(Gatineau) Québec solidaire will have a co-spokesperson who comes from a region. Former member for Rouyn-Noranda–Témiscamingue Émilise Lessard-Therrien won her bet, and will succeed Manon Massé. Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois received the support of 90.1% of delegates.
“We have just elected the first co-spokesperson for Quebec in solidarity with rurality. It’s clearer than ever, Québec solidaire is the party of Quebec in its entirety,” said M.me Lessard-Therrien on Sunday in his victory speech.
In the room, activists were jubilant, others were crying, because the fight was close. Mme Lessard-Therrien won this first real race in the history of Québec solidaire by obtaining, in the second round of voting, 50.3% of the votes, ahead of the member for Mercier Ruba Ghazal. Sherbrooke MP Christine Labrie was eliminated in the first round of voting. Nearly 700 activists gathered in Gatineau for a conference to make this choice.
During this seven-month campaign, the Témiscamingue farmer argued that her election as female spokesperson for the left-wing party would make it possible to avoid the failures of the 2022 campaign, which put off rural citizens.
To seduce these voters who shunned QS in 2022, she believes that we must make embodied proposals that speak to their reality: on local agriculture, on the vitality of villages and on health care in remote regions for example. .
A defeat, then a victory
Mme Lessard-Therrien managed to overcome his main problem: his electoral defeat in 2022, which was very difficult to overcome.
“It was the hardest time of my entire life. A mind-blowing discomfiture. It was excruciating, physically painful,” Émilise Lessard-Therrien, in an interview with The Press.
After the general elections, Mr.me Lessard-Therrien retired to her land, with her children and her partner, and took care of her fifty chickens. She underwent training to put her artisanal mill back into service to produce local flour.
But she overcame that ordeal and entered the race to be co-spokeswoman.
The important thing is not whether you fall, it’s how you get up. […] Sometimes we might get back up even stronger. Today, I am returning to Québec Solidaire through the front door.
Émilise Lessard-Therrien
She argued that her unelected status would be an advantage. She will have time to travel across Quebec, and would not be linked to the parliamentary wing, a plus for activists who believe that QS has become centralized over time.
Spine
In this race, she had only one support in the caucus, Rosemont MP Vincent Marissal. He had been impressed by his fight for air quality in Rouyn-Noranda and his criticism of the Horne foundry, the largest employer in his county. “It wasn’t easy for her. I don’t want to play the violin. Attacking the dominant industry in the region like this, which makes rain and shine. Have prefects and the chamber of commerce against you. It takes time guts. A strong spine,” he explained.
Mme Lessard Therrien, aged 31, was born in Ville-Marie in Témiscamingue. She has training in secondary education in the social world.
For his part, Mr. Nadeau-Dubois was the only one to run for the position of male spokesperson for QS. At the 2021 conference, he obtained a score of 94%.