(Quebec) Another person involved in the national coordinating committee (CCN) of Québec solidaire, where the party’s co-spokespersons sit, resigns. Élisabeth Labelle, who since January has held interim responsibility for liaison with local associations, is leaving her position to “free her voice” and give an overview of the issues that undermine work in this nerve center of the party’s orientations.
In interview with The Press,Mme Labelle lays her cards on the table: she is close to Émilise Lessard-Therrien, who resigned from her position as female co-spokesperson on Monday. She even accompanied him throughout his race for co-spokesperson, won in a landslide last November.
When she read the message from the former member of Parliament for Rouyn-Noranda–Témiscamingue, who announced her departure by pointing to “a small team of professionals. THE. “tightly woven around” Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, she resigned from her volunteer position at the CCN in order to allow herself to support Mme Lessard-Therrien in what she was experiencing.
At the CCN, which is like the party’s board of directors, political orientations were brought around the table without there having been collective debates upstream, says M.me The beautiful.
“We felt that the discussions were being held elsewhere, that we had arrived at certain conclusions and that we had made decisions which were presented to us so that we could adopt them. The aim was to adopt the proposals moving forward. This is what Émilise was referring to when she talks about a locomotive in motion,” she says.
The young activist, who held the position on a voluntary basis, was never censored, she adds. However, she claims to have had “the impression that it was difficult to challenge the proposals” that were made.
“In the long run, I felt a certain lack of motivation to speak out because I didn’t feel that it had an impact on the proposals that were made,” she says.
What to change?
Before the resignation of Émilise Lessard-Therrien from her position as co-spokesperson, Mme Labelle had informed the party that she did not wish to seek her position for an official mandate at the CCN during the next Québec solidaire congress, which will take place later this month in Saguenay. She nevertheless decided to leave the body prematurely in order to press the party to take note of the crisis it is going through and to make concrete changes.
“I don’t think I have the solution, but it would take an external look at the question. A certain diagnosis of how to involve people more in decision-making,” she says.
According to Mme Labelle, we must not link this crisis to Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois alone. “It’s something that goes beyond him. What Émilise experienced is not one person’s problem. Several people along the way share responsibility for what happened,” she says.
“It’s a party that is increasingly centralizing and that worries me a lot. I wanted Émilise to bring a little of this wind of change. I hope that Émilise’s departure will not have been in vain and that it will give rise to a deep questioning,” she says.
Absent from parliament on Tuesday because he was shaken by the events, the parliamentary leader and co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, returned to the House on Wednesday, where he participated in question period and his party’s caucus. In the afternoon, he must give a press briefing in the foyer of the National Assembly in order to react to the crisis which is shaking his party and its leadership.
For her part, the former member for Rouyn-Noranda–Témiscamingue has not granted any interviews since she left office. At the party, we confirm that Élisabeth Labelle has left her position on the CCN, an interim position which had been offered to her, among other things, to ensure that Émilise Lessard-Therrien finds a known face around the decision-making table , we explain.