Photo: Martin C. Barry
leader Pauline Marois speaking in Laval last Sunday.

Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois says Jean Charest is a “bad” Quebec premier, at the head of a government that is equally awful. In an exclusive interview with the Laval News last Sunday following an address to local PQ faithful in the riding of Laval-des-Rapides, Marois provided a long list of mismanagement errors for which she said the Charest government bears responsibility, starting with the sorry state of the province’s finances.

A ‘soft government’
“This is a government that has put the province into debt like no other government before,” she said. “It’s a government that doesn’t know how to defend us in Ottawa, that doesn’t go to claim what Ottawa owes to us. It’s a government that on the question of language is a soft government that doesn’t act. It’s a government that has put in place several inquiries of study, but of all these commissions were all put on the shelf and nothing was done with them, in particular with regards to the commission on reasonable accommodation, the Bouchard-Taylor Commission.
“Which all ends up saying that people currently don’t know what they should do while millions of dollars were paid for that commission. For so many other things, if you look at the school dropout problem and whether it’s fixed, the answer is no. And places for children in daycare centres, are there enough? There are tens of thousands of places missing. They’re talking about more than 40,000 places. He had promised to create some. He didn’t do it. The judgement is catastrophic. But what’s more, we’ve seen businesses like Bombardier laying off their personnel. This means that our economy is having a great deal of trouble getting re-started.”

Calls for inquiry
During her talk to the PQ faithful, Marois said that “if” Charest has nothing to hide, he should immediately accept that a public enquiry ought to be called into Quebec’s construction industry. The industry is currently the subject of a police investigation involving the RCMP and the Sûreté du Québec. In June, the PQ launched yet another campaign to sell Quebecers the concept of sovereignty. Included in the latest endeavour is an attempt to enlist the support of non-francophone Quebecers by persuading them that they too would have something to gain in an independent Quebec.
The PQ’s current sovereignty program calls for Quebec to create its own citizenship and adopt its own constitution. “It is a project which is inclusive,” Marois told TLN. “It’s a project that will be to the advantage, too, of Anglo-Quebecers and of new Quebecers. Firstly, I would say there already is a firm guarantee, but it is going to be clearer that we won’t have to be constantly defending ourselves against the intrusions of Ottawa. So we will be able to have better service here to make our own choices.

Pitching sovereignty
“As for the new Quebecers, I believe that (sovereignty) will give them more security, make them more comfortable, because they won’t always be struggling over whether to choose Canada or Quebec,” she continued. “When Quebec has made its choice, it will be easier for us to live together without ambiguity. And I believe as well that a state of freedom to be able to take decisions without constantly having to beg permissions from Ottawa is a state that is more efficient. It is a state in which better decisions will be made.”
Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper has acquired a fan base in the PQ, if only because of the parliamentary resolution that his government passed in 2006 declaring the French-speaking people of this province a nation. “We are a nation, as has declared Mr. Harper,” Marois said towards the end of the interview. She acknowledged that the motion has never been adopted as a law or in the federal constitution, which would have fleshed out its significance. The PQ might want to work towards strengthening the nation statement, she added, “but the real solution is sovereignty.”