(Quebec) With a draft “white paper”, PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon says he is inspired by Scotland and wants to offer Quebecers a clear vision of his independence project.
“We draw a lot of inspiration from Scotland’s Future, documents produced in 2014 and subsequently renewed in 2022 with Building a new Scotland. These are notebooks accessible to the population which respond in simple terms on the interest of the independence project, and on the post-independence period,” explains PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon in an interview.
With this approach, the Scottish independence government thus presents the tax policy that it would adopt in the event of a winning referendum, and disseminates headings such as “what does our proposal mean for your company”, or “a better economy through independence. And that is what the Parti Québécois wants to do, explained Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon.
It is therefore counting on this convention to lay the foundations for “projects”, such as this white paper, which will equip the Parti Québécois during the next election campaign, in four years. And he makes the party that it will relate in particular to “the failure of the CAQ doctrine” to make gains inside Canada.
He is also betting on a new year one budget exercise to boost the sovereignist option. Remember that a first version of the year one budget prepared by Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon’s team was ultimately never unveiled. It was to be in June 2022, then during the general elections in October. The PQ leader pleaded that the inflation crisis has changed the economic situation too much. The exercise will be resumed, but the work done in 2022 will allow for faster progress, he explained.
After the budgets
The PQ wait for the publication of the budgets of Quebec and Ottawa in March to return to the drawing board. With this exercise, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon wants his political formation not to “just have its nose glued to the news”, but to allow itself to “think about the future”. “Most of the announcements of what we are going to do tomorrow are in this spirit of taking advantage of these four years to work for the future,” he said.
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon will face a vote of confidence on Saturday at the Parti Québécois convention in Sherbrooke, a must after the elections, but no one will hold their breath over the results. The word of the president of the congress, Catherine Gentilcore, who opens the participant’s notebook given to the activists, sets the tone. “Who would have said of the Parti Québécois, a year ago, that it would have an elected leader in Montreal, who would become one of the five political figures most appreciated by Quebecers? “, she writes.
But “obviously, all is not won”, she adds then. The PQ will also vote on two proposals from its youth wing. The first is to look at the system of water royalties paid by private companies, be they bottlers or mining and pulp and paper industries. The second, which does not have the support of the political committee of the party, asks the parliamentary wing of the party to submit a bill to lower the voting age to 16 years.