The Liberal leader, Dominique Anglade, should show more “openness” and agree to recognize Québec solidaire and the Parti Québécois as parliamentary groups, a status that would allow them to obtain more budget and speaking time at the Salon blue.
Posted at 3:57 p.m.
At least that’s what outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Geneviève Guilbault thinks, who extended this invitation to her opponent during the first caucus of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), Thursday, in Brossard.
“We said that we were going to show a lot of openness, but it is certain that we are going to need the Liberal Party so I would invite Mr.me Anglade to participate in this momentum of mutual openness that we have all had for each other since Monday, ”she said then.
The day before, during the post-election caucus of the Quebec Liberal Party in Yamachiche, Mauricie, Dominique Anglade had refused to say whether she wanted to see QS and the PQ be officially recognized as parliamentary groups.
Those who respectively elected 11 and 3 deputies while collecting 15.43% and 14.61% of the votes cast (i.e. more than the Liberal Party of Quebec [PLQ] and its 14.37%).
To be recognized as a parliamentary group, a party must have obtained 20% of the votes or elected 12 deputies. This status allows the opposition parties to have more budget and speaking time in the Blue Room, in particular.
It can be granted to other political formations which do not meet these criteria if all the recognized parties accept in a consensual manner.
Dominique Anglade, however, links his support for their recognition to the tabling, by the government, of a reform of parliamentarism. “If the government is not open to parliamentary reform, it will be very difficult,” she said on Wednesday.
shuffle the cards
But for PQ MP Joël Arseneau, the Liberal leader “mixes the cards”. If it is necessary to review the voting system, according to him, the recognition of his party and QS as parliamentary groups is another issue.
“We obtained more votes than the PLQ and it is the distortions of the voting system that mean that we have fewer deputies. On their face, it is an aberration for a majority of Quebecers, ”he explained in an interview.
Moreover, the non-recognition of QS and the PQ would have the potential to cause a legislative headache that would bog down the functioning of the National Assembly. Indeed, with the exception of the President of the National Assembly, who is not a member of any parliamentary group, the deputies not belonging to any group sit as independent deputies, stipulates the website of the institution.
” [Les libéraux] will realize that it is in their own interest to be able to resume parliamentary work in mid-November, with ways of doing things that will be effective, which will not be the case if we have 14 independent members,” believes Joel Arseneau.
QS did not wish to comment on the discussions that will take place in this file.