Former journalist Pascale Déry will be a candidate for the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), seven years after having unsuccessfully tried to be elected to the federal government under the Conservative banner of Stephen Harper.
Ms. Déry will wear the colors of the CAQ in the riding of Repentigny, represented since 2014 by CAQ MP Lise Lavallée, who is leaving politics.
Prime Minister François Legault was present on Tuesday when Ms. Déry’s candidacy for Repentigny was announced.
Mr. Legault highlighted Ms. Déry’s experience at the Montreal Economic Institute (IEDM).
“That’s a little bit center-right or right, center-right federalist,” he said during a press conference which was webcast by his political party.
Bureaucracy
Mr. Legault recalled that the objective of the MEI was to propose solutions to improve the efficiency of government departments, agencies and corporations.
The prime minister blamed the pandemic for his government’s difficulty in achieving the same goal.
“Maybe we didn’t put all the time we should have put on it,” he said. I am not mistaken in saying that there is still a lot of work to be done to improve efficiency, to remove bureaucracy. »
During the 2018 election campaign, Mr. Legault pledged to reduce the size of the state by eliminating 5,000 positions in public bodies, a goal that was not achieved.
Ms. Déry made a nationalist plea on Tuesday, while emphasizing that her new political party is a coalition of people from diverse backgrounds.
“In 2015, my jump to the federal level was also to help improve the quality of life of citizens in Quebec,” she said.
The candidate notably mentioned the name of her colleague Bernard Drainville, a former PQ minister, whose membership of the CAQ forced Mr. Legault to repeat that his party’s project is not Quebec sovereignty.
“There are people like Mr. Drainville, like me, like others, and we’re going to share our opinions, that’s the goal, the goal is for us all to work together,” she said. .
Opportunism
In Quebec, the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ), Éric Duhaime, accused Ms. Déry of opportunism in choosing the CAQ rather than her political party.
“I am one of those who think that when we defend our convictions, we change the polls, rather than getting behind parties that are pulling in the polls and […] the population then realizes that it was not necessarily appropriate,” he said.
Mr. Duhaime on Tuesday unveiled his party’s slogan, “Libres chez nous”, defending himself from any ambiguity about his position within Canada.
“We are not a separatist party, we want to stay within Canada, that is very clear to the PCQ. Liberty is not just a constitutional issue, it is also a matter of how the government treats citizens. In Quebec, for two and a half years, the freedom of citizens has been violated like never before. »
Further details will follow.