Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois and Manon Massé deplore seeing “English Canada landed[r] with his big clogs and / or his money ”in the battle against the Quebec State Secularism Act.
Quebec solidaire spokespersons opposed the adoption of Bill 21 in June 2019. Nonetheless, they disapprove of the call made by the municipal council of Brampton, in Ontario, to Canadian municipalities to contribute financially to the effort. war against Bill 21 following the removal of a person who insisted on wearing a religious symbol from his classroom at a Chelsea elementary school. To date, Toronto has followed in Brampton’s footsteps by making a check for $ 100,000 payable to the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the World Organization of Sikhs of Canada and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which are notably challenging the prohibition of the wearing of religious symbols affecting employees of the Quebec State in Bill 21 before the courts. Calgary is considering doing the same.
“When English Canada arrives with its big shoes and / or its money in a debate like this, it harms the quality of the debate in Quebec. It is counterproductive for people of good will – full-fledged Quebeckers – who want to assert a different conception of secularism, ”argues Mr. Nadeau-Dubois, passing through the newsroom of the Duty Thursday afternoon.
However, the parliamentary leader of QS is careful not to invite opponents of Bill 21 to reject financial aid from the “Rest of Canada”. “It’s not up to us to tell them what to do,” he argues.
Like the leaders of the Liberal Party of Quebec, Dominique Anglade, and of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, QS spokespersons, Manon Massé and Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, have agreed to participate in an editorial table, or an exchange in which a journalist, an editorial writer and a columnist take part.
Behind the rule of law
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois and Manon Massé deplore the decision of the Western Quebec School Board to offer a teaching position to Fatemeh Anvari, a woman of Muslim faith wearing the hijab, in contravention of Law 21, which has was adopted by the National Assembly two and a half years ago. In their view, “parts of the state” such as school boards cannot “decide not to apply the laws of the state”. “We can have an openness to recognize the legitimacy of civil and individual disobedience in certain circumstances and be very clear on the fact that the rule of law cannot be fragmented from the inside”, underlines the deputy for Gouin.
M. Nadeau-Dubois and Mme Massé are opposed to Bill 21, but still do not know what they will do with it if QS is given control of the Quebec state the day after the next general election, on October 3, 2022. They will make their intentions known over the next few months. weeks, they assure the Duty. “There will be more snow,” promised Mr. Nadeau-Dubois. “If it doesn’t get too wet …” M said.me Mass.
“Intergenerational pact”
Prime Minister François Legault describes QS – and the ” woke Which directs its action in Parliament – as the main adversary of the Coalition Avenir Québec.
However, less than 10 months before the election, QS garners the support of barely 13% of the electorate compared to 46% for the CAQ, 20% for the PLQ, 13% for the PQ and 5% for the Party. conservative, according to the firm Léger. If the trend continues, the left-wing party will elect 4 to 10 candidates, while the CAQ will elect 83 to 107 candidates on October 3, estimates Quebec 125.
“We will not lie to each other, our big challenge in the next year is to expand our coalition,” said Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois bluntly.
To achieve this, he and Manon Massé are banking on an alliance between young and old around an electoral platform affirming loud and clear the will to fight against climate change, but also to improve care for the elderly: a “pact”. intergenerational ”, in a way. “Young people will not save the planet on their own, then the elderly will not resolve the issue of eldercare without the solidarity of the youngest”, they argue, determined to “break down the barriers between the generations” in favor of of the next election campaign.
According to “GND”, young people cannot ignore the challenges linked to the aging of the Quebec population: “the other great challenge for Quebec” after that of climate change. “You ask your elders to show solidarity on the environmental issue, very well. You too have a duty of responsibility towards other generations, ”he told the young people. This is why Mr. Nadeau-Dubois, aspiring prime minister, Mr.me Massé, aspiring Deputy Prime Minister, repeat to activists that they meet on their way to “go talk to [leurs] parents; go talk to [leurs] Grand parents. “
QS’s 2022 electoral platform will be “closer to the daily and concrete concerns of people” than it was in 2018, they mention, while specifying that it will contain a set of “ambitious proposals on the quality of life of people”. families ”.
The electoral platform of Dominique Anglade’s PLQ will appear in some respects more progressive in the eyes of some, promising, for example, the construction of 200,000 social housing units, ie four times more than QS. Are you being overwhelmed to the left by the Liberals? request The duty. “If you had asked me that question 10 years ago… I would have fallen in the dark,” exclaims Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, former figurehead of the student movement during the Printemps érable in 2012.
Manon Massé “finds it ordinary” to see other political parties appropriate long-standing QS proposals after having “despised” them for years. “Honestly, I just want things to move,” she adds almost eight years after entering the National Assembly.