(Ottawa) The Quebec lieutenant of the Trudeau government criticizes PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon for “violent” remarks in the plea he delivered Tuesday in favor of Quebec independence.
“What worries me is for social cohesion. “That we introduce elements as violent as deportations, executions, which relate to dark moments in our history, hundreds of years ago, I find that very worrying,” he said in the melee press release, Wednesday.
The good news, in a way, is that this type of speech “will harm the sovereignist cause,” said the man who is also the federal Minister of Transport. And rather than demanding an apology from the PQ leader, he invited its cousin in Ottawa, the Bloc Québécois, to speak out.
Prime Minister Trudeau breezed past journalists at the end of his caucus meeting. He did not stop in front of the cameras to answer questions concerning Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, which he nevertheless heard.
The Minister of Innovation, François-Philippe Champagne, for his part affirmed that he was not looking “in the rearview mirror, but in the windshield”. He also argued that the appetite for sovereignty does not seem to be there, based on discussions with citizens.
PHOTO JACQUES BOISSINOT, THE CANADIAN PRESS
PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon
PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon brandished historical references such as colonial rule and the reign of Pierre Elliott Trudeau in Ottawa as arguments in favor of the need to make Quebec a sovereign country on Tuesday.
He drew a parallel between the federal government’s current policies and “the long history of Quebec in Canada and the sad history of francophones and indigenous peoples in this regime of colonial origin.”
Because “all of this is in continuity”, and “Justin Trudeau is in continuity with his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau”, which means that there would be, according to the leader of the Parti Québécois, intentions behind all of this.
“It is really forgetting recent history, such as the unilateral patriation of the Canadian Constitution without Quebec, to forget the work of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, to forget what Francophones experienced in the deportations, the executions , the ban on having education in French,” he thundered.