Société québécoise de science politique

Duverger, Epstein and the Problem of the Mass Party: The Case of the Parti Québécois
Author(s): Harold M. Angell
Source: Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, Vol. 20,
No. 2 (Jun., 1987), pp. 363-378
Published by: Canadian Political Science Association and the Société québécoise de science
politique
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Duverger, Epstein and the Problem of the Mass
Party: The Case of the Parti Quebecois

HAROLD M. ANGELL Concordia University

The Parti Quebecois as a Mass Party

The distinction between "mass" and "cadre" parties was first made by
Maurice Duverger in Les partis politiques (1951).1 Central to his
distinction is the difference in their financial structures. Very little has
been done since to refine and build on this analysis. However, one
remarkable essay which has applied Duverger's categories to a political
party in Canada is that by Michael Stein.2 In this study Stein shows that
"Duverger's analysis is admirably suited to the study of Creditiste
finance since, in virtually every respect, the Ralliement des Creditistes
fits his description of a mass party."3
For Duverger, the major distinction between these two types of
parties is in their structure. The "cadre" party generally includes in its
"membership" (if it can be said to have a defined membership at all)
only a restricted group of the most active people sharing the same
partisan goals, while the "mass" party is open to all who care to join.
The two factors which define the distinctive systems of membership
most clearly are the method of political education of the members and
financial organization. The "cadre" party does little or no political
education of its own members, whereas the "mass" party generally
carries out an extensive programme of internal mass education. But it is
in their financing that the distinction stands out most sharply.
Financially, the "cadre" party relies on the contributions of a few large
1 The edition used here is the 3rd English edition, Political Parties: Their Organization
and Activity in the Modern State (London: Methuen, 1964). trans. by Barbara and
Robert North, esp. 60-71.
2 Published as "The Structure and Function of the Finances of the Ralliement des
Creditistes," in Studies in Canadian Party Finance (Committee on Election
Expenses; Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1966), 405-57.
3 Ibid., 408-09.

Harold M. Angell, Department of Political Science, Concordia University, Sir George

Williams Campus, Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8

Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, XX:2 (June/juin 1987).
Printed in Canada / Imprime au Canada
364 HAROLD M. ANGELL

supporters,often from outside the party, whereas the "mass" party is

essentially based on the fees paid by its members.4
Duverger specified a numberof other majordifferences between
these two types of parties, includingclass, ideological orientation,and
degree of commitment.He gave most prominence, however, to those
elements relateddirectlyto organizationalstructure.5These includethe
followingdifferences.(1) A mass partyis inclinedto a "branch"unit as
its local formof organization.This is "wider based and less exclusive"
than the "caucus" of a cadre party. In the mass party, moreover, the
politicaleducationof memberssupplementselectoralactivity, andthere
is an administrativeorganizationwith permanentofficials. (2) The mass
partyis stronglyarticulated,and(3) morecentralizedthana cadreparty.
(4) It has an even more oligarchicalleadershipthan a cadre party, and
(5) a very large membershipcomparedto a cadre party. Finally, (6) it
has a muchlarger,even permanent,rangeof activity thana cadreparty,
envelopingmuchof the communitylife of the member;this comparesto
the electoral or special political event activity which characterizesthe
cadre party.
The only real differencebetween the descriptionof these categories
and the actual activity of the PQ is in financing. Here we must add a
nuance. Insteadof the PQbeing "essentiallybased on the fees paidby its
members," we must add to "fees" the contributionssolicited by its
members in an at least annual fund drive. Not that this is a wrinkle
invented by the PQ. Most of the socialist and communist-and
fascist-parties of Europemadeor makecollections fromthe publicand
go door-to-doorfor them. The differencehere is that this has constituted
the major portion of the funds raised by the PQ since 1968. So in
Duverger'sterms the PQ is certainly a mass party.6
Membership,then, is centralto a mass party, and "the concept of
membershipis a resultof the evolutionwhichled fromthe cadrepartyto
the mass party."7The term "member" has scarcely any meaning or
importancefor the cadre party. It is linked with a particularnotion of
partythat was bornat the beginningof the twentiethcenturyalong with
socialist parties,and that has subsequentlybeen imitatedby others, for
examplethe PQ and, later, the Quebec Liberalparty(QLP). It does not
correspondto the conceptionof partywhichflourishedin the nineteenth
centuryin parliamentarysystems with a limitedfranchise,as in Canada
and Quebec, and which flourishes today even with a wider franchise.
4 Duverger, Political Parties, 63.
5 Ibid., 27.
6 For further argument on this point see H. M. Angell, "Le financement des partis
politiques provinciaux du Quebec," in V. Lemieux (ed.), Personnel et partis
politiques au Quebec (Montreal: Bor6al Express, 1982), 80.
7 Duverger, Political Parties, 63.
Abstract. With a theoretical framework based on Duverger and Epstein we examine the
mass party and compare it to the cadre party. The Parti Quebecois fits its criteria. In 1977it
imposed its fund-raising methodology on other Quebec parties by barring donations from
moral persons. Only Quebec electors may now donate anything. Only the Quebec Liberal
party has adapted. The hypothesis is that a loss in popularity leads to a loss of membership
and a financial crisis. This may lead to a crise de conscience and a split in membership,
leading to disintegration and defeat. Such a crisis shook the PQ from 1981to 1985 and the
defeat of December 2, 1985, was an inevitable consequence.
Resume. Sous l'angle de la theorie de Duverger et Epstein concernant les notions de
parti de masse et de parti cadre, le Parti quebecois est ici considere comme etant un parti
reunissant les criteres du party de masse. Dans cette perspective, en 1977 il impose aux
autres partis son mode de financement notamment en interdisant tout don de < personnes
morales >>;autrement dit, seuls les electeurs queb6cois peuvent y contribuer ou faire un
don. (Le Parti liberal du Quebec a d'ailleurs adhere a ce r6gime.) L'etude tend h demontrer
qu'une perte de popularite entraine une perte du nombre de membres et par consequent
une crise financiere. Ce phenomene peut aussi conduire h une crise de conscience, voire
une scission parmis les membres menant h la desintegration et a la defaite. Une telle crise a
ebranli le Parti quebecois entre 1981et 1985et explique en partie la d6faite du 2 decembre
1985.

As Duverger points out, the distinction between cadre and mass

parties is not so much based upon their dimensions, or the number of
their members; the difference involved is not one of size.8 Consider, for
example, the PQ and the QLP. In their eyes the recruiting of members is
a fundamental activity, in the QLP mainly for fund-raising purposes and
in the PQ both from the political and the fund-raising standpoint. The PQ
aims at the political education of the nationalists of Quebec, just as for
socialist parties the aim is the political education of the working class9
and selection from it of an elite capable of taking over the government
and administration of the state. In the PQ the members are thus the very
substance of the party, the stuff of its activity. As Duverger points out,
without members, the party would be like a teacher without pupils.10
Secondly, from the financial point of view, the PQ is almost entirely
based on the subscriptions paid by its members and the donations which
they in turn solicit from the public. The scale of these fund-raising and
recruitment drives is shown by the fact that in 1982, 111,220 of Quebec's
4.4 million eligible voters contributed $3.04 million to political parties.
The average donation was $27.40.11
In this way, the party gathers the funds needed for political
education and its day-to-day activity. In the same way it is able to
finance its elections. But the financial and the political are here one.
Duverger maintains that this point is fundamental, for every election
campaign costs relatively enormous amounts of money. But the mass
party technique in effect replaces the capitalist financing of elections (on
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 The Gazette, April 26, 1983.
366 HAROLD M. ANGELL

which the QLP and the Union nationale [UN] relied until 1977 and the
PQ's Bill 2) by democratic financing (the PQ from 1968 and the QLP
after 1978). Thus instead of appealing to a few big private
donors-industrialists, bankers or contractors-for funds to meet
election expenses (which has always, in Canada as elsewhere, been
suspected of making the candidate, and the person elected, dependent
on them12)the mass party spreads the burden over the largest possible
number of members and the largest possible number of members of the
public, each of whom contributes a modest sum.
This invention of the mass party is likened by Duverger to that of
Treasury Bonds in several countries in the First World War. Before then
these were issued in large denominations to be taken up by a few large
banks from which the state borrowed. Then came the brilliant idea of
issuing many small bonds to be taken up by the general public. In the
same way, the mass party appeals to the paying public, who make it
possible for the election campaign to be free from capitalist
pressures-but not, as we shall see, from more democratic pressures.
This active public receives a political education and learns how to
intervene in the life of the state.13
In the cadre party, a few financiers provide the sinews of war. What
the mass party secures by numbers, the cadre party has always achieved
by selection.14 If we define as a member one who signs an undertaking to
the party and thereafter regularly pays a subscription, then cadre parties
have no members.15 The problem of the number of members belonging
to the federal Liberal party or the federal Progressive Conservative party
of Canada is susceptible of no precise answer, because the problem itself
is meaningless. Their members cannot be enumerated because these
parties do not recruit members, strictly speaking, because they do not
need them for financial purposes. The Conservatives raised $21.2 million
in contributions in 198416but $11 million of this was from 21,286 business
donations. The bulk of the remainder was raised by an elaborate
direct-mailing system using computers. This is a far cry from the
militants of the PQ and QLP plodding door-to-door every spring. In 1984,
a non-election year, the QLP raised $4.6 million in its fund-raising
campaign through 54,120 individual contributions (89 per cent of which
were of $100 or less). Memberships added $874,679.17 The PQ, although
12 For a cogent argument on these lines for Canada, see K. Z. Paltiel, Political Party
Financing in Canada (Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1970), 161.
13 Duverger, Political Parties, 64.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, Report Respecting Election Expenses 1984,
Ottawa, July 15, 1985, 1.
17 Directeur-g6enral des elections du Quebec, Rapports Financiers pour 1984,
Sainte-Foy, Quebec, mai 1985, 63-72 and 184.
Problem of the Mass Party 367

already in full decline, raised $2.05 million in its fund-raising drive

through 44,963 individual donations, of which 93 per cent were of $100 or
less. Memberships added $421,843. This total of 99,083 individual
Quebec contributions for the two parties is striking when compared to
the total of 93,199 individual contributions to the federal Conservatives
in the whole of Canada, and still more to the 29,056 individual
contributions to the federal Liberal party in the whole of Canada, in
1984.18 The Liberal and Conservative parties are cadre parties.19
American parties and most European moderate and conservative
parties, as Duverger points out,20belong to the same category. Although
clear in theory, this distinction is not always easy to make in practice:
cadre parties sometimes admit ordinary members in imitation of mass
parties, for example, immediately prior to nominating conventions or for
the selection of delegates to leadership conventions in Canada. But the
absence of any system of registration of members or of any regular
collection of dues is a fairly reliable criterion. No true membership is
conceivable in their absence. The vagueness of the figures put out by
these parties can also be considered presumptive evidence. In essence,
cadre parties have no compelling reason to recruit large numbers of
members because their finances are much more easily provided for. In
any case, the larger the number of members, the smaller each one's
share of the patronage and spoils when the party takes office.
Canada has a social democratic party. The New Democratic party
(NDP) has both personal and indirect members. Since its foundation in
1961,it has had increased affiliation by trade unions over its predecessor,
the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). From the financial
point of view, the NDP is a mass party-election costs are partly met by
trade unions collectively. In 1984, trade unions contributed 33 per cent of
the $6.5 million raised by the NDP.21 This collective membership,
however, remains quite different from individual membership. It
involves no true political enrolment and no personal pledge to the party.
It is well known that many of the members of the affiliated trade unions
do not even vote for the NDP in either provincial or federal elections.
This profoundly alters the nature of the party and of its membership. As
18 Election Expenses 1984, 2.
19 A good description of the activity of such a party in Canada is provided by Charlotte
Gray, "A Liberal Education," in SaturdaY Night, March 1986, 14. She writes: "In
January 1983 Liberal party president Iona Campagnolo struck a committee to discuss
reform proposals. Its interim discussion paper, a year later, suggested that long years
in office had made it 'progressively easier for the party to slip into the role of simply an
election machine, cranked up every four years. but largely dormant and ineffective in
inter-election periods.' There was hostility between the parliamentary wing and the
rank and file."
20 Duverger, Political Parties, 64.
21 Election Expenses 1984, 3.
368 HAROLD M. ANGELL

a (financially) indirect mass party, the NDP would probably be

classified by Duverger as a "semi-mass party."22
As Duverger points out,23it was the Marxist conception of the class
party that led to such massive structures as the German Social
Democratic Party (SPD). If the party is the political expression of a class,
it must naturally try to rally the whole of the class, to form it politically,
to recruit the elites capable of leadership and administration. It was a
similar-but nationalist-concept that led to the formation of the PQ in
1968in Quebec. The effort was to rally the "nation," to form it politically
and to select elites capable of leadership and administration. But the
"financiers" of Quebec were mostly English-speaking, with no
sympathy for the PQ's "national project," nor for the social democratic
policies it espoused at first. To become independent of this capitalist
financing was possible only with alternative finances. To establish a PQ
political press (Le Jour, 1973-1976),in opposition to the anglophone and
francophone capitalist press, it was necessary to collect funds. Only a
mass party could make these things possible. The organization of the PQ
is also that of a mass party, having as its objective the political education
of its members. It is based on branches in all but name. Each riding
association (Association de comt6) is, in organization and activity, like a
branch of a traditional mass party, and is required to be very active.
There are regional associations as well as the "national" (provincial)
organization, with a policy convention (Congres national) every two
years.
As in any mass party, the militants are of extreme importance.
Duverger describes militants in mass parties as follows:
... a special class of member.The militantis an active member:the militants
form the nucleus of each of the party's basic groups, on which its fundamental
activitiesdepend. Withinthe branch,for example, there is always to be found a
smallcircle of members,markedlydifferentfromthe mass, who regularlyattend
meetings, share in the spreadingof the party's slogans, help to organize its
propagandaand prepareits electoral campaigns.24
To this we may add, for the Quebec variant (PQ and QLP): those who
are mobilized to knock on doors and solicit donations in fund-raising
drives. The other members do no more than provide a name for the
register and a little money for the chest; it is the militants who work
effectively for the party.
Must mass parties rely entirely on their mass fund-raising methods?
Certainly not. Epstein writes on this subject:
Whateversourcesleft-wingpartiesuse, there is no doubtthe successfulones do
not depend primarilyon dues. Even in Israel, where party membershipfigures
22 Duverger, Political Parties, 65.
23 Ibid., 66.
24 Ibid., 110.
Problem of the Mass Party 369

are extremely high (as a proportion of the voting population) and where per
capita dues are often high as well, additional financing is required.... Mapai ...
Israel's largest single party, receives no more than half of even its regular budget
from dues. Another way in which parties of the left (i.e., mass) can seek parity
with the more easily financed conservative parties of the business community is
through governmental intervention.23

What Epstein means, of course, is that in Israel, as with European

left-wing parties, parties control-and derive profits from-whole
sectors of the economy. Mapai, together with the largest trade union
federation, Histradrut, controls one of the largest circulation dailies in
Israel, the largest construction company in the country, as well as the
largest public bus line and other concerns.
What has become more relevant to Canadian parties, in the past 20
years, is Epstein's last point. Governmental intervention in party
financing in Canada, as in much of the western world, has become the
norm since Quebec's pioneering Election Act of 1963. Indeed, the
Quebec parties do not need to rely financially on their fund-raising
campaigns alone. The provincial treasury provides two supplementary
sources of income for them. One is the reimbursement of part of their
candidates' election expenses, which amounted to $845,042 for the
candidates of the PQ and $866,063 for the candidates of the QLP in
1981.26The other source is a direct governmental inter-election subsidy,
unique in Canada, which amounts to about $1 million per year. This
subsidy is shared among the parties in the Assembly on the basis of their
percentage of the vote at the last election.
But judging by the amounts raised annually, it is obvious that the
parties' fund-raising campaigns have provided, until now, the greatest
part of the budgets of the two largest Quebec parties. It seems that the
bulk of the Quebec mass party's financing comes from large numbers of
members (dues, contributions) and sympathizers (contributions). This
can raise $2 million annually for one of these two parties even in bad
years.

The Crisis in the Parti Quebecois

It has often been held that a mass party is peculiarly vulnerable in its
sources of finance. For example, Serge Remillard, director of
administration for the QLP in 1980, said prophetically: "If for some
reason the PQ drops drastically in popularity one year it will not be able
to gather as much money in contributions. The party would be
completely paralysed."27
25 L. D. Epstein, Political Parties in Western Democracies (New York: Praeger, 1967),
246-47.
26 Directeur general du financement des partis politiques, Rapports de depenses
electorales, elections generales di 13 avril, 1981, Montreal, a6ut 1981, 14.
27 The Gazette, March 14, 1980.
370 HAROLD M. ANGELL

The hypothesis of this article depends on this major problem-or

nightmare-of the mass party. It is that when, for any reason, a mass
party loses popularity with its contributing public, one of the first things
this public will do is to reduce or cease its contributions. The
fund-raising system will suffer a slowdown. If there is a continuing loss
of popularity, the financial crisis may become a crise de conscience and
the party may undergo a split or splits in its membership. This again will
affect the fund-raising system, for one of the main functions of members
in such a party in Quebec is to be mobilized to go door-to-door to solicit
contributions. The present article attempts to show that that kind of
deepening crisis took place in the PQ between 1981and 1985. We do this
by measuring popularity poll figures against the results (and objectives)
of fund-raising campaigns.
After the QLP's "Quiet Revolution" Election Act of 1963, the
second wave in Quebec's reform of party financing came in March 1977
with the PQ government's Bill 2, An Act to Govern the Financing of
Political Parties. 28This Act totally banned donations from corporations,
trade unions or any association; all contributions from outside the
province were banned; all donations of over $100 were to have their
donors' names published; and a maximum of $3,000 was put on any
year's total donations. Thus, only Quebec electors could make any
donation at all to Quebec provincial parties or candidates.
This was a radical change, for until then all major Quebec parties,
except the PQ (that is, all cadre parties), had been mainly financed by a
relatively small number of large donations from corporations and other
business sources. The PQ, from its beginnings, had had nothing to hope
for from such sources. It therefore made a virtue of necessity and
instituted for itself a mass party system of annual fund-raising drives in
which it mobilized large numbers (15,000-20,000) of its members to go
door-to-door to solicit large numbers of small contributions. Once in
power it imposed this system on all Quebec parties, especially its main
opposition, the QLP. Only the QLP has successfully adapted its
organization, membership and structures to this new mass party system.
The PQ obviously made this move partly in the hope of cutting the head
off the QLP which, starved of funds from its traditional sources, should
have ended up like the carcass of a beached whale.
The crisis in the PQ started in 1981. Until then the party had stayed
on a rising curve from its foundation in 1968. In its first election, that of
1970, it won 23.1 per cent of the votes, which was a considerable increase
from the total of 8.7 per cent obtained by the two separatist parties in the
previous election of 1966. In 1973 the PQ increased its vote to 30.2 per
cent and in 1976 to 41.4 per cent, taking power with 71 seats out of the 110
then in the Quebec Assembly. In the 1980 referendum, the PQ side, the
28 R.S.Q., C.F-2.
Problem of the Mass Party 371

OUI, won 40.4 per cent of the vote. This was hardly, in itself, a setback
for the PQ in terms of the vote cast for it. And in the 1981 election it
retained power with 49.2 per cent of the vote. From 1981, however, all
the indices pointed downhill for the PQ.
With the economy in recession, the PQ government now turned
away from the kind of social democratic policies favoured by most of its
mass membership and looked towards the business community. It thus
alienated most of its most ardent members and supporters: public
servants, teachers at all levels, students, social service workers, in fact
most of the "new class"29 to which most of its membership belonged.
The PQ's loss of popularity was shown in the opinion polls. After its
peak of 49.2 per cent in the 1981election, the party stood mostly between
20 and 30 per cent, with a low of 19 per cent in the spring of 1983 and a
high of 39 per cent in January 1985 (see Table 1). Spurred on by a poll in
December 1984that suggested that the party might get 40 per cent (a gain
of 9 points) if it dropped its main goal of Quebec sovereignty, the PQ held
a special convention, on January 19, 1985, and did just that, for the
coming election. Predictably, the party split over this issue. About
one-third of the delegates walked out, to be followed out of the party by
many cabinet ministers, backbenchers, party officials at all levels and
tens of thousands of ordinary members. Of course, the fund-raising
system suffered.
The other main indicator of the PQ's disintegration was the
reduction in the number of members (see Table 2). From November
1976, when the PQ came to power, until June 1981,there was a sharp and
consistent rise in this number from 130,000 to 302,000. But with the drop
in popularity there was a loss of membership. In 1981, there began a
precipitous decline which ended with the party entering a leadership
campaign in 1985(after its founding leader, Rene Levesque, had resigned
in June 1985) with about 73,000 members. (The party claimed 117,000 at
the time, but it turned out that 44,000 of these held expired cards.) The
leadership candidates were induced to mount membership drives
through the format of the leadership selection procedure.30About 55,000
new and former members did join up before August 15. This gave the PQ
a possible membership of about 128,000, but only 97,389 of these actually
voted on September 29, 1985, according to La Presse the next day.31 La
Presse said that a theoretical 160,342 might have voted (138,157 fully
paid-up members and 22,185 if they had renewed their cards). On this
writer's estimate (97,389 voted out of a possible 128,000) this means a
29 On Quebec's "new class" concept see for example. H. Guindon, "Social Unrest,
Social Class and Quebec's Bureaucratic Revolution," Queen's Qluarterll 71 (1964),
150-62.
30 No delegate convention was held, but all the members on the register as of August 15,
1985, would have the right to vote in a kind of general election of all PQ members.
31 September 30, 1985.
TABLE 1

QUEBEC PARTIES:OPINIONPOLLS

Polling Respon- QL
Date organization Sponsor Period dents

Mar 1981 CROP La Presse Mar 13-20 1,327 32.

Mar 1981 INCI Le Soleil Mar 30- 766 37.
Gazette Apr 5
Apr 1981 CROP La Presse Apr 1-5 1,025 35.
Apr 13/81 GENERAL ELECTION 46.
Mar 1982 CROP La Presse N/A 1,002 37.
Mar 1982 SORECOM CUIO
La Presse N/A N/A N/A
Dec 1982 U. de Montreal La Presse N/A N/A 51.
Mar 1983 CROP CEQ N/A N/A 41.
Oct 1983 N/A CJAD, Le Devoir,
Radio Quebec N/A N/A 54.
Nov 1983 CROP N/A N/A N/A 61.
Dec 1983 SORECOM Gazette Nov 14-26 N/A 67.
Jan 1984 CROP N/A N/A N/A 66.
Feb 1984 CROP La Presse Feb 24-26 1,036 61.
Feb 1984 SORECOM Le Soleil N/A N/A 66.
Mar 1984 SORECOM N/A Feb 14-28 1,025 66.
Mar 1984 CROP N/A N/A 1,036 61.
May 1984 SORECOM Southam News
Le Soleil May 14-30 1,260 69.
Jun 1984 N/A N/A N/A N/A 69.
Oct 1984 SORECOM Le Soleil Sep 14-25 1,201 58.
Nov 1984 CROP CP N/A N/A 66.
TABLE 1-Continued

Polling Respon- QLP

Date organization Sponsor Period dents %

Jan 1985 N/A N/A N/A N/A 53.0

Oct 1985 SORECOM Le Soleil, Gazette Oct 11-20 1,001 39.0
Oct 1985 CROP La Presse Oct 22-28 1,000 40.0
Oct 1985 IQOP Journal de
Montreal; CJMS Oct 24-28 798 37.0
Oct 1985 SORECOM QLP Oct 28-31 720 37.0
Nov 1985 CREATEC QLP Nov 4-7 529 43.0
Nov 1985 SORECOM QLP Nov 4-11 1,001 39.0
Nov 1985 CROP La Presse Nov 8-10 1,007 42.0
Nov 1985 JOLICOEUR Le Dev'oir
Radio Quebec Nov 6-18 1,598 37.0
Nov 1985 SORECOM QLP Nov 11-19 1,013 42.0
Nov 1985 IQOP Journal de
Montreal; CJMS Nov 18-22 870 38.0
Nov 1985 CROP La Presse Nov 22-24 1,005 44.0
Nov 1985 SORECOM Le Soleil,
Gazette, CHRC Nov 21-26 984 43.0
Nov 1985 CREATEC QLP Nov 25-27 603 47.0
Dec 2/85 GENERAL ELECTION 56.0

* Otherresponses:don't know, no response, will annulballot, will not vote.

N/A: not available.
Sources: General election of 1981from Elections Quebec 81 (Le Directeur gen6ral des elections, Quebec, Octo
Rapport preliminaire des resultats du scrutin (DGEQ, Quebec, December 13, 1985); Le Devoir, La
Mail; News Facts (1982, 1983, and 1984); and G. Lachapelle (Concordia University).
374 HAROLD M. ANGELL

turnout of 76 per cent, whereas with the La Presse figure of a possible

160,342 the turnout was only 60.7 per cent, despite a long campaign and
10regional all-candidate rallies. It seems therefore that our own estimate
is far more realistic and more in line with the normal Quebec turnout in
provincial general elections.32 But in any case, from the 302,000
members of June 1981, a great deal of blood had flowed out of the PQ.

TABLE 2
PARTI QUEBECOIS MEMBERSHIP, NOV. 1976 TO FEB. 1986

Date Membership Paid up Overdue

Mid-Nov 1976 over 130,000

May 1977 188,885
Oct 1978 190,000
Jun 1979 over 200,000
Apr 1980 238,220
Jun 1980 196,082 42,138
Mar 1981 292,600
Jun 1981 302,000
Jan 1982 239,500 73,177
Feb 1982 211,632
Dec 1982 164,289 84,946
Mar 1983 154,524 89,294
May 1983 78,140 112,546
Nov 1983 160,000
Jun 1984 150,319
Nov 1984 113,000
Dec 1984 79,491 111,646
Jan 1985 85,000
Early Feb 1985 80,000
Late Feb 1985
not more than 75,000
Sep 1985 138,157 22,185
Feb 1986 153,148 69,249

Sources: Graham Fraser, PQ: Rene Levesque and the Parti Quebecois in Power (Toronto:
Macmillan, 1984), 370ff.; The Gazette, La Presse, Le Devoir, The Globe and Mail.
These figures have not been checked by me in the party files and consequently are
to be taken with some caution.

Finally, in the "fundamental" of a mass party organization,

according to Duverger,33 that is, the amounts raised by the PQ's annual
32 In the 1981election 3.6 million valid votes were cast of a total of 4.4 million voters on
the lists-a turnout of 82.5 per cent.
33 Duverger, Political Parties, 63.
Problem of the Mass Party37 375

fund-raising campaigns, again there was a sharp decline after 1981(see

Table 3). In 1982the target was lowered to $2.5 million (from $3 million in
1981)and in 1983 down further to $2 million. In both cases the reduced
target was only just passed, with a reduction of over $1.25 million from
1981 to 1982 in the total amount raised. From 1982 to 1983 there was a
further reduction of over $500,000. In 1984 and 1985 the target was
stabilized at $2 million. In 1984this objective was only just reached (with
some $48,000 over the target); and in the election year of 1985, although
the drive continued for three months, much longer than is normal, re-
sults were again disappointing: the PQ raised $2.2 million, while in about
the same time period the QLP raised $5.2 million-two and one-half
times as much. The PQ ran a supplementary election fund-raising drive
in the first two weeks of the 1985election campaign to raise $1 million.34
Campaign Chairman Rodrigue Biron announced that $1.26 million had
been raised, but "the drive is being extended because the party needs
more money for its campaign."35 On February 22, 1986, the "National"
Council of the PQ met to discuss what Alain Marcoux, secretary-general
of the executive, called its most immediate problem, its financial
position.36 He announced a debt of $750,000. About $400,000 of this
apparently stemmed from the leadership race in the summer of 1985 and
only $125,000 was due to the election campaign. Even before the
campaign began, Gilles Lesage, a very well-informed columnist for Le
Devoir, wrote that the PQ's chest was empty.37 In January 1986 the PQ
was laying off staff and cutting payments to its riding associations.38

Conclusion
Maurice Duverger's Les partis politiqlies was originally published in
1951. Yet almost everything he had to say about the mass party fits the
PQ very well. And almost everything he had to say about the cadre party
which imitates the mass party fits the QLP very well after 1978, when it
was forced by the PQ's Bill 2 to become a mass party for fund-raising
purposes. None of the other Quebec parties has adapted to the new
regime, not even the Union nationale, which, before 1973, was one of the
two major parties.
The experience of the PQ since 1981clearly shows that a mass party
which loses popularity and membership is in serious trouble, much more
so than a cadre party which loses an election would be. On both counts
(popularity and membership) its fund-raising system will suffer as, in the
experience of both present major Quebec parties, the organization must
34 Le Devoir, October 15, 1985.
35 The Gazette, October 28, 1985.
36 The Gazette, February 21, 1986, and The Globe and Mail, February 22, 1986.
37 "La caisse est a sec," Le Devoir, October 2, 1985.
38 The Gazette, January 14, 1986.
376 HAROLD M. ANGELL

mobilize from 15,000 to 20,000 of its militants to solicit contributions

from the public.

TABLE 3
PARTI QUEBECOIS FUND-RAISING
CAMPAIGNS 1970-1985

Year Objective Total raised

1970 None $ 145,042*

1971 None 135,551*
1972 $ 300,000 632,154
1973 739,281*
1974 823,868*
1975 912,097*
1976 1,000,000 1,120,402
1977 1,000,000 1,387,373
1978 1,300,000 2,059,950
1979 2,000,000 2,620,400
1980 3,000,000 4,006,683
1981 3,000,000 3,940,544
1982 2,500,000 2,647,005
1983 2,000,000 2,053,371
1984 2,000,000 2,048,298
1985 2,000,000 2,200,000

total $27,472,019
* Sums received as membership dues are not
included.
Source: Until 1984, letter from Jacques Despins,
Directeur des communications, Parti
Qu6ebcois, Montreal, dated November 1,
1984. For 1985total, Le Devoir, June 20, 1985.

What are the possible alternative sources of income? One would be

for the party to drastically raise its membership dues. However, this
might have the result of driving away many members. Another possible
source of increased income would be to raise governmental subsidies,
either indirectly (by way of increased tax credits for individual
contributions, or increased reimbursements for the election expenses of
candidates-or of some party expenditures, such as those on the
electronic media) or even directly, by the increase in the party
inter-election subsidy. Any of these alternatives would be popular with
the parties but, except perhaps for the tax credits, not with the public.
Problem of the Mass Party 377

During the campaign leading to the December 1985 Quebec election, the
Liberal leader, Robert Bourassa, let drop some hints about the
possibility of restoring the right of "moral persons"-corporations,
trade unions and associations-to make contributions to political parties
and candidates. This would be the most radical step of all in the present
climate of opinion in the province of Quebec. But it would go a long way
to solving the QLP's problem if it, in its turn, should suffer a drop in
popularity comparable to that of the PQ from 1981to 1985.
In its last four years in power, the PQ government turned
increasingly towards the business community with its policy of
"concertation," which the labour movement did not like at all. Yet even
if it had wanted-had needed-to accept contributions from business,
the PQ was barred from doing so by its own legislation. As a mass party,
it had only one string to its financial bow, having barred all Quebec
parties, including itself, from the traditional source of financing of a
cadre party. When the mass party string was broken, the PQ fell
apart-actually disintegrated. The crise de fitnancement caused by the
drop in popularity produced a crise de conscience, a political crisis
which led directly to the party's disintegration, marked by a loss of
membership, as well as the defections of many of its leading members
after the special convention of January 1985. The result was a crushing
defeat, the first reversal of the PQ's history, with a loss of 10.6
percentage points in its vote from the general election of 1981. In
addition, the turnout fell dramatically, from the 1981election, by eight
percentage points. Thus, while the Liberal vote increased by some
250,000, hundreds of thousands of former PQ voters abstained. This
defeat was saved from being a debacle only by the dumping of the
founding leader, Ren6 Levesque, and the highly personalized campaign
of the new leader, Pierre Marc Johnson.
Serge Remillard, director of administration for the QLP, felt in 1983
that a couple of lean years in fund-raising could severely hurt the PQ and
prevent it from recovering its previous momentum. He was right: the PQ
passed through two relatively lean years in this area. Targets were
drastically lowered and the party had great problems in reaching them.
The results were clear in the December 1985election campaign. Johnson
joked about the PQ's "Volkswagen Bug" campaign as compared to the
QLP's "Cadillac" campaign. The PQ's financial stringency was
everywhere apparent until its crushing defeat.
Between June 1981 and February 1985 the PQ suffered a loss of
227,000 members (see Table 2). That averages over 5,000 per month. No
mass party, like the PQ, can tolerate such a haemorrhage for long. By the
time of the December 1985 election the PQ was clearly out of funds. The
dues and contributions of all these deserters were decisive. Their $5 per
year dues alone would have brought in over $1 million a year. Was that
the margin between victory and defeat?
378 HAROLD M. ANGELL

It may be argued that the PQ's financial crisis was only a symptom
of the PQ's disintegration, and that the real cause of its loss in popularity
and membership, and the resulting financial crisis, was its radical change
in policies-especially the virtual dropping of the party's raison d'etre,
its Quebec sovereignty project. This may well be the case. But what is
sure is that in a mass party the fund-raising system is a sure
thermometer: though unlike an invalid's, the higher this thermometer
rises, the healthier is the party. But when it drops, it is a sure sign of
impending disaster. A cadre party can survive occasional droughts in
contributions, as did the federal Conservatives under Meighen (in 1921)
and Manion (in the late 1930s). But in a mass party its membership is its
fundamental resource to produce the sinews of war. If the party gives up
its raison d'etre and does not find a new one, its membership-its
militants-will desert it, and the whole fund-raising machinery slows
down. The thermometer drops, and unless the party finds an alternative
source of income, the whole structure will grind to a halt. But if it does
find another source, then it is no longer a mass party-for the mass
party's fund-raising machinery is the mobilization of its membership. It
can no longer mobilize the class or-in the case of the PQ-the nation.