Catherine Dorion’s book on her brief stint in politics stirs up controversy within Québec Solidaire (QS). In the upper echelons of the party, they are content to point out that “it was known that she was unhappy” before leaving.
Mme Dorion, former MP for Taschereau, officially published the book The Hotheads: notebooks of punk hope, Monday. The work of nearly 400 pages lists several moments of her political career, during which she was allegedly targeted by “emotional and [des] power negotiations” from QS co-spokespeople. First and foremost, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
On several pages, the artist-turned-MP questions the ways of “GND” at the head of the party. She says she was criticized on several occasions by the party executive for the place she took in the media. “As they say in the theater: Iupstage. It doesn’t happen,” she describes.
Neither Mr. Nadeau-Dubois nor outgoing co-spokesperson Manon Massé made themselves available to comment on their former colleague’s rant on Monday. The few elected and former elected officials in solidarity The duty contacted, either. ” We will wait. The book has only just been released in bookstores,” said QS press officer Simone Lirette.
An employee of the parliamentary wing for several years, Mme Lirette still allowed himself a short comment. “It was known that she was unhappy with the constraints linked to the work of a deputy, especially in the National Assembly,” she wrote. “We respect that she preferred to leave and we thank her for bringing her color and her passion for 4 years. »
“Great sadness”
The supportive employee Louis-Philippe Boulianne was much less tender, Sunday evening, towards the woman who hired him in 2018. In a long text published on social networks, the one who works today to the parliamentary wing of the party accuses the former elected official of having hurt the solidarity movement.
“I had the opportunity to read Catherine Dorion’s book. I come away from this reading with great sadness,” he emphasizes.
In several paragraphs, Mr. Boulianne criticizes the “artistic impulses” of which M.me Dorion demonstrated this during the four years of his mandate. “For example, Catherine was resolutely determined to participate in a video project whose scenario consisted of seeing her destroy a model representing Justin Trudeau with a shovel. Gabriel and Manon had […] had to intervene to convince her” to abandon the idea, he says.
Mr. Boulianne claims to come out of his reading with a “bitter” disappointment towards the ex-MP. “After 5 years, I am finally ready to say it: Catherine did not lift our movement to the top. On the contrary, she leaned on the shoulders of our party to raise herself higher,” he asserts.
The communications director of Québec solidaire, Stéphanie Guévremont, assures that Mr. Boulianne’s text is a purely personal initiative. Asked about the writings of her former employee, Mme Dorion responded that several of the comments reported are “inaccurate or erroneous.”
Mr. Boulianne’s publication had the effect of a small earthquake within the party’s activist base. In the comments, the former communications advisor to the parliamentary wing of QS Marc-Olivier Gingras claims to share “a lot of [ses] impressions and disappointments. “Too bad for the left, too bad for QS, and ultimately, too bad for Quebec, all of this,” he wrote.
Another former employee of Mme Dorion, Catherine Desjardins, rather questions the assertions made by Mr. Boulianne. “It appears to me that you are looking at the situation through the prism of someone who works in parliament. It’s understandable, that’s what you are, but you know that politics isn’t just what happens at the top of the hill,” she says.
Congress in two weeks
In interview with The dutyMonday, the solidarity activist in Taschereau Andrée-Anne Tremblay said she was disappointed with the treatment reserved for the remarks of Mme Dorion upon the publication of his book. “I think Catherine names things that are present. I am a fervent defender of the truth and I think that her experience is entirely valid,” she said.
Mme Tremblay, who still holds his membership card in the riding that Catherine Dorion previously represented, invites his activist counterparts not to tear each other apart. “It’s okay to hear both sides. I think we just have to be careful not to start falling into blame and then creating a separation: people who are pro-Catherine and people who are pro-Gabriel,” she added.
” It’s not that. Everyone is pro-Quebec in solidarity. »
QS will hold its next members’ convention in two weeks, in Gatineau. The party’s next female co-spokesperson must be chosen there. Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois is the only candidate in his party as male spokesperson.
Despite its record delegation, QS only garnered 15% of voting intentions in the latest Léger poll, two percentage points less than in the Quebec firm’s last survey.