St-Pierre Plamondon wants to convince the undecided

(Trois-Rivières) Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has relaunched, as in 2018, a “convince” operation inspired by the 1995 referendum so that PQ activists attract undecided voters. He defended his decision to accept the request of two excluded candidates to continue campaigning.

Charles Lecavalier
The Press

Passing through Trois-Rivières for the first time since the start of the election campaign, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon relaunched the convincing operation, imagined by Jacques Parizeau, as Jean-François Lisée had done before him in 2018.

This campaign aims “for each person to give themselves the objective of convincing an undecided person, just one”. “In 2022, I am launching exactly the same thing, a new convincing operation. We have one weekend left to get there,” he said.

He affirms that the PQ still continues to rise in the voting intentions, and that it could form the official opposition. He also had to defend his decision to allow two ex-candidates — in Rousseau and L’Assomption — to continue campaigning despite anti-Muslim remarks made in 2015 and 2016.

Difficult decisions

“They asked me to be judged on the whole, and not on publications of 2015 only, I accepted this request. Leadership is about making tough decisions, respecting and listening to everyone involved trying to consider all aspects,” he said.

“I made my decision and people will judge,” he added. For legal reasons, Pierre Vanier and Catherine Provost will always be identified with the name of the Parti Québécois on the ballots. The PQ leader, however, promises that the party will not derive any benefit from it.

He will give back the sums paid by the Chief Electoral Officer “to charitable works”. And “if we are really in the specific case where two oppositions have the same number of seats and we have to rely on universal suffrage to try to decide, it’s simple we will tell the Assembly don’t take it into account votes from these two counties,” he added.