(Sherbrooke) A CAQ government would be more unifying by having more elected women, suggests François Legault, who put forward his women’s team on the last day of his campaign.
Posted at 4:35 p.m.
When a Léger poll published in the Quebecor media gave him 38% of voting intentions, roughly the same percentage as that obtained in the 2018 elections, the CAQ leader said that “he thought it would tighten up more than what we see today”. He was quick to add that he takes “nothing for granted”, calling on voters to turn out in droves to the polls on Monday.
The Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) brought together 44 of its 69 candidates to welcome François Legault to Sherbrooke, one of the three stopovers of the day in Estrie.
“My ambition is to make history with the greatest number of women elected to the National Assembly,” he said in a brief speech on Sunday. Fifty-three women won a seat in 2018, representing 42.4% of the 125 deputies in the National Assembly. More women, “it will change the style in the National Assembly”, according to Mr. Legault.
The caquiste chief gave the floor to three candidates who later accompanied him to a press briefing: Caroline St-Hilaire (Sherbrooke), Martine Biron (Chutes-de-la-Chaudière) and Sonia LeBel (Champlain) .
“We need to be numerous in the National Assembly, but also Mr. Legault at the decision-making table,” insisted Caroline St-Hilaire. François Legault reiterated his commitment to form a council of ministers made up of between 40% and 60% women, “the famous parity zone”. 55% of the 125 candidates from the CAQ are women.
The leader of the caquiste has advanced on the impact that the presence of women in his government would have if he is returned to power. According to his personal experience, and defending himself from wanting to “generalize”, he affirmed that “often women are more unifying” and that his “challenge” is to “bring everyone together” at a time when immigration and defense French are hot topics.
“I think we need to unite in Quebec. I repeat, that was my primary objective in founding the CAQ: take the best Liberals, the best PQ members, the best sovereignists, the best federalists and put them on the same team. There, we talked a lot about immigration, about how we do to protect French. Well, we have a challenge to bring everyone together,” he replied when asked how the presence of more women would change the image of his party.
He did not want to go back on his remarks according to which it would be “suicidal” for the Quebec nation to welcome more than 50,000 immigrants a year. His opponents accused him of divisiveness.
“I said what I had to say about it, and it’s not always easy to talk about how we defend French. But for me it is important. “, he said.
For Caroline St-Hilaire, “we have to talk about it positively”, about immigration, it is “a collective challenge”. Was this done during the campaign? “All in all, yes. Some days yes, some days no. But I myself am not immune to sometimes talking about it negatively, ”she said, adding later that “negatively, that may not be the right term”. We must remember that we are talking about “individuals” and not simply “numbers” when discussing immigration thresholds.