Québec solidaire did not “make ideal gains” and “disappointed” by taking eleven seats on October 3, only one more than in 2018.
This is the observation made by deputies of the left formation, Thursday, on the sidelines of their first post-election caucus, in Sherbrooke. “We haven’t made much progress. It disappoints me, ”admitted to journalists the re-elected deputy for Laurier-Dorion, Andrés Fontecilla.
After a campaign in which the party tried to pose as an “alternative” to the Coalition avenir Québec, QS woke up on October 4 with eleven seats. While it made gains in Montreal — Maurice-Richard and Verdun — it lost a seat in the regions, in Rouyn-Noranda-Témiscamingue.
The defeated candidates had not been invited to the solidarity caucus on Thursday. The former MP for Rouyn, Émilise Lessard-Therrien, was therefore conspicuous by her absence. In front of his deputies, the co-spokesperson for the training, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, admitted that he would have preferred better results.
“We are the only party [d’opposition], on October 3, who succeeded, despite the CAQ wave, in expanding his caucus of deputies. It’s not the ideal gains, it’s not the gains we wanted, but they are gains,” he said.
In the National Council, last May, the deputy for Gouin had shown confidence: “we will make gains in the next elections, I am deeply convinced of that”, he had argued to the media. The 32-year-old politician was not wrong, but these gains are seven times smaller than in 2018.
The “orange tax” effect?
Accosted at the entrance of the caucus on Thursday, the united deputy for Rosemont, Vincent Marissal, affirmed that the tax on the rich proposed in the electoral campaign should be the subject of “discussions”. “I’m not going to take you for idiots, then I’m not stupid either: it’s part of the context…”, he argued.
Caquiste leader and re-elected Premier François Legault spent a good part of the campaign breaking sugar on the backs of Québec solidaire and what he called “orange taxes”. In practice, QS proposed raising the taxes of any taxpayer whose net assets exceed one million dollars.
“I understand that Mr. Legault has made it his negative marketing space,” said Maurice-Richard’s new elected official, Haroun Bouazzi, a former employee of the Business Development Bank of Canada. Of course there are questions of communication, questions of strategy, there are reflections to be had. »
Ex-president of the party, Andrés Fontecilla assures that the tax on wealth “is part of [la] joint vision. “We must strengthen the capacity of the state to finance the projects we need,” he said.
Further details will follow.