They made the leap into provincial politics by placing the fate of the planet at the heart of their priorities. The duty met two new deputies represented in the National Assembly to discuss with them their green spirit.
The new member of Quebec solidaire (QS) in Taschereau, Etienne Grandmont, was unaware of precisely what he wanted to do in life when he was 17 years old. “But I saw myself talking about the environment in front of people,” he told the To have toseated at Café Pékoe, in the Saint-Roch district of Quebec.
What was a “slightly blurred vision” at the time has materialized, 27 years later. The former director general of the Accès transport viables organization, which “wanted to save the planet”, was elected on October 3 and will therefore enter the National Assembly on November 29.
The 44-year-old says, between bites of scone, that his ecological and environmental values come to him from his family. “The environmental aspect is very much my parents who made objects, my father who worked with wood, my mother who sewed a lot, they did recycling,” said the politician who came by bike to the interview.
Although he did not inherit his father’s passion for building furniture, Mr. Grandmont did retain his enthusiasm for public transport from his parents. “My parents lived in the suburbs [de Québec]. On the other hand, they always chose the house in which we were going to live near public transport. At the age of 12, rather than traveling on school bus, Etienne Grandmont left with his bus pass “around his neck” to discover his city.
Now a member of Parliament, he notably inherited the transport and sustainable mobility files within the shadow cabinet of Québec solidaire. His predecessor in Taschereau, Catherine Dorion, had succeeded in putting her finger on issues such as “dependency on the automobile”, underlines Mr. Grandmont.
He intends to continue the momentum of Mme Dorian. But no question of imitating the style of the outgoing deputy, he warns. “Catherine Dorion is not the one who wants to,” underlines the father of three children with a smile.
Laval’s “green shift”
For the new Liberal MNA for Mille-Îles, Virginie Dufour, environmental tendencies first appeared in 2009, when she was pregnant with her first child.
When Gilles Vaillancourt was mayor of Laval, “there was practically no protection of natural environments,” she recalls on the phone. Mme Dufour campaigned in the municipal elections that year, but she was not elected.
Four years later, her work has borne fruit: elected in 2013 as municipal councilor of Sainte-Rose, the woman, now 45, says she “gave the impetus to the green shift in Laval”.
It was she who could be found at the helm of the environmental portion of the Mouvement Lavallois program at the time, the result of long hours of research. Within the city’s executive committee, she therefore dealt with environmental and urban planning issues.
After eight years in municipal politics, Ms.me Dufour finally ran in the provincial elections to “go and shake things up a bit in Quebec” on the environment. “It’s true that the municipal is the first level, the closest, but the vision, it’s the provincial who must give it,” says the politician.
Beyond politics, the environment is a frequent topic of discussion in the house of Virginie Dufour. The latter became a vegetarian 20 years ago for the love of animals. But the link between this diet and the planet came later, she says. Her daughters, aged 10 and 12, have never eaten meat in their lives. “They are very sensitized. »
So much so that last year, her eldest daughter wanted to go vegan. “Me, it was not a choice that I was ready to make again, says Mme From the oven. When you are elected, you go to a lot of events and when you are a vegetarian, it is already restrictive. »
If the MP remembers cocktails where she couldn’t swallow anything, she points out that there are a lot more meatless options now. “Those who become vegetarians today, they have it easy,” she laughs.