Paul St-Pierre-Plamondon asked all party leaders to denounce a cartoon published in the newspaper The Gazette. The drawing, signed Boris, represents a dog urinating on a poster by René Lévesque.
“If we choose to crash and lie down, they will wipe their feet on the rest of us,” the Parti Québécois leader wrote, quoting author Pierre Falardeau.
“Quebecers are entitled to respect. Aplaventrist federalism will give us nothing but decline and contempt,” he added in a tweet on Twitter.
1/2 “If we choose to crash and lie down, they will wipe their feet on us _ – P. Falardeau
Quebecers are entitled to respect. Aplaventrist federalism will give us nothing but decline and contempt.
It is independence, or decline. pic.twitter.com/brDetd6IyW
— Paul St-Pierre Plamondon (@PaulPlamondon) August 30, 2022
The cartoon shows an old lady and her little dog in front of a poster commemorating the life of René Lévesque. As the lady stands with her back to the image, the animal, dressed in a vest decorated with the Canadian flag, urinates on the poster.
“I ask the other leaders to denounce this caricature,” also wrote Mr. St-Pierre-Plamondon. A request that none of the other leaders wanted to respond to on Tuesday morning.
An example of “Quebec bashing”?
Asked later to specify what had shocked him so much in the cartoon, the PQ leader said he saw it as a mark of contempt.
“We are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the life of a great man who advocated that Quebec should decide for itself, finally become a normal democratic society. […] And this cartoon is pissing on it,” he said.
“It’s the reflection of a broader phenomenon that we call “Quebec Bashing”. It is the reflection of what is written regularly in the media of the rest of Canada on the account of Quebec”.
The PQ leader, however, did not ask that the cartoon be removed, saying he was a “fervent” defender of freedom of expression.
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