Since the defeat of 2018, they have tried to “rebuild”, wanted to modernize their “nationalism”, sought to “redefine” themselves. The activists of the Liberal Party of Quebec will exchange on Saturday on the “relaunch” of their political formation in a general council which marks the departure of a longtime activist… and the return of another.
Friday, on the eve of the rally organized in Victoriaville, the activist Jérôme Turcotte signed an open letter in The Press. “Goodbye, PLQ,” wrote the former chairman of the party’s Political Commission. In 2016, he saw the PLQ as a “snuffer”, worn out and centralized, nevertheless endowed with a “capacity for renewal”.
He was revived by the passage to the cabinet of Dominique Anglade in the National Assembly. But now he throws in the towel. In a letter riddled with nationalist references, he criticizes the PLQ, among other things, for having “lost its ability to embody Quebec.”
A hollow in the limbs
Mr. Turcotte notes that the PLQ has only 15,000 members left, still below the then historic low of 20,000 members reported in January 2020. “I’m not going to comment on the number of members,” said Friday at Duty MP Madwa-Nika Cadet. She leads a committee on the revival of the PLQ with ex-journalist and former senator André Pratte.
“What strikes me especially in his letter is that the party is precisely, currently, in a moment of consultation and reflection on its revival, its values. And it is as if he, rather than taking part in this exercise, decided in advance that the exercise was doomed to failure,” lamented Mr. Pratte.
Mr. Turcotte, who had been active in the PLQ for 15 years, also argues that the party did not oppose the federal government’s spending power and that it failed to “further affirm” Quebec’s place internationally. “However, these are things that the PLQ has not stopped doing for many years,” said Mr. Pratte.
Never mind: “yes”, there are always nationalists who are militant in the PLQ, assures Mme Cadet. “Our nationalism is a unifying, inclusive nationalism that does not divide Quebecers,” continues his colleague.
Has the nationalist turn desired by the former liberal leader, Dominique Anglade, failed? “We are not in the post mortem, replied Mr. Pratte. It is a situation that is not easy, we do not deny it. The activists are quite lucid about the situation of the PLQ now. But we are looking to the future. »
A departure, but also a return
This look, they will be able to wear it with the activist Marc Montpetit. The father of the former deputy Marie Montpetit had caused a stir when he left office in 2021. An activist for 40 years, a member of the party’s political commission for 25 years, he then renounced his duties by scorching the leader Anglade.
Here he is returning to the fold. “Mme Anglade left, so I came back to the Liberal Party,” he told the Duty, who joined him at home. He is still sorry for the “electoral disaster” of 2022.
” [Le parti se] was looking for and couldn’t come up with ideas that people understood. The Charter of the Regions, I challenge you to meet three Quebecers who can explain to you what it was. Green hydrogen, me, personally, I don’t really know what it is, “he illustrated, taking up the flagship commitments of Mme England.
He said he was confident to see “interesting things” emerging from the reflection on the future of the party. And “we are looking for a new chef or a new chef”, he recalled.
The rules of the new leadership race will not be revealed to the general council. On the program, there are instead workshops on liberal values, which have been divided into three themes: “assert oneself, unite and prosper”.
Anyway, hint Mme Cadet and Mr. Pratte, the PLQ is not a party that believes in saviors. “It is the advantage of being a party which has a real militant base, which has a history, which is not formed around a single person and which represents values which are much broader than that of the vehicle policy”, summed up the first. The “homework” the party must work on goes far beyond the identity of a leader, added the second. “It also means the organization, the financing and the content, the ideas that the party puts forward. »