THETFORD MINES – Aspiring candidate for PLQ leadership Denis Coderre has not been a member of the party since 2010, but he has taken steps to become one in the coming days.
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This was revealed by the party’s general director, Patrick Huot, on the sidelines of the PLQ pre-sessional caucus in Thetford Mines on Thursday.
“No,” he said after a journalist asked the question to his colleague, the president of the PLQ, Rafael Primeau Ferraro.
In principle, this is not a problem since Denis Coderre is not yet officially a candidate to take the helm of the PLQ. But he will have to take out his membership card if he wants to start “receiving contributions”.
This situation is not exceptional, because several people who might want to get started occupy professional positions which require them to have relationships with different political groups, he observed.
Mr. Primeau Ferraro therefore took the opportunity to invite the former mayor of Montreal to become a member of the party in due form, even though the latter has just announced a tour of the regions of Quebec.
Photo: Gabriel Côté, QMI Agency
“Why not?” he replied, extending the invitation to anyone interested in participating in the leadership race. “It’s very easy to become a member,” he said, smiling.
According to our information, Mr. Coderre intends to resume his membership card in the coming days.
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The PLQ’s back-to-school caucus took place almost entirely in the shadow of Mr. Coderre. After the liberal elected officials were very discreet about his record at the head of the metropolis, and a question about him was greeted with frank laughter from Marwah Rizqy, the former mayor of Montreal made a notable appearance on a community radio station in Montreal, inviting everyone to “laugh a little less”.
Mr. Primeau-Ferraro did not take offense. “I heard Mr. Coderre say a lot of good things about the PLQ,” he said.
Membership cards
The Liberals will elect their new leader in the spring of 2025. To take part in the leadership race, candidates for the position will have to collect the signatures of 750 party members, including 350 new ones, from 70 ridings. Candidates will also have to make a deposit of $40,000 to the party, and will have to limit their election expenses to a maximum of $400,000.
The political party is also counting on the leadership race to increase the number of party members, which, according to the president of the PLQ, has remained stable “between 15,000 and 20,000” over the past year.
“I don’t have the exact figure, but in any case, I am hopeful that it [y en aura plus] over the next year, that’s often the effect leadership races have, he said. Candidates have every interest in registering or selling new membership cards.”
General advice in spring
The party president also announced the holding of a general council in the spring and a congress of members in the fall.
“As part of these two events, there will be more precise political content which will be debated on the floor of the congress and which, ultimately, will be adopted or rejected by the activists,” he maintained. .
GND does not have “very good memories” of Coderre
Asked about Denis Coderre’s record at the head of Montreal, the parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, first reminded himself out loud that he had to avoid laughing.
“We learn from our colleagues,” he underlined, referring to the frank laughter of Liberal MP Marwah Rizqy when questioned recently on the same subject. A casualness which had offended the ex-mayor.
“I think that Montrealers have spoken about Mr. Coderre’s record during the last two municipal elections. Personally, I don’t have very good memories of it,” he commented.
He summarized Mr. Coderre’s results as “a lot of communication, not a lot of progress in housing and then in public transport”.
With Patrick Bellerose, Parliamentary Office