I owe you a confession. It’s true that I can’t wait. I am filled with a feeling of urgency that I can no longer hide. Every day since I entered politics, this feeling has grown.
Our public services are collapsing before our eyes. Deprived of love for so long, riddled with inequalities, public schools are failing children despite the incredible dedication of the staff. This is the most important social elevator we have in Quebec and it is completely broken down. The public health system, once a great pride of Quebec, is so sick that we have to pay for it twice: once on our taxes, another time by going to the private sector. I’ve been talking about it for years, but I didn’t enter politics to talk about it. I entered politics to act.
We have a climate crisis on our hands. There is no longer a summer without the sky being tinged orange because our forests are burning. Our crops are drying up or rotting in the fields, and villages are being flooded by floods on a scale we have never seen before. However, despite the emergency, the CAQ does not yet find that public transportation is part of its responsibilities! Quebecers are being told to do their part by governments that are incapable of doing theirs. I’ve been talking about it for years, but I didn’t enter politics to talk about it. I entered politics to act.
I have been an opposition MP for seven years. Not a day goes by without people knocking on my office door asking for help. A rent increase, an eviction notice, an empty fridge. Often, all three at once. My team and I are doing our best with the means at hand. It is possible to help the Benzaï family, victims of a particularly brutal eviction, to find new accommodation. It’s possible to give back my salary increase to repair the cold room at the local food bank. Other battles are being fought in Parliament, such as that of the Françoise David law.
Every inch I have to help people, I take it. But I have no illusions.
Last year, almost a million of us, a third of whom were children, required food aid. Mothers come to our cost of living meetings to tell us that even though they work full time, they can barely keep their heads above water. It’s knocking on my office door more and more often, and like everywhere else, the means at hand no longer meet the demand.
The left fought to create the conditions for the middle class in Quebec. The material security of workers is our bread and butter. Today, when the middle class takes stock, it realizes its fragility. Quebecers are right to be concerned about their standard of living, and this is never more true than for the young people of my generation in the midst of the housing crisis. What do we dream of? Very down to earth things. Of houses and housing at a fair price, of salaries that pay off the credit card, of good schools for our children, of a health system that treats us quickly and for free, of a dignified retirement for our parents. A little more time to live.
It is by recreating these conditions, not in fifteen, thirty or fifty years, that we will be able to start dreaming collectively again. Whether our ancestors disembarked from a boat 400 years ago or whether our parents chose Quebec a few years before our birth, we are not condemned to the divisions that some politicians cultivate. We can build a country together.
Québec solidaire is 18 years old, the age of majority. I am convinced that the majority of people share our desire for change. I am convinced that the majority of people share our values of social justice, respect for the environment, and gender equality. Let us place their concerns at the heart of our political project. Let us put ourselves at their service. Let’s choose our battles and prove that we will be able to deliver the goods. It is this pragmatism that the left must reappropriate.
Quebec has tried the Liberal Party, the Parti Québécois and now, the Coalition Avenir Québec. We owe it to the hundreds of thousands of women and men who voted for this different party, Québec solidaire, to make a difference where we have the means to do so: in government.
I fully embrace my sense of urgency. All over the world, the left is losing its battles. At home, it is time for her to start winning her elections.