Olivier Dumais, Conservative candidate in Beauce-Nord, admitted to having broken the health rules by being with five of his friends in a chalet, in the winter of 2021, when the whole province was classified in the red zone.
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That’s what MaBeauce.com revealed late Thursday afternoon, citing the July 25 episode of Garage Podcasts, which featured Mr. Dumais, who is also the mayor of Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon.
“We were six guys. We’re going on a ski-doo trip. We are the day after. That pop on my phone: Oh! meeting of mayors of the MRC [de la Nouvelle-Beauce] in Zoom”, he describes.
He then adds this: “I am going to plunge myself. I forget that we are in the red zone everywhere in Quebec. You don’t even have the right to see your neighbour. The rest of us, we left six guys in ski-doos at my chalet.
When his MRC colleagues hear noise in the background, Olivier Dumais serves them a lie. “We are five-six guys […] I said: “here, we are in the orange zone, we are correct.” But it was red zone everywhere in Quebec […] They swallowed that. They didn’t ask too many questions,” he adds, laughing.
Olivier Dumais represents one of the main hopes for gains of the Conservative Party of Quebec. A survey by the firm Segma Research, published today, even gave him a lead over his CAQ opponent.
“The Deep Triple of the Bin”
Called to comment on this story, Éric Duhaime strongly counterattacked by strongly attacking the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ). “Today, we will not accept being intimidated by bullies that way. The CAQ’s smear campaign is enough!” he got carried away.
According to him, there are at the CAQ “a lot of people who rummage through our garbage cans. There, they are returned to the triple deep of the trash. He is blamed [au candidat Dumais]several months ago, of having been in a red zone, when he himself admitted it because he made a mistake and he himself made a joke about it”.
Visibly angry, the Conservative leader added that “Mme [Geneviève] Guilbault, three days ago, was on a plane, no mask [et] against government guidelines. Did a journalist ask Mr. Legault a question about his own minister? Absolutely not. They are digging through the trash cans. At some point, the double standard will do.”
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On the merits of the story, Éric Duhaime affirmed that it was an “oversight” of his candidate and not a deliberate attempt to violate the law. “[Que] he who has never sinned throws the first stone at him, he launched. What I heard is that he forgot. To forget is not in bad faith.
Cédric Lapointe, the Conservative leader’s press secretary, responded by way of a statement. “Mr. Dumais is an excellent candidate and a mayor present in his community. We are lucky to have him on our team. We do not encourage civil disobedience,” he wrote.