(Quebec) The Conservative Party of Quebec held its biggest rally of the election campaign Friday evening at the Videotron Center in Quebec City. More than 2,000 people gathered in the hall of the amphitheater and hundreds of others must have watched Éric Duhaime’s speech on a giant screen installed in the parking lot. This show of force ends a week that had started badly for the Conservative leader.
Updated yesterday at 10:02 p.m.
“Eric, Eric, Eric,” chanted the supporters, waving fleur-de-lis. The crowd was in delirium when he entered the room. Several dozen Conservative candidates – 70 according to the party – were lined up behind him on the stage. They had come from all over Quebec.
“You are leaving a wave. We see it, we feel it,” exclaimed Éric Duhaime.
During the launch of the Conservatives’ campaign on August 21, candidate and actress Anne Casabonne joked that the Videotron Center would have to be rented to accommodate the many supporters of the party. At least 800 people were then crammed into the hall of the Complexe Capitale Hélicoptère in Quebec City.
The rally in Beauceville the following week drew even more people, around 1,400, according to party estimates. This time, there were about 3,000 people massed inside and outside the Videotron Center.
The Conservative Party of Quebec rally at the Videotron Center in Quebec City on Friday
-
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
The Conservative Party of Quebec held a large mid-campaign rally at the Videotron Center in Quebec City on Friday. The leader of the party, Éric Duhaime, as well as many candidates came to address a crowd of supporters gathered for the event.
-
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
The Conservative Party of Quebec held a large mid-campaign rally at the Videotron Center in Quebec City on Friday. The leader of the party, Éric Duhaime, as well as many candidates came to address a crowd of supporters gathered for the event.
-
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
The Conservative Party of Quebec held a large mid-campaign rally at the Videotron Center in Quebec City on Friday. The leader of the party, Éric Duhaime, as well as many candidates came to address a crowd of supporters gathered for the event.
1/3
Michel Boudreault told The Press to have come to attend his very first rally out of conviction, “for the values of democracy” conveyed by the party. Martine Gravel, volunteer for the campaign of Christian Gauthier, candidate in Lotbinière-Frontenac, had already gone to those of Beauceville and Victoriaville.
We are simple people, with heart and conviction.
Martine Gravel, mother who is campaigning for the first time in her life
Her daughter had to take her 5e secondary school, after having failed during the pandemic, demotivated by distance schooling. Others proudly wore their “freedom convoy” vests that paralyzed downtown Ottawa last winter.
arrows thrown
Éric Duhaime often repeats that the regions of Quebec and Beauce are the epicenters of the conservative wave that he hopes to see sweep over Quebec on October 3. He did not fail to address the question of the third link planned between Quebec and Lévis in his speech, then that of the work on the Pierre-Laporte bridge, two local issues dear to voters in the region.
“Mr. Legault, we will not let you go. You are going to table the studies before the world votes, ”he hammered to the cheers of his supporters.
He also returned to his performance the day before. Head to Head 2022 of TVA, the first televised debate of the election campaign, and attacked the passage of the parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois. Then he fired another arrow at the Coalition avenir Québec and the media.
“Unlike Mr. Legault, we have no candidate from the media and we have not subsidized them with 300 million,” launched the former radio host, seeming to forget that he himself worked in the media. The crowd applauded him.
Duhaime calls for early voting
This large rally gave the Conservative leader renewed energy after a difficult start to the week. He had to spend several days explaining himself for unpaid municipal and school taxes. In his campaign bus, we felt affected for several days by this story.
The higher we go, the more the attacks of our opponents will become virulent and vicious.
Éric Duhaime, leader of the Conservative Party
He added that the Coalition avenir Québec was rummaging “in the trash cans” of the party “literally and figuratively”.
He ended his speech with a call for the ballot, as he does every time, except that he insisted this time on the advance vote, in a week. “The exit of vote is crucial, he underlined. Our opponents rely on the fact that you will not vote. They say you are of the world that cries, but does not act. We are going to show them that we are crying, that we are going to act and that we are going to govern. »
Lina Pilote, who has not voted for 20 years, intends to put her X next to the name of Marie Pelletier, the Conservative candidate in La Prairie. She became a volunteer for her campaign and says she has seen a change over the weeks. “People did not dare to appear before,” she notes.
It remains to be seen how many Quebec conservatives Éric Duhaime will manage to bring out of the closet on October 3.