(Quebec) Even if his formation did not manage to win a seat on Monday, Conservative leader Éric Duhaime says he maintains the hope that his party will enter the National Assembly thanks to a defector from the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) who would join its ranks.
Posted at 3:24 p.m.
“Four years is a long time, there will be deputies who will resign, who will be in green joual, there may be by-elections,” said the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ), Éric Duhaime. , in an interview with CHOI Radio X on Tuesday.
“There are going to be a lot of people in there who have been promised ministries and who will be in green joual in two, three weeks when the phone does not ring”, he added in reference to the 90 elected CAQists .
“I have to find another Claire,” he quipped, referring to Claire Samson, who had been elected under the colors of the CAQ in 2018 but had joined the PCQ three years later.
A recount in Beauce-Nord?
The PCQ collected Monday evening 13% of the votes, without however managing to win only one of the 125 constituencies. “We have the same number of votes as the Liberal Party. The Liberals have 21 MPs and we have zero,” lamented the Conservative leader.
The party still had slim hopes on Tuesday in Beauce-Nord, where the CAQ candidate, Luc Provençal, won by only 202 votes in advance.
The PCQ is still considering asking for a recount. “We won 78 boxes out of 116, it happened by advance voting, it was played with the elderly, residences, CHSLDs”, analyzes in an interview the defeated candidate of the PCQ, Olivier Dumais, who still got 43% of the vote. “The middle class and young people voted for me. »
Without a member of the National Assembly, Chef Éric Duhaime will not have access to the press gallery and its visibility.
On Tuesday, Mr. Duhaime explained that he intended to ask François Legault to obtain this right even without a deputy, given the large number of votes garnered by the PCQ. “Legault said he was going to meet me one by one,” he says.
Éric Duhaime also repeated on Tuesday his intention to remain at the head of the party. “I stay. »
It will also be able to count on well-stocked coffers, since the some 530,700 votes obtained by the PCQ will result in financing from Quebec. Each party receives funding from the state according to the votes garnered. According to a newspaper calculation The sunthe PCQ will receive nearly $1.4 million next year.