(Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade) The pandemic is not the result of a conspiracy by governments, but the theories which suggest it can continue to be disseminated, believes Éric Duhaime. The leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec thus responded to host Mario Dumont, who accused him of flirting with conspiracy theorists.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
In his column published Saturday in the Montreal Journal, the former leader of the Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ) had challenged Éric Duhaime to say that former US President Donald Trump had lost his election and that the pandemic and vaccines were not the result of a government conspiracy. Stop losing supporters.
When these questions were put to him by a journalist on Saturday afternoon, Éric Duhaime ignored the question relating to the last American presidential election to answer only that on the pandemic. On January 6, 2021, supporters of Donald Trump stormed the seat of the US Congress, believing that extensive voter fraud had carried Democrat Joe Biden to the presidency.
“I recognize the democratic result of the American election,” said the Conservative leader through his press officer a few hours later.
“Dangerous censorship”
He tried to distance himself from conspiracy theories that the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccine to curb it were the result of a plot by global elites, but in the process defended the right to relay them on social networks.
Censorship can be dangerous in this kind of business [mais] no, I don’t think it’s a conspiracy at all.
Éric Duhaime, leader of the PCQ
He cited as an example the hypothesis that the COVID-19 virus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, which had previously been considered a conspiracy theory. “There are even social networks that censored people who wrote that. Today, it is considered a thesis that is valid and valid,” he said.
A CBC investigation revealed in July that 16 PCQ candidates had relayed misinformation and conspiracy theories on social media.
The daily The sun reported the same month1 that the party was the one that attracted the most conspirators, according to a study by the UNESCO Chair in the prevention of radicalization and extremism. Nearly 50% of people who want to vote for Éric Duhaime’s Conservatives adhere to conspiracy theories.
“From the beginning, I was associated with this because I am one of those who think that freedom of expression must be expressed, because I think that people must have freedom of choice and I even believed in it. when I was campaigning for Mr. Dumont and I was his main political adviser. I haven’t changed my mind. »
Éric Duhaime was on Saturday at the Les Boissons du Roy berry vineyard in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade to announce that he would abolish the SAQ monopoly. A rally held in the evening in Victoriaville again attracted several hundred people.