The Parti Québécois (PQ) has not even tabled its renewed “year one budget” before its leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, begins to dream of an independent Quebec equipped with an army and a currency specific to it.
After avoiding outlining the contours of a sovereign Quebec during the electoral campaign, then relying on the members of the party, who will vote in 2025 on the content of a white paper, the PQ elected official moved further on the issue Wednesday.
Asked in a press scrum about Quebec’s possible diplomatic relations the day after a winning referendum, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon went so far as to support the creation of a Quebec currency. “A priori, I am in favor of there being a transition plan that leads to a properly so-called Quebec monetary policy,” he said.
“The issue, with equalization and then revenues from Alberta oil, is that, yes, there is an equalization payment, but there is an inflation of the Canadian currency which terribly harms our exports , he explained. So, not to have our own monetary policy…”
In 2014, PQ leader Pauline Marois affirmed during the electoral campaign that Quebec would keep the Canadian dollar and an open border with the rest of Canada following a sovereignist referendum victory. Then, in 2020, the National Youth Committee of the Parti Québécois proposed the birth of a Quebec “piastre”.
The Prime Minister of Quebec at the time of the 1995 referendum, Jacques Parizeau, always refused to abandon the Canadian dollar. But according to Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, the economic context is no longer the same. “ [Ça] has nothing to do with it, he argued on Wednesday. We are in a globalized economy that is very standardized on an international scale. »
An army from Quebec?
Since taking office, “PSPP” has always avoided taking a position on these details. But just a few days before the tabling of an update on the finances of sovereign Quebec, he unpacked his bag. Should we have a Quebec army? a journalist asked him. ” Yes. Now, subject to the parameters that will be defined within the Parti Québécois,” he said.
Details on this subject will be found in the year one budget that the PQ leader will table on Monday.
According to him, in any case, Quebec’s accession to NATO would be self-evident. “Whenever Quebec can have international representation, and therefore a positive influence on the course of things, we will take it,” said Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon, while “obviously” promising global diplomacy and embassies. .
“If we look at the role of smaller states in global diplomacy. Take Denmark […]take Norway, take Switzerland, Holland… Several smaller nations play the role of facilitator towards peace,” he said.
QS in agreement
After confronting the PQ on the theme of independence at the start of the week, Québec solidaire sided with PSPP on Wednesday. “A country normally has a currency. […] A country, normally, has an army,” said solidarity deputy Vincent Marissal in a press scrum at the National Assembly.
The PQ will present its renewed portrait of the finances of an independent Quebec next Monday. The exercise was carried out in 1973 by Jacques Parizeau, who also took the opportunity to plan the establishment of an army of 8,000 men at a cost of 165 million dollars.
The current Prime Minister, François Legault, then in opposition with the Parti Québécois, then updated it in 2005. Approached on Wednesday before question period, the head of the CAQ government launched a challenge to his PQ adversary. “I can’t wait to see what [qu’il fait du] hole of 13 billion dollars in equalization” that a separation of Quebec and Canada would cause, he said.
On the subject of the Canadian currency, the Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, spoke of the “merits” of having a common currency with Canada, and even of having a “North American currency”. “There are segments for which we must have sovereignty. Currency is not money,” he added.
With Alexandre Robillard