His candidacy confirmed | Martine Biron pleads for the third Quebec-Lévis link

(Lévis) Former journalist and political analyst Martine Biron confirms her candidacy for the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) and made a plea for a new highway link between Québec and Lévis, which she nevertheless criticized in the past.

Charles Lecavalier
The Press

“Anyone who lives in Quebec knows that it takes a third link. […] Our bridges are aging. We need a third link, a replacement link,” said M.^me Biron at a press briefing on Wednesday.

From the outset, the chief caquiste François Legault, who presented his candidate, himself defended this project. “Greater Quebec is in the process of becoming Quebec’s second metropolis. I do not see why there is so much contempt on the part of the opposition to provide additional infrastructure for this great metropolis that is Greater Quebec,” he said. “We are going to do it, the Quebec-Lévis tunnel,” he added.

As an analyst at Radio-Canada, Mr.^me Biron, however, criticized the highway tunnel project between Quebec and Lévis. “We wonder if this is not a retrograde project. It finally came out as a rather electoral project, ”she said last year. She felt that “the justification for spending such a sum to make the tunnel, it is not made […] even in Quebec.

She now believes in the third link, although she acknowledges that there are always “questions that are unanswered”.

And if M^me Biron believes that all the people of Quebec are in favor of the 6.5 billion infrastructure project, it should be remembered that the former mayor Régis Labeaume is opposed to it and that the new mayor Bruno Marchand is not more convinced. “Obviously we’re going to have a hard time endorsing a project that would add to urban sprawl,” said Mr. Marchand in April.

“Ethics from start to finish”

M^me Biron will try to be elected in Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, a riding won by the CAQ located on the south shore of Quebec. The veteran Marc Picard, elected without interruption since 2003 under the colors of the Democratic Action of Quebec of Mario Dumont, then of the CAQ, did not represent himself.

Martine Biron was approached for the first time in January. She declined the offer due to unfavorable circumstances: she had not completed her master’s thesis project, and this decision was incompatible with her role as a political analyst. She was probed again this summer, while on vacation. His mastery is then complete. “I was considering revisiting my challenges after the election,” she explained. So she seized the opportunity.

Critics have been leveled due to this sudden transition from political analyst to candidate for a party she was scrutinizing a few days before making the jump.

She believes for her part to have been “ethical from start to finish” and claims to have never worn the two hats of future candidate and journalist, even if she says “understand” the discomfort.

When a journalist mentioned to her that in a recent column she had given the palme d’or for arrogance to the Quebec Caucus caucus by speaking of the “big head” of Minister Geneviève Guilbault, she retorted that he it was a demonstration that she was not “campaigning in the secrecy of her mind”. She then threw flowers at M^me Guilbault, a “brilliant” woman who represents the future of politics.

A necessary evil

The CAQ candidate in Lévis and former host Bernard Drainville knows this transition from the media to politics well: he took it twice, for the PQ and then for the CAQ. He believes that journalists vote and that they have the right like all citizens “to engage in politics”. As for the chronological sequence, it is a “necessary evil”.

“You cover the Parliament, the end of the session arrives in June, and with the elections on a fixed date, there is a horizon of a few weeks to make a decision. Circumstances mean that you are often forced to carry out this reflection within a very, very short period of time, ”he explained.