The debate on gender identity took precedence over attacks from opposition parties urging the government to do more against inflation on Tuesday, during a parliamentary re-entry marked in the background by a hotly contested by-election.
A few days after members of the Conservative Party of Canada (PCC) expressed their desire to limit access to medical sex reassignment remedies, elected officials from the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) and the Parti Québécois (PQ) proposed Tuesday to regulate the influence of gender identity concepts in Quebec schools.
“I think we need to start thinking,” said the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, Martine Biron.
Also evoking the need to define a framework, the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, spoke out against the recent decision of a school in Rouyn-Noranda to transform its gendered bathrooms into mixed sanitary blocks. “At some point, boys and girls have the right to have their space,” he said.
The interim leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, Marc Tanguay, agreed. “The toilets for boys and girls must remain,” he said, showing himself open to “adjustments”.
The leader of the PQ, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, got the ball rolling by answering questions on this subject during a press briefing. He suggested mandating a formal parliamentary commission on gender identity and ideologies “from the radical left”. “That’s where I have a problem. When we impose concepts, ways of doing things, new programs in the education system, without any democratic debate,” he said.
“These kinds of questions, the toilets [mixtes]pronouns, new theories of inclusive writing, must be debated here, in the National Assembly,” affirmed the PQ leader.
Comments which earned him a few barbs from the co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois. ” It is [Pierre] Poilievre or Mr. Plamondon who said that? “, he said ironically on Tuesday in reference to the leader of the PCC.
The elected representative called on his political opponents to “leave these children alone”. “Trans children are eight times more likely to commit suicide than other children. That’s not the ideology of the radical left, it’s a fact,” he said.
The purchasing power
In the House, Prime Minister François Legault affirmed that his government has adopted in recent months a series of financial measures which have the effect of returning an unprecedented amount to the pockets of Quebecers. “Just for the year 2023-2024, if we compare with when we came to government, Quebecers have 7.2 billion more in their pockets each year,” he declared in response to the PQ.
Last week, Mr. Legault did not rule out sending new checks to groups left behind by the measures he has put forward in recent months. An expansion of this aid could be linked to decisions by the Bank of Canada.
While Finance Minister Eric Girard for his part ruled out sending new checks, Mr. Nadeau-Dubois affirmed that the situation requires action. “When Eric Girard says “we have done enough”, there is no one who believes him in Quebec. Just go for a walk in a grocery store, just go for a walk in a workplace, people no longer arrive,” he said at a press briefing.
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon affirmed that despite the sending of two checks by government, the last in December, the situation of Quebecers is still just as difficult. “We look at the rise in interest rates, then the rise in rents, people do the math, then obviously they come to the conclusion that they are poorer than last year, in the vast majority of cases” , he said.
Mr. Tanguay, for his part, affirmed that the Quebec government must help the most vulnerable. “It is clear that for families there is a decline in purchasing power, but the cost of living impacts everyone and especially the most vulnerable, the government must help them in a specific way,” he said. he says.
The case of Meta
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon also accused QS of engaging in double talk due to an advertising placement on Facebook as part of the electoral campaign in the riding of Jean-Talon, in Quebec, where a vote is planned for the 2 october. “You have political parties which, to make a small gain of 1% or 2% in a partial election, are ready to abandon all their principles and then abandon our Quebec media for the benefit of a multinational. And I’m talking particularly about Québec solidaire, in solidarity with multinationals. »
Quebec political parties had joined a boycott due to the decision of Meta, which operates Facebook, to stop broadcasting articles from Canadian media after the adoption of a federal bill.
Mr. Nadeau-Dubois affirmed that in the case of the by-election, this boycott has its limits. “We will continue to go there because it is important for Quebec democracy that young and old people be reached by political parties,” he said.
Mr. Tanguay took up the same argument. “On October 3, the day after the 2nd, we will return to the complete suspension, but, for now, we must reach the voters,” he explained.
Mr. Legault asked his two opponents to stop this advertising otherwise the CAQ will review its strategy, which did not plan to advertise on Meta until now. “It makes no sense that two parties, the PLQ and QS, use Facebook, Meta, and that two others, the PQ and the CAQ, do not use it. It’s not fair,” he said.
All parties will respect a day of boycott on September 15, at the invitation in particular of the Professional Federation of Journalists of Quebec.
With Marie-Michèle Sioui and Marco Bélair-Cirino