The Parti Québécois (PQ) accuses the Legault government of misinforming the population in its advertisements on negotiations with the public sector.
The PQ leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, criticizes the government for using public funds to spread information that, according to him, is false, particularly on salary offers.
“I’m just pointing out that we tried to make the population believe that it was 14.8% over five years; this is not true. Public funds cannot be used to misinform,” he said at a press briefing on Friday.
He was reacting to the revelations of Sun indicating that the Quebec government spent $300,000 on advertising to counter the unions’ arguments, while the labor conflict between the state and its employees continues.
“And I ask both the unions and the government to leave aside […] the war of public opinion, to enter a room, lock it and come out when there is a solution,” said Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
The interim Liberal leader, Marc Tanguay, believes that the state must use public funds “parsimoniously”. “I think the government can, to a certain point, communicate, but $300,000 is a lot of money,” he said at a press briefing, adding that the government had to negotiate intensively.
Solidarity MP Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, for his part, recalled that the population supports public service employees. “The government could invest $400,000, $500,000, $600,000, the people are behind the workers, so that’s not where I would have put the money,” he said.
Called to react, Prime Minister François Legault defended his government’s decision. “The unions have been spending millions of dollars for several weeks to make their demands known. I think it is important that the population is informed of our offers,” he said in the press scrum.