Around forty employees, candidates and activists of Québec solidaire (QS), current or former, as well as former MP Catherine Dorion, published an open letter Thursday morning to oppose the “pragmatic” shift proposed by the male spokesperson for the group, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
According to the signatories of the letter, published in The PressMr. Nadeau-Dubois’ vision regarding the future of QS is not the right one, since the party was founded with the very idea of forming an option outside of political standards.
“Confining ourselves within current parliamentary institutions as well as submission to media and algorithmic demands would be the equivalent of magically waiting for a strong social movement to arise and for QS to simply take over from there. “National Assembly”, denounce the signatories.
In the wake of the resignation of Émilise Lessard-Therrien, who was elected female spokesperson for the party less than a year ago, Mr. Nadeau-Dubois argued that a complete overhaul of the program and the structure of QS was necessary, so that it could become a “government party”.
In their letter, the signatories argue that this vision is erroneous, and that it does not correspond to the deep values of QS which made them agree to devote “time, mental load, sweat, faith, and great amount of resolute and sincere effort.”
In their opinion, adopting a “pragmatic” approach is a strategy doomed to failure, since this type of positioning “is being overtaken everywhere in the West by a right that is not afraid of stirring up crowds and shifting the framing of the political debate towards the right.
“Where will this fearful choice of remaining within the limits of “pragmatism” dictated by the media and economic elites lead us? Our ambition is much greater than that,” they plead.
If the signatories agree with the fact that QS must have the ambition to take power, it must not be to “occupy it quietly by passing the few bills that the dominant elites will be willing to let us pass “.
“It is to take back this power head on and bring it back down to the people; it is to completely reinvent our bankrupt democracy; it is to rewrite from scratch a new Constitution, that of an independent Quebec which is in phase with this heated social movement to which we would have worked to the best of our abilities. In tune with the people, for once,” they write.
“And that will not be done within the limits of what media commentators or financial bishops deem “realistic”. It won’t be done with a single skilled speaker or with a single small clique. It will be done with many, many people. It is the work of bringing together this immense gang, not only in the ballot box, but also in real life, that QS should tackle,” according to them.