party in his own image has only reinforced his status as a political oddity.A Mainstreet poll published Wednesday put Bernier’s People’s Party in sixth place in Quebec — behind the Greens. And yet Bernier has probably enjoyed more media attention in the province in three months than Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has in a decade.Loyalty to the Conservative brand or to the party’s current leader is not the issue. Quebec mostly gave Stephen Harper the cold shoulder for the duration of his tenure. Under Andrew Scheer, the a ...