The co-owner of a Saguenay microbrewery was inundated with hate messages after a publication by Conservative leader Éric Duhaime implying on Tuesday that the CAQ government favored him by granting him a million dollar loan.
Mr. Duhaime recalled on his Twitter feed that the company Hopera obtained this financing after having refused to welcome it 18 months ago.
“The Saguenay restaurateur who orchestrated a boycott of the Conservative Party of Quebec last year, Vladimir Antonov, has just received $920,000 from Pierre Fitzgibbon. I’m going to buy myself a 6/49! “wrote the conservative leader.
The Saguenay restaurateur who orchestrated a boycott of the Conservative Party of Quebec last year, Vladimir Antonov, has just received $920,000 from Pierre Fitzgibbon.
I’m going to buy myself a 6/49! pic.twitter.com/L1fm8qFmva
— Eric Duhaime (@E_Duhaime) January 17, 2023
In an interview, Mr. Duhaime, however, refrained from making a direct link between the government’s decision and Mr. Antonov’s refusal to welcome him with his activists in July 2021, a situation that he had already publicly denounced to the time.
“The idea is to say that chance does things funny, he said Tuesday to the To have to. […] Politically, of course, we had trouble with them, they wanted to cancel my meetings in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. Mr. Antonov is the one who first got the ball rolling. »
Mr. Duhaime says that, generally speaking, the way the government subsidizes businesses is unfair.
“I don’t want to personalize the debate, but every time the government picks winners and losers there is an appearance of patronage,” he explained.
“Dirty Communist”
Mr. Antonov said Tuesday that this publication has earned him a shower of messages from supporters of Mr. Duhaime on social networks.
“We have a kind of swing of the pendulum for having refused Mr. Duhaime, he lamented. There are people who put hate messages on the Hopera page to call us sold, rotten. »
Threatening messages are also relayed on the personal mailbox of Mr. Antonov, of Russian origin, who has been in Quebec for 17 years.
“Receiving messages that say we’ll find you dirty Russian, we’ll send you home dirty Communist, it’s flat,” he says.
Initially, the announcement of the loan was to be made only by representatives of Investissement Québec, a Crown corporation. But Economy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon, on tour in the region, was present last Thursday.
“It was not planned,” said the microbrewer.
Mr. Antonov exchanged Tuesday with Mr. Duhaime to explain to him that the minister had had no role in the granting of this subsidy, which will be used to build a factory to increase the production of the microbrewery.
“I did not call Mr. Fitzgibbon saying: hi, I refused Eric Duhaime,” he said, acknowledging that he has no political chemistry with the Conservative leader.
The entrepreneur says that with his partners they have complied with the requirements of the Essor program, where the funding comes from.
“We just put together our business plan like anyone would and it’s been two years since we did it. The minister has nothing to do with it,” he said.
The $920,000 loan will be used for the $3.2 million project.
Despite the flood of messages he receives, Mr. Antonov does not fear for his safety.
“Most people are big talkers, little doers,” he said.