The swearing-in lasted just over three minutes. The three elected members of the Parti Québécois were in turn sworn in on Friday and officially form the smallest caucus in the history of the political formation.
Like the deputies of Quebec solidaire on Wednesday, the “three musketeers”, as they like to call themselves, failed to take the oath of allegiance to the British Crown and were content to take the oath of loyalty to the people of Quebec.
“Unfortunately, in Quebec for decades, we have been living in a straightjacket that condemns each elected representative of the Quebec people to hypocrisy. A straitjacket that forces Democrats, of all parties, to take an oath in which they do not believe. So, to perjure himself,” justified the PQ leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, a few minutes after being unofficially sworn in by the Secretary General of the National Assembly, Siegfried Peters.
He will have to agree with the government and the official opposition or end up taking an oath if he wants to enter the Blue Room on November 29, the day of return for Quebec elected officials.
” It hurts “
Present for the swearing-in of his three successors, the former PQ member and former president of the National Assembly François Gendron said he followed the thirty-some-minute ceremony with a twinge in the heart, considering the small size of the caucus. “It hurts, that’s clear,” he told reporters. At the same time, I have to say: am I really surprised when we were buried? There are so many people who pretended that we no longer existed. »
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon ensures that the PQ team, although smaller than ever, will speak loudly during the next mandate. “Although there are fewer of us in the National Assembly than I would have liked, we must keep an overview and remember that in reality, we are not only three elected in this Parliament, we are more than 2 million Quebecers want Quebec to become a country,” he said during his speech.
Oldest elected of the three, Pascal Bérubé maintained Friday that the time was not for frustration, despite the lackluster results of October 3. “I made the remark to my colleagues this morning: we are not in the same tomorrows as in 2018. 2018, our leader loses. There, our leader enters, ”he underlined.
“2018, we said to ourselves: this is not quite the campaign that we wanted to carry out collectively, he continued. You have seen the candidates who are there. They came because they are proud of Paul’s campaign and [de] ours. 2018, we were in debt. We are no longer in debt. »
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon also praised the experience of his team, which, according to him, should still benefit from the status of a recognized parliamentary group, in order to obtain the necessary research budgets. “What is extraordinary and very unusual is that there are three musketeers, certainly, but three leaders. Parliamentary leader, parliamentary leader, elected leader”, recalled “PSPP” by designating in turn his two colleagues, formerly holders of the titles of leaders in the National Assembly.
What’s next?
Still awaiting an outcome in the saga of the oath to the king, the elected PQ members find themselves in a legal vacuum: no one knows what will happen when parliament returns if they have not pledged allegiance to the Crown.
“We are not ruling out any possibility,” said Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon, not even that of challenging the authority of the National Assembly by appearing at the Blue Room anyway on November 29.
Québec solidaire has already committed to holding discussions on the oath to the king by the start of the work. On Friday, neither the Coalition avenir Québec nor the Liberal Party of Quebec had responded to the requests for a meeting of the two independence parties.