The Liberal Party (PLQ) of Dominique Anglade prides itself on being “progressive”, but Québec solidaire (QS) does not worry about seeing it play in its flowerbeds.
“I have confidence that Quebecers have memory. I trust that they know how to make the difference between sincere convictions and then political marketing, ”said left-wing party co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois on Wednesday on the sidelines of his political party’s pre-sessional caucus.
At the end of the week, the PLQ put a recruitment website online to “unite all progressives”. Then on Tuesday, the liberal leader Anglade opened her doors to former solidarity and PQ candidates for the 2022 elections.
“For me, what is important in our training is: beyond the labels, do people want to experience what we offer with us? she asked as part of her caucus.
However, like Quebecers, “the united candidates, they have memory”, retorted the co-spokesperson for QS, Manon Massé, on Wednesday. Ms. Anglade was Minister of the Economy under the former Liberal government of Philippe Couillard.
Still no position on Bill 21
If the solidarity claim to diverge from the liberals on several points, they agree on one thing: none of the parliamentary groups has yet said what it would do with the law on religious neutrality if it were to be brought to power. On Wednesday, Mr. Nadeau-Dubois again avoided specifying it.
The supportive parliamentary leader had already told the Duty that the official position of the party would come quickly. “There will still be snow”, he confided in the editorial table with The duty in December.
“In a united government, women, regardless of their religion, could teach in our schools,” he said on Wednesday.
Above all, QS wants to take advantage of the pre-election year to talk about “quality of life”. Despite the omnipresence of the pandemic in public discourse, health cannot be the only question at the ballot box in 2022, the party’s co-spokespersons have in turn hammered home.
“With the last two years that we have just spent, inevitably, it will be important for Quebecers. Will it be 100% healthy? Me, when I am in the field, people also talk to me about their living conditions, ”said Ms. Massé at a press conference.
“They can’t find accommodation. Without saying the number of people also that I meet, who talk to me about the crisis which it has not stopped, which is the environmental crisis, ”she added.
The pandemic has already pulled the rug out from under Québec solidaire in the fall of 2020. Its “Ultimatum 2020”, a sort of game plan aimed at blocking parliamentary work to demand more climate effort from the government of François Legault, had to be put on hold due to the health crisis.
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois wants to avoid this happening again. “If Quebecers find that the pandemic has disrupted their daily lives, unfortunately it is a taste of what the climate crisis could be if we do not act, he said. And we can’t afford to skip over an election campaign. »