Unlike its opponents, the left-wing party left the major centers to go to eastern Quebec in this first week of the election campaign. Why ?
Nadia Mongeon needed to be convinced. She took it twice rather than once to make sure.
Thursday 1er September, the fifth day of the electoral campaign. More than a month before the vote, the resident of the riding of Bonaventure is still hesitating: will she give hers to Québec solidaire (QS) or to the Parti québécois?
In any case, she makes efforts to find out. In May, she went to see co-spokesperson Manon Massé — whom she “liked a lot, by the way” — at a partisan event not far from her home. Then, this week, she took the direction of Grande-Rivière to hear Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois discuss with citizens at the Chèvres dansantes café. “Quebec solidaire has been tickling me for a long time,” she says straight away, in an interview with the To have to. In the previous minutes, she riddled Mr. Nadeau-Dubois with questions about transportation during a question-and-answer session of the “kitchen assembly” type of which the left party has the secret.
It is precisely for voters like Nadia Mongeon, sometimes former PQ members, that QS headed for eastern Quebec this week, starting on day 4 of the election campaign. The solidarity caravan became the first to venture east of Quebec; she is still the only one.
Impossible mission ?
In a region already marked by climate change, the housing crisis and problems of access to health care, Québec solidaire believes it can make substantial gains, even if it is starting a long way behind the Parti Québécois and the Coalition avenir Québec, according to the polls.
In Gaspé, where the former director of public health for the region Yv Bonnier-Viger is presenting himself, the survey aggregation site Qc125 grants fourth place to solidarity. In Bonaventure, where community worker Catherine Cyr Wright has launched, it is hardly better: the political party ranks third, tied with the Liberal Party of Quebec.
Never mind, the solidarity team set off on Route 132 on Wednesday without looking back. After branching off at Mont-Joli, the orange and forest green QS bus — with Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois on board — crossed Val-Brillant, Amqui and Saint-Alexis-de-Matapédia before arriving at Chaleur Bay. . There awaited him raging waters and threatening clouds. A glimpse of the challenge ahead?
Four years ago, the solidarity candidates in Gaspé and Bonaventure garnered 14% and 15% of the support in their ridings respectively. But “four years ago, we did not know them”, supports Nadia Mongeon, referring to the candidates. “There, this year, that’s what I find really great: there are two people who live in the region and who understand what we are going through. »
Housing in the foreground
By going to eastern Quebec, QS wanted to assert its strengths, said Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois in a media scrum at the end of the trip in Rimouski on Friday evening. ” It’s crazy. When I started doing politics—and it’s not that long ago, it’s been five years—the housing crisis was considered a niche issue. Today, I can’t talk to five people without four of them talking to me about housing,” he said in English.
At the Chèvres dansantes café in Grande-Rivière, a few dozen people came on Thursday to listen to Mr. Nadeau-Dubois and his Gaspé candidates talk about local issues. “Is it possible to say ‘we raise the taxes for second homes for those who come once a year’?” asked a citizen. “It takes forever to get a project [de coopératives d’habitation]. Is there a way to speed up the process? asked another.
According to a high-ranking source at Québec solidaire, the ridings of Gaspésie were part of the ridings described as “next wins” before the trip. “Next”, as in “next elections”.
After the Gaspé tour, they climbed the list, it was argued at the To have to.
In Bonaventure, in particular, solidarity members are multiplying. They were just under 800 at the latest news, a figure comparable to that of Laurier-Dorion, where Andrés Fontecilla won by more than 5,000 votes in 2018. First considered a “good test”, the trip by Gaspésie has become an opportunity for the party to gain ground, they say within the solidarity team.
From student leader to aspiring prime minister
And then there is Rimouski, in Bas-Saint-Laurent, where QS is making every effort to elect its candidate, Carol-Ann Kack. On Friday, the party held its first town hall meeting of the campaign in the small seaside town. Hundreds of people — some undecided, the party maintains — gathered there.
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois does not go unnoticed on the electoral road. The former student leader, who banged on pots and staged protests for months in 2012, himself agrees that some could “not [le] blair 10 years ago”. “I think I gained experience, I gained maturity, depth, too,” said the aspiring prime minister.
Sarah agrees. Present at the rally in Rimouski, this voter agreed that she had difficulty supporting “GND” at the start. “When you first started—I’ll be honest with you—I never thought I’d be here. I appreciate the evolution. Honestly, congratulations, you made it,” she told him.
Asked about his intentions to return to eastern Quebec on Friday, the solidarity co-spokesperson assured that he did not exclude anything. For now, the QS team is heading back to the greater Montreal area. But voters in Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie could well see an orange bus reappear on the horizon soon.