(Boucherville) PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon rejects any form of merger or electoral agreement with Québec solidaire, following a difficult election in which the Parti Québécois suffered the worst defeat in its history. He is betting everything on a reform of the voting system rejected by the Legault government and the official Liberal opposition.
Posted at 12:24 p.m.
Updated at 12:41 p.m.
“This is not the right line of thought. It’s as if we said to ourselves: we have a system bordering on the absurd. And what we are going to do is that we are going to ask political parties that do not think the same thing to merge because we are not able to give a place to each party, ”denounced PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, who owes his victory in Camille-Laurin in part to the withdrawal of the candidate from Québec solidaire.
“The only reasoning that holds is to say that it is a problem of the voting system. It must be reformed to give a fair place to all kinds of voices which have points in common, but which also have marked differences,” he said.
But the Coalition avenir Québec has turned its back on the idea of reforming the voting system, even if François Legault had promised in 2018 not to make a “Justin Trudeau” of himself. And the Liberal Party objects to it as well. Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon believes, however, that “the temperature of the room” has changed, and that the results of this election – the Liberal official opposition received fewer votes than the Parti Québécois (3 MNAs) and Québec solidaire (11 deputies) — will shock public opinion. “People’s opinion is the key. We hit a wall that is obvious. […] Injustice is seen by everyone,” he explained.
Forced into the street
He again came to the defense of the Conservative Party of Éric Duhaime, which obtained 13% of the vote, but no MP. “I share almost no idea with Éric Duhaime, but it is not normal that a party which makes more than 10% is not heard in the National Assembly”, he launched. He fears that the people who supported Mr. Duhaime “will be forced into the streets, or into near-mutism by the government’s greed”.
More budget
But while waiting for this reform, which may well never happen, the Parti Québécois has only three representatives in the National Assembly: the PQ leader, as well as Pascal Bérubé (Matane-Matapédia) and Joël Arseneau (Îles-de-la -Madeleine). Everywhere else, the dikes gave way, and the CAQ tidal wave swept everything away. Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon attributes these defeats to the collapse of the Liberal vote, which benefited the Coalition avenir Québec, but that does not explain everything. On the North Shore, the PQ lost thousands of votes to the CAQ, for example.
And with three deputies, the PQ will not have it easy in the National Assembly. Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon appeals to the sense of duty of the Coalition avenir Québec and the Liberal Party to obtain an operating budget and a place equivalent to its electoral weight in terms of votes.
“I expect to be given a proportion of questions that takes into account the percentage of the popular vote, and an operating budget that ensures that the voice of the Parti Québécois is level, in terms of quality, which requires research and political staff,” he said.
He warns the CAQ and the PLQ not to “aggravate the injustice” by not “allowing the PQ to have a substantial budget”. If he finds himself with crumbs, it will be “an attack on democracy which is voluntary”, he launched.