(Quebec) The Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ) has filed a complaint with the Ethics Commissioner of the National Assembly against François Legault, whose Facebook page, which also promotes partisan content, has benefited from a boost of $100,000 in publicly funded ads since 2019.
Posted at 5:08 p.m.
Following a search of Facebook’s public ad registry, the PCQ came to the conclusion that Mr. Legault’s page was “subject to a total of $101,854 in advertisements that were paid for. by the Ministry of Executive Council for the period from June 25, 2019 until today”. For this same period, only $7,191 was paid by the Coalition avenir Québec.
“The Prime Minister is now using this page and the follower capital he has built up using public funds to campaign and also allows partisan posts and ads on his page. This amount of $101,854 paid by the Minister of the Executive Council therefore constitutes, in our opinion, an inappropriate use of public funds for partisan purposes”, deplores the political party of Éric Duhaime in a missive sent to the Ethics Commissioner. Ariane Mignolet.
Reimburse or make amends
In interview with The PressJacinthe-Eve Arel, candidate for the PCQ in the riding of Portneuf, maintains that the Coalition avenir Québec must make a choice: immediately reimburse the sum of $101,854 in public funds, or stop promoting partisan content on this page.
Mr. Legault’s page has 663,000 subscribers. In a recent interview, professor at the School of Media at the University of Quebec in Montreal Jean-Hugues Roy pointed out that a study he conducted on content published in 2020 in four French-speaking countries showed that Mr. Legault has one of the busiest Facebook pages, particularly due to the broadcast of Public Health press briefings during a good part of the pandemic.
For the Conservative Party, this is where the shoe pinches. “It’s very confusing,” laments M.me Arel. People have subscribed to Mr. Legault’s Facebook page to learn about the pandemic, and it is now “his political party that benefits from this popularity”.
Not the case in Ottawa
In its complaint, the PCQ notes that at the federal level, this practice is prohibited. Justin Trudeau’s Facebook page, for example, is clearly identified with the name of the Liberal Party of Canada, and the advertisements there are paid for by the political party.
Mme Arel is a disappointed caquiste. She was a candidate for Mr. Legault’s party in 2018, and worked for the cabinet of Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette. “It is a blatant demonstration of a lack of ethics, it must be denounced,” she laments. “The CAQ was the first in the opposition to denounce any lack of ethics. This is what disappoints me the most about the CAQ,” she added.
Minimal impact
At the Prime Minister’s Office, we reply that “all the rules in force have been followed”. “Government ads have had minimal impact on the Prime Minister’s communities. Moreover, no government advertising has been carried out on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok,” said Nadia Talbot, press officer in the Prime Minister’s Office. “All partisan publications are publicized, if necessary, with sums coming from the Coalition Avenir Québec, and not from the government,” she adds.
She states that “no money from the [ministère du Conseil exécutif] was used to pay for partisan advertising”. She also points out that the group of 41 administrators of Mr. Legault’s Facebook page is made up “mostly of CAQ employees”, although there are also “a few employees of the firm”.