Parti Québécois Congress | The budget for year 1 of independence presented in June

(Sherbrooke) The Parti Québécois will finally present its “year 1 budget” in June, after a year’s delay. He is also launching three other “projects” on independence, citizenship and immigration, which will bear fruit by 2026 to prepare the party for the next electoral battle.

The first exercise started by the PQ will be that of the budget for year 1, which takes up the methodology used by Prime Minister François Legault when he carried out this exercise in 2004 when he was still a separatist.

A first version was to be unveiled in June 2022, then during the election campaign, but it was sent for recycling due to the inflation crisis, explained PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon at a press briefing in Sherbrooke. . Version 2.0 of this document will, however, present a second scenario based on the different choices that the Parti Québécois would make if it were in power, he recalled on the sidelines of the Party congress which is taking place on Saturday.

During this convention, Mr. Plamondon will face a vote of confidence. The PQ obtained the worst result in its history and only elected three deputies, but the rise in the polls of the political formation nourishes the hope of the militants. He promises constancy, perseverance and coherence, which “define” his political action.

Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon’s strategy: reinforce the PQ’s independence argument while the Coalition avenir Québec continues to fail in its negotiations with Ottawa.

Chess weight

“We’re going to let the toll get heavier and time do its work. The weight of failures that accumulate and have a direct impact. The health network, if it misses 5 billion per year, it makes a huge difference. The weight of these failures weighs heavier and heavier,” he explained. This position “is more and more indefensible” for François Legault, added Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon.

After the budget of year 1, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon must publish in 2024 a “response” to the Initiative of the Century, “the objective of the Canadian government to have 100 million Canadians in 2100, a project strongly ideology created with the McKinsey firm and which has an irreversible impact on the political weight of Quebec and on the future of French,” he lamented.

Then, at the beginning of 2025, it will broadcast a “question-and-answer exercise on what is fundamental and essential about the legitimate questions of the population about our project”, modeled on the approach of Scotland , which produced “books accessible to the population which respond in simple terms to the interest of the independence project”.

And finally, in 2026, an election year, the PQ wants to present its own definition of citizenship for an independent Quebec.