The leader of the Parti Québécois (PQ), Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, wants to orient the training towards a new “future” refocused on independence, but he did not want to talk about the 2022 elections in his speech to the members. congress in Trois-Rivières.
During a one-day express rally on Saturday, PQ members adopted the broad outlines of the party’s platform, which will serve to guide its platform for next fall’s poll. However, when the time came to address the PQ supporters in a long speech in the evening, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon did not say the words “elections”, “candidates” or “vote” once.
The tone contrasted with the political conventions of the fall, where, in turn, the Coalition Avenir Québec, Québec solidaire and the Liberal Party had made next year’s ballot a key issue. “The congress is an opportunity to talk about what we want to do with our company. We are in the content. We are in the future, ”he told reporters. The “political daily” will come, he assured.
By adopting its “national project” this weekend, the PQ turned its gaze towards an ideal “future”, far from the concerns of the Coalition Avenir Quebec, insisted Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
“What the CAQ offers us means neither more nor less than agreeing to our decline,” he said during a speech of about thirty minutes in front of the activists.
“Quebec needs to change course quickly if we want to secure our future,” he added, referring to the slogan of the Orientation Congress: “let’s change the future”.
Renewal
The PQ rally itself led to a change of course internally, at least in appearance. The party presented a new logo, more different than ever from those offered so far by the formation of René Lévesque, and dressed in the fleur-de-lys.
“It’s a logo rooted in our heritage, but much more dynamic. We see the movement. We have to update our message in the same way we update the image, ”Paul St-Pierre Plamondon told reporters in the evening.
If his predecessor at the head of the PQ, Jean-François Lisée, had proposed to postpone the referendum for sovereignty to a second term, PQ activists reiterated their desire to launch it from the first. On Saturday, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon followed suit.
“We have chosen to speak of independence as being essential for a better future for our nation,” he said during his speech.
The lawyer by training wishes to “break the omerta” on the sovereignist discourse, by posing in particular as an adversary to the “communitarian” federalism of Justin Trudeau. “In the Canada of Justin Trudeau, we divide people by classifying them by religion, skin color, individual differences, by increasingly radical ideologies,” he said.
We choose to talk about independence as being essential for a better future for our nation
On Saturday, PQ activists unanimously condemned “the Canadian postnational project” and “the culture of cancellation”. “The future proposed by the Parti Québécois is once again completely different: instead of dividing, we are going to unite Quebecers by focusing on what unites us: language, culture, sport, a flag, a national anthem” , pointed out Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon.
The PQ leader believes the party capable of imposing sovereignty in public debate again. It has already done so with the linguistic debate by positioning itself in favor of the application of Bill 101 in CEGEP, argued the lawyer by training.
A new green orientation
Basically, the members of the PQ will have voted on more than a hundred proposals to modify their program or add elements to it. An activist on Saturday proposed to his colleagues to “rewrite the section on climate change”. They agreed: members adopted new greenhouse gas reduction targets and pledged to “embed […] the protection of biodiversity in the Constitution of Quebec ”, in particular.
In the environment, the PQ’s spokesperson on the matter, Sylvain Gaudreault, broke with the prevailing discourse, by venturing into the field of electoral promises. He wants to “assess” a tax on large vehicles, he said in the press.
A proposal that surprised his boss. “Has it been debated? », Replied Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon a few hours later, he who had probably not been made aware of his colleague’s promise. “We are at the program stage. These questions will be decided within the framework of the platform, with a view to the elections, ”he said.
A hundred positions
On Saturday, activists approved a proposal to “adjust the number of immigrants welcomed by Quebec each year, depending on [la] real capacity to integrate ”. They voted in favor of lowering the minimum age for consuming cannabis to 18 and a gradual end to “public subsidies to private schools”.
They opposed an amendment to ensure free education from primary to university. Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, however, undertook to discuss it with the activists, to see if there would be a way to adopt a less “black or white” position.
The end of the PQ congress coincides with the end of the political convention season. There are about ten months until the general election of 2022.