The announcement of the return to politics of former PQ minister Bernard Drainville, but under the CAQ banner this time, caused a shock wave on Friday in the National Assembly. And the impact of this candidacy could hurt the Parti Québécois (PQ), experts say.
This announcement is “devastating” for the PQ, believes Philippe J. Fournier, the creator of the Qc125 electoral projection site. “Last year’s figures tell us that there is still a block of 32% of voters who call themselves sovereignists, but they are now scattered,” he explains. Bernard Drainville’s move to the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) “reinforces the fact that the sovereignist option no longer mobilizes” the electorate and that “there is not much left that is specific to the PQ”, notes Mr. Fournier.
Bernard Drainville therefore leaves his position as host at 98.5 FM. According to our information, the father of the Charter of Values would be approached as a candidate in the riding of Lévis, whose deputy, François Paradis, announced his departure on Friday. Mr. Drainville was Minister responsible for Democratic Institutions from September 2012 to April 2014 and Official Opposition House Leader from September 2015 to June 2016.
Mr. Drainville’s leap into the CAQ camp is “bad news” for the “declining” PQ, according to Réjean Pelletier, retired professor from the Department of Political Science at Laval University. “The party has great difficulty not only renewing itself, but even staying in place. »
According to PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, his political party still has a place in the National Assembly in order to “give the truth about the necessity and urgency” of independence. “If the CAQ became separatist and did the job well in terms of French and the environment, perhaps there would be questions about the relevance of the Parti Québécois,” he said. But the CAQ is so far from the orientations of the PQ. »
No doubt about his “caquist orientations”
The Parti Québécois has not approached its ex-minister to bring him back into its fold. “Bernard Drainville’s CAQ orientations were not in doubt in his columns [radiophoniques] », underlined Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
Friday’s announcement did not surprise the PQ troops: the radio host “was no longer a friend of the family”, confided to the To have to a high-placed source within the sovereignist formation.
Bernard Drainville is not the first candidate to be drafted by the CAQ in the sovereignist ranks. Last May, former Bloc member Caroline St-Hilaire announced her candidacy under the CAQ banner in the riding of Sherbrooke.
About the openly separatist candidates who opt for the CAQ, the PQ leader said they were abandoning their convictions. “There are those who will choose power,” argued Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon.
According to Professor Pelletier, the absence of “strong ideology” in the Coalition avenir Québec means that the party attracts both federalist and separatist candidates. “We can be on one side or the other: there is room at the CAQ. »
The opposition reacts
Bernard Drainville’s candidacy confirms “François Legault’s electoral strategy,” said Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois. By recruiting the father of the Charter of Values, the Prime Minister “wants the questions of the ballot box to be secularism and immigration”, he argued in a press briefing.
According to Liberal MP Marc Tanguay, the recruitment of Mr. Drainville, a “fierce separatist”, testifies to the fact that François Legault governs “like a PQ”. ” Agenda” [souverainiste de M. Legault] is becoming less and less easy to hide,” he argued.
Displaying himself as a nationalist and federalist, the Minister of the Family, Mathieu Lacombe, retorted that “Marc Tanguay is in the conspiracy theory”. The Liberal MP “has been brandishing this referendum scarecrow for a few weeks already, a few months, he said. It makes me laugh.”
Asked whether or not there is a place for the federalists within the CAQ, Mr. Lacombe replied that he was “a nationalist, first and foremost, who wants to work within the federation Canadian”.
Earlier this week, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon urged the Prime Minister to make a sovereignist profession of faith.
Quebec had then just received a refusal from Ottawa at its request to have more powers in immigration. There is “no appetite for sovereignty”, however, replied François Legault.
With François Carabin, Alexandre Robillard and The Canadian Press