(Baie-Comeau) The leaders’ debate gave impetus to the Parti Québécois campaign, which saw its support jump due to François Legault’s federalist shift, said leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet even compares François Legault to Philippe Couillard.
Posted at 6:44 p.m.
“We are growing. It shows in the donations, it shows in the score, it shows on the field, it shows everywhere. And this growth is a direct transfer from separatists who voted for the Coalition avenir Québec in 2018 and who were stunned and shaken by the words of François Legault during the debate a few days ago, when he is boasted of having taken the anti-independence monopoly from the Liberals,” said the PQ leader in a speech to some fifty activists in Baie-Comeau.
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon thus retorts to François Legault and Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, who affirm that the general elections have turned into a two-way race between the CAQ and Québec solidaire. He believes that his party is growing, the statements of François Legault – “more federalist and more opposed to independence than the liberals of Jean Charest, Philippe Couillard and Dominique Anglade” – acting as a foil for separatist voters.
He is not worried about Mr. Legault’s strategy of choosing a single opponent, since it leaves the field open to his political formation. “If François Legault wants to let this go, if François Legault wants to give us a free game until October 3, well I say to him: let’s continue”, he launched to his activists.
Like Philippe Couillard
Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet came to lend him a hand on the North Shore, where two PQ castles are threatened by the CAQ. And he also attacks the Coalition avenir Québec. “If you are a separatist and you vote for the CAQ, stop deluding yourself. François Legault will not make independence. He took over exactly the sentences of Philippe Couillard in 2014, ”he said.
Mr. Blanchet believes that there is no risk that the Bloc will take a position in the campaign. He also recalled that François Legault, he did not hesitate to do so during the last federal elections. “He told Quebeckers to vote Conservative. The result is well known, there are 32 Bloc Québécois MPs in Ottawa”.
The Bloc leader did not spare the other provincial leaders. He believes that the liberal Dominique Anglade does not have the means to grow in the regions of Quebec. He believes that Québec solidaire “has no independence project” and that it “denies what constitutes national identity”. And he ridicules the Conservative Party of Quebec. “I haven’t paid much attention to people who are angry and choose an angry leader and go vote angry,” he said.
A bridge
PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon took advantage of his visit to the North Shore to reiterate his promise to build a bridge between Tadoussac and Baie-Sainte-Catherine, to connect the region to the rest of Quebec and replace the ferry service.
He also denounced the differential treatment that François Legault and the CAQ make. They will carry out the highway tunnel between Quebec and Lévis at all costs, even without a study, but are waiting for a study to commit to building this essential work, he lamented.