François Legault does not regret the National Assembly’s motion blaming Yves Michaud, adopted more than 20 years ago. He maintains that the man made “unacceptable remarks towards the Jewish community”.
• Read also: Blame of the National Assembly: Yves Michaud will never have had an apology
“I live well with my vote,” the Prime Minister said on Thursday. He was on the floor of the Blue Room at the time.
Aged 94, Yves Michaud died Tuesday evening. A former journalist and former politician, he was nicknamed the “Robin of the Banks” for his fierce fight in favor of small shareholders.
He died without, however, having obtained an apology from the National Assembly for a motion of censure against him pronounced on December 14, 2000.
That day, the deputies unanimously and without debate adopted a motion condemning Yves Michaud for supposedly anti-Semitic comments.
The parliamentarians then criticized him for statements made the day before, during the Estates General on French in Montreal, where Yves Michaud drew a parallel between the Jewish community and the sovereignty of Quebec.
The man always claimed to have nothing to reproach himself for. Hurt by this “villainous motion”, he tried several times to obtain compensation, without success.
Many elected officials who were present during the vote have since changed their ways. This is particularly the case of Pauline Marois, the former PQ minister Louise Beaudoin and the liberal Jean-Marc Fournier. But not from François Legault or the National Assembly.
“Unacceptable” comments
The Prime Minister is still convinced that he did the right thing by pressing the blame against Yves Michaud. “[Il] had made comments about the Jewish people that were unacceptable and that’s what we denounced and well, it’s unfortunate, and so I judge that these were comments that were not acceptable to towards the Jewish community,” he insists.
- Listen to Yasmine Abdelfadel’s commentary via QUB :
François Legault remembers comments “made on the radio”. Let us recall, however, that the motion of censure at the time condemned Yves Michaud for statements he made “during the Estates General hearings on French in Montreal on December 13, 2000.”
Posthumous reparation
In 2020, the CAQ refused to table a motion of apology sponsored by PQ MP Pascal Bérubé. The Parti Québécois wants parliamentarians to make a posthumous gesture of reparation.
“We will take action again soon, with the agreement of all political parties, to repair, to try to repair. Mr. Michaud is no longer there. We would have liked him to experience this, to be able to experience this reparation, but we will still take action to ensure that this does not happen again, in memory of Mr. Michaud,” said MP Bérubé.
Québec solidaire is already open to supporting this initiative. On the Liberal side, we are waiting to see the wording of the motion before deciding. The CAQ has refused to get involved for the moment.