Comparison with Louisiana | Legault forced to explain himself on sovereignty

(Quebec) By affirming that Quebec could become Louisiana if it does not obtain all the powers of Ottawa in matters of immigration, François Legault has created a debate which now forces him to explain himself on sovereignty.

Hugo Pilon Larose
The Press

In a brief press scrum on Thursday, the Prime Minister – who believes that “it is a matter of survival for the nation” that the federal government is handing over control of family reunification to him in immigration matters – did not explain what what he would do if Justin Trudeau refuses his request, which he has already done elsewhere.

Faced with this impasse, will Mr. Legault revive the option of Quebec sovereignty? This is at least what the leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, implores.

” Me I [suis] nationalist within Canada”, decided once again the Premier of Quebec. This response was also repeated by several ministers and members of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) government on Thursday.

Nationalists in unison

For example, CAQ MP Sylvain Lévesque reiterated what seems obvious to him: “We are part of Canada”.

“Currently, I would tell you that we are part of English Canada and French Canada, together, and our objective is to move Quebec forward. For the moment, we are part of Canada and there is no issue in separating. We are a nationalist party,” he said.

His colleague Lucie Lecours, Minister Delegate for the Economy, then affirmed that his party “will make Quebec respected, but in Canada”.

“It’s a beautiful country, Canada. I love Canada. I’m traveling to Canada,” she said.

The Minister of Families, Mathieu Lacombe, who was unable to vote in the last referendum on sovereignty in 1995 because he was too young, also defended the values ​​that unite Quebec and Canada.

“In Canada, we can be proud of the fact that unlike the United States, we don’t have a militaristic culture. We don’t go anywhere else in the world to play police. [Mais] one should not practice embarrassed nationalism or a timid nationalist [au Québec]because we won’t gain from it,” he said.

For the Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, we must “absolutely not” see the current actions of François Legault as a possible path to sovereignty.

“There is no need to worry,” said the former PQ MP. Sovereignty, “for my part, it’s over”.

For CAQ MP Mathieu Lévesque, author of QAC Color“it was never the idea of ​​our party” to take action that could lead to sovereignty.

“I don’t think it’s our party’s will at all” to become a vehicle to promote this option, he said. So the party is federalist? “Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely! he launched.

“Me, I am a caquist”, for his part decided the Minister of Agriculture, André Lamontagne.

The PQ challenges Legault

In a press scrum on Thursday, the leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, for his part launched a challenge to Prime Minister François Legault. “It’s more than a challenge, I think it’s a call to duty,” he quickly clarified.

“You have predecessors like Robert Bourassa, Daniel Johnson and even to a certain extent Maurice Duplessis who dared to say: if you don’t give us fair treatment, if you don’t give us the conditions for our linguistic and cultural will be our freedom, our independence. I ask that François Legault name this possibility, ”he said.

“By dint of repeating to Quebecers that they are not good, that they are not capable, by dint of being pessimistic, at some point, yes, it has an impact. Then that’s what I ask François Legault to stop doing: to stop telling people that they are no good. We are capable of being a country, then we have no choice if we want linguistic and cultural sustainability, ”he added, on the verge of tears.

“For the people of Quebec to deploy, the peoples of Quebec to deploy in all their solidarity, in all their potential, we need the independence of Quebec,” said Alexandre Leduc of Quebec solidaire.

The Liberal Party, which claims that François Legault is implementing a “separatist” mode of governance, believes that the CAQ Premier wants to increase the social acceptability of independence.

With Tommy Chouinard