(Quebec) Prime Minister François Legault legitimized the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ) by agreeing to meet with it for more than an hour, believes PCQ leader Éric Duhaime.
It is clear that the PCQ has a “special status”, continued Mr. Duhaime in an interview Tuesday afternoon. “He met me for an hour and a half; he wouldn’t do that with the Culinary Party,” he said.
Mr. Legault is holding a series of meetings this week with the leaders of the opposition parties in order to discuss with them. He took the trouble to include Mr. Duhaime, who did not elect any deputy to the National Assembly.
Moreover, the doors of Parliament have remained completely closed to the PCQ since the election of October 3, which saw François Legault’s Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) win a supermajority.
Mr. Duhaime still claims an office in the Assembly and permission to hold press briefings there.
Tuesday’s meeting could serve as an argument. “We are all alone who have no elected officials and we were invited, why? Because we represent 530,000 Quebecers.
” [M. Legault] laughed when I told him that. […] He could just nod. […] He couldn’t tell me that we didn’t have a special status. He invited me, ”said Mr. Duhaime.
The exercise, “cordial”, “constructive”, could also be repeated “periodically”, according to him.
The Conservative leader says he discussed several topics with Mr. Legault, from the need to diversify our energy sources to private health, through tax cuts and the third Quebec-Lévis link.
He recalled, for example, that the Conservatives are in favor of the exploitation of hydrocarbons and private health, but that they oppose the idea of dipping into the Generations Fund to finance tax cuts.
Mr. Legault would have been “attentive”. The day before, the parliamentary leader of Quebec solidaire (QS), Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, had also praised the “listening” of the head of government.
“There are two or three things that I think it made him think, I saw it in his non-verbal”, reported Tuesday Éric Duhaime, adding that he would judge Mr. Legault “on the results”.
Poilievre and the CCP
The former radio host also intends to continue his work within the PCQ, even if he admits having discussed with the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (PCC), Pierre Poilievre, a “friend”, just before the Holidays. .
Mr. Poilievre is currently on a tour of Quebec to try to boost the popularity of his party.
He would also try to recruit big names within the CAQ for the next elections, according to what political analyst Chantal Hébert reported earlier this week.
Mr. Poilievre denied this information, calling it false.
In an interview, Mr. Duhaime ruled out the possibility of eventually joining the CCP. “My energies, I intend to devote them to the Conservative Party of Quebec,” he declared.