Even on the electoral road, the pandemic is not over. The main political parties in Quebec will remind their candidates to wear their masks in private residences for seniors and CHSLDs, after several of them had been seen without theirs in the last few days.
On Wednesday, geriatrician David Lussier tweeted his frustration at the growing number of photos of candidates without masks in living environments. “[Je] I’m flabbergasted every time. With the very high number of people they encounter, they are at very high risk of becoming infected,” he wrote on Twitter, adding that covering the nose is the mouth “is not a sign of weakness”.
“It’s a sign of respect and kindness for your voters,” he said. It would also be an excellent idea for all parties to agree that their candidates wear a mask in all indoor gatherings.
After this exit, at least three political parties represented in the National Assembly sent a reminder of vigilance to their candidates. “The virus is still circulating, we must be careful and our candidates know that they must be careful of vulnerable people. We nevertheless sent an internal notice asking them to take all precautions while wearing the mask, ”confirmed by text message the press secretary of the Parti québécois Anne-Sophie Desprez.
After the release of Dr Lussier and “as a precaution”, Québec solidaire has chosen to move all the indoor activities of its summer tour outside.
“We also sent a message to our candidates asking them to exercise caution in their activities: physical distancing and wearing a mask if necessary, in particular,” said press officer Camila Rodríguez-Cea.
“Collective recall”
In his release on Wednesday, David Lussier pointed to two examples to avoid in living environments: we can see MPs Shirley Dorismond, from the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), and Isabelle Melançon, from the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) , embrace residents.
Wednesday, M.me Melançon agreed that he made a mistake. “I am […] made this reflection yesterday and I made the decision to put on a mask for my next visits. We have to be careful! thank you for [ce] collective recall!”, she tweeted.
“We are currently emailing a reminder of the rules to follow. […] to all our candidates, volunteers and campaign teams,” added the director of communications for the PLQ, Maxime Roy, in an exchange of text messages.
The CAQ assures that it “was already planned for our candidates to wear the mask in the presence of vulnerable people, in RPAs among others”. The Conservative Party of Quebec did not answer our questions within the allotted time.