Thursday evening will be the second and last major televised debate of the election campaign. Since last week, the leaders of the major parties have been preparing for the exercise with the help of simulations during which fellow candidates often play the role of their adversaries. For the occasion, the PQ MP Pascal Bérubé therefore put on his best clothes with François Legault, whom he formerly advised for the Parti Québécois (PQ).
“I’ve been going back and forth between Matane and Montreal twice,” says the PQ candidate in Matane-Matapédia, a few minutes before embarking on a debate session with his leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. “I did this last week for the Face to face at VAT. I have just arrived from Matane, and I will be here until the end of the debate tomorrow. »
” By [qu’il] knows him well and because [qu’il] respects him a lot”, Mr. Bérubé lent himself to the game and embodied Mr. Legault during the mock debates in which “PSPP” participated in the last two weeks. “It’s the Actors Studio method,” says the colorful deputy, known for his successful imitations of the caquiste leader.
With a “small team”, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon revises his proposals to have “accurate and rigorous information”, “goes round the themes” and simulates the oratorical contest with his colleagues.
At the PQ, Mr. Bérubé is the only candidate to lend himself to the exercise of the “doubler”. The leaders of the other political formations are interpreted by members of the leader’s team. At Quebec solidaire, it is the candidate Vincent Marissal who took on the features of the Prime Minister. In the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ), he is a member of Dominique Anglade’s team. In the Conservative Party of Quebec, it is the former football player Arnaud Gascon-Nadon, who also heads the national candidate selection committee.
“I try to make François Legault credible. Given the ties we have, I’m making a realistic version of it, ”says Mr. Bérubé. The latter held important roles in Mr. Legault’s team when the leader of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) was still in the Parti Québécois. He thus sat at his side, then became his everyday opponent in question period as interim parliamentary leader of the PQ.
“I predicted pretty much everything”
This is the first time that Pascal Bérubé has taken on this exercise – he had already offered in the past, without success. This time, it was Paul St-Pierre Plamondon himself who asked him to join the rehearsal team. And his knockoff hit the mark last week, he says. “I had predicted quite a bit of everything” what Mr. Legault said in the first debate, boasts Mr. Bérubé.
“I don’t know what he’s going to say” Thursday, launches the PQ candidate. “He will pay more attention, I have the impression, to the non-verbal”, he predicts all the same.
One thing is certain: it will not startle him as much as when, in the course of an exchange with the Liberal leader, Dominique Anglade, Mr. Legault affirmed that the PLQ had “lost the monopoly of being against sovereignty”. “I could never have predicted that. Never,” argues Mr. Bérubé. “Because he had always cultivated a certain ambiguity which served him a little to confuse everyone, then to attract everyone at the same time. But there, he decided on this question. »
Surprisingly, these remarks play in favor of the leader of the PQ, analyzes the former adviser to Mr. Legault. “All this electorate who said to themselves: ‘I’m going to vote for the CAQ in 2018 to be sure that we beat the Liberals…’ What they were told was: ‘You know what? The Liberals are beaten, then they will not come back. Come back to your political family.” »
” [M. Legault] helped us by saying that the PQ is right, because it will not happen at [lui] “Sovereignty, he continues.
“There is the before-and the after-debate”
The performance of “PSPP” in the first debate last Thursday helped bring separatists back to the fold, according to the outgoing MP for Matane-Matapédia. In the most recent political poll by the Léger firm, published on Tuesday, 16% of respondents believed that the PQ leader had the best performance of all the leaders in the Face to face. This places him in second position, behind the solidarity participant, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois (18%).
“There is the before-and the after-debate, that’s clear,” maintains Mr. Bérubé. “He came to my investiture meeting in early August. People knew he was the boss, they listened to him, all that. But [le débat], it is a moment of revelation. »
The veteran politician salutes the “calm” demonstrated by his leader during the televised exercise, which surprised him given the inexperience of Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon in the matter. Although: for “the leaders’ debate, he will draw on experience he had previously acquired on the sets of Télé-Québec. To Bazzo.tvhe had done a lot. […] He had an ease in that,” he says.
“He’s a formidable opponent,” confirms Mr. Bérubé, who would not have wanted to do battle with him at prime time.
The leaders of the major parties will debate Thursday evening starting at 8 p.m. The game will be broadcast on the various platforms of the To have toRadio-Canada, Newsof The PressTélé-Québec and CPAC.