The member for Laviolette–Saint-Maurice, Marie-Louise Tardif, does not rule out continuing the daily Le Nouvellistewho reported last month the remarks that earned him an exclusion from the CAQ caucus.
” We’ll see. There will perhaps be a sequel, ”said the elected Mauritian on Wednesday, when questioned on this subject a few minutes before being officially reinstated in the caucus of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ). The day before, the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) had cleared Ms. Tardif, because he saw no “reasonable prospect of conviction in view of the evidence collected”.
The member, who is serving her second term in the National Assembly, was the subject of an investigation by the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) for threats she allegedly made against a former employee in full courtroom, at the end of February. According Le NouvellisteMme Tardif would then have whispered to her that she was going to “embark on [son] case”, after the said employee testified in a case opposing the MNA to her former constituency office manager, Marc Léopold Fortin.
“You were not there”
“Very happy” to rejoin the CAQ team on Wednesday, Mme Tardif told reporters to have ” [sa] version” of the facts reported by the Trois-Rivières daily. “I can’t control what people say and what people think. And you weren’t there. There were very few people,” she said.
“Who told you that I said those words? she added, before specifying that she did not deny having pronounced them.
Joined by The duty Wednesday, the editor of news writerStephan Frappier, maintained that his team had “done its journalistic work by reporting the remarks that were said in court and by covering the complaint of a former employee and the investigation which was subsequently carried out by the Sûreté du Québec”.
Mme Tardif had attracted covetousness when he was temporarily excluded from the government caucus in early March. The Conservative Party of Quebec had even stressed that it was “present” to welcome him. Then, on Tuesday, following the DPCP’s decision, Prime Minister François Legault indicated that his MP would “probably” return to the CAQ team.