Federal Transport Minister and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s political lieutenant in Quebec, Pablo Rodriguez, will run for the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ). He is expected to officially confirm his intentions at a press conference on Thursday.
According to our information, Mr. Rodriguez intends to resign from his position as minister, but to retain his duties as member for Honoré-Mercier, a riding in eastern Montreal that he has represented since 2004.
Rumours of Mr. Rodriguez’s departure had been circulating for several weeks. His announcement Thursday will come just three days after the Liberals’ bitter defeat in the Montreal riding of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun — a second setback in a Liberal stronghold in three months.
Upon arriving at the Liberal caucus meeting on Wednesday morning, Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said that Mr. Rodriguez’s departure would leave a void among the Liberal troops.
Liberal MP and Quebec caucus chair Stéphane Lauzon defended the timing of the announcement, saying his colleague’s decision had been made a long time ago. “There is no good or bad time in politics. Pablo is not a cowardly“In the most difficult times in the past, he never left the ship,” he reacted. “These are strategic life choices that belong to him.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not stop to comment on the news Wednesday morning.
Resign “outright”?
In Quebec City, Liberal MP Filomena Rotiroti suggested that Mr. Rodriguez give up his seat as MP before jumping into the race for the PLQ leadership. “Honestly, I think he should reconsider that. I understood that he had resigned. I had the impression that he was simply resigning. It will be up to him to [se] “justify,” she said.
MP Marwah Rizqy responded with a joke. “I think we should ask Éric Lefebvre that question,” she said. Mr. Lefebvre, who was chief government whip, left the Coalition avenir Québec in April. He is sitting as an independent MP until a federal election is called, in which he intends to run as a candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada.
Liberal MPs have each said they are delighted to see a new candidate make the leap. Mr. Rodriguez would be the fifth candidate to succeed Dominique Anglade, after MP Frédéric Beauchemin, former president and CEO of the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, Charles Milliard, former Montreal mayor Denis Coderre and tax lawyer Marc Bélanger.
Asked to react to the news, Liberal MP Monsef Derraji said that the Quebec Liberal Party had no affinity with its federal cousin. “Ideologically speaking, no. There is everything within the Liberal Party: people from the centre-left, from the centre-right, politicians who agree with the federal government and others who don’t. There is [au PLQ] people who love the Liberal Party of Canada, who love the Conservative Party,” he said.
More details will follow.