Pierre Arcand, deputy and former interim leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ), will not stand for re-election in the provincial elections next October. He thus adds to the growing list of elected Liberals, who, like him, will not be in the game for a new term in the fall of 2022.
Liberal parliamentary wing press secretary Jack Roy confirmed to the To have to Sunday the news first announced by The Press. It was “no surprise” that party members learned of the departure of the 70-year-old veteran.
Mr. Arcand will officially announce his departure from political life on Monday during a press briefing at 10 a.m. Contacted by The dutythe office of the Liberal leader, Dominique Anglade, and the Liberal MP did not want to comment on the news before the official announcement.
Elected for the first time in 2007 in the riding of Mont-Royal–Outremont, the politician is retiring after a 15-year career on the provincial scene. Before jumping into the political arena, he had a career in the radio industry, where he was a journalist, station owner and president of Corus Québec.
Political career
In politics, the Liberal MP held several positions in the Charest and Couillard governments. He notably served as parliamentary assistant to the Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade. Before being entrusted with the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks, he served as Minister of International Relations and Minister responsible for La Francophonie from 2008 to 2010 — functions in which he piloted the agreement between Quebec and France in terms of mutual recognition of professional qualifications, in 2009. He is also responsible for the adoption of Bill 89, which amended the Environment Quality Act to introduce a new system of administrative sanctions pecuniary, in 2011.
Pierre Arcand also served as interim leader of the PLQ, between the departure of Philippe Couillard in October 2018 and the appointment of Dominique Anglade.
More recently, the Liberal MP had been dismissed from his position as official opposition critic for the metropolis and for transport following a trip made in December 2020. He had found himself in the heart of a controversy after he was spotted vacationing in Barbados, as the federal and Quebec governments advised against traveling abroad due to the pandemic.
Another recent controversy: at the end of April, the Prime Minister, François Legault, had let go, off the microphone, in the middle of question period, “He is not dead, him? “, speaking of the Liberal MP. Mr. Arcand said he was “strongly shaken” by these remarks, confirming in passing that he was “in great shape”.
“Pierre Arcand is a friend. It was a bad joke. I apologized,” Mr. Legault later wrote. on Twitter. Mr. Arcand had meanwhile denied this “friendship”.
Bloodletting at the PLQ
It is surrounded by a largely renewed and less experienced team that the Liberal leader, Dominique Anglade, will appear before the electorate during the next election campaign. The departure of Pierre Arcand follows on from the dozen departures already announced. Out of a caucus of 27 deputies, nearly half of the elected officials have chosen to leave political life at the end of the present mandate. Among them are the former Minister of Health Gaétan Barrette as well as Lise Thériault, Christine St-Pierre, Francine Charbonneau and Monique Sauvé.
At its lowest in the polls since 2018, massively neglected by the French-speaking electorate, the PLQ is no longer present except in the Montreal region and the Outaouais. According to the electoral projection site Qc125, made from various polls, certain ridings acquired by the Liberals are now threatened, particularly by the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) or, in some cases, by Québec solidaire (QS).
The victory of the Liberals in Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne, the riding of the leader, is also far from assured, according to projections, as in La Pinière, Laporte, Mille-Îles, Hull, Verdun, Vaudreuil, Laval-des-Rapides, Vimont, Anjou–Louis-Riel, and Fabre.
Same observation in Maurice-Richard, who remained liberal in 2018 with the victory of Marie Montpetit, who nevertheless became an independent deputy since her exclusion from caucus. The riding is now coveted by QS and the CAQ.
With The Canadian Press