Marois coy on referendum
No ban on English CEGEPs under PQ, leader says
Pauline Marois refused to say whether she will launch another referendum if her Parti Québécois government is re-elected. But she urged people who don’t want one to vote PQ anyway.
“I leave with the feeling of having accomplished my duty.” TAILLON MNA AND MINISTER OF EDUCATION, MARIE MALAVOY
DRUMMONDVILLE — Pauline Marois Thursday refused to say whether she will launch another referendum if Quebecers re-elect her government April 7.
But she said it’s okay for people who don’t want one to vote for the Parti Québécois anyway.
“If they are interested by the PQ program, they should vote for the PQ,” Marois said.
“When we choose to hold a referendum, there will be debates with the Quebec population. We won’t do this in hiding. We won’t do it in the middle of the night.
“And there will have to be a certain level of consensus. There is no commitment to hold a referendum, but there is none to not hold one.”
At her first formal news conference of the campaign — she was roasted in the media for not holding one on election launch day — Marois tried to ease people’s fears about the PQ’s l ong term sovereignty plan.
“I think we need to keep the agenda open, and that’s what I propose to Quebecers,” she said, refusing to being boxed in on a referendum. “Nobody will ever be taken by surprise on this fundamental question on the future of Quebec.”
“I give you the guarantee that I will respect Quebecers, that I don’t want to jostle them and that they will have the time to express themselves on this question if it is brought front and centre.”
The issue is both a blessing and a curse for the PQ in its quest for a majority government.
Talking it up keeps PQ hawks happy and working hard on the election. But it scares away moderate nationalists who might like the PQ’s social democratic leanings but fear what Liberal leader Philippe Couillard calls Marois’s hidden agenda.
Marois tried to defuse the referendum issue before the campaign, saying a PQ gov- ernment would present a white paper on sovereignty. On Thursday, she put aside the PQ plan to create a Quebec citizenship. Now the issue will be lumped into the white paper exercise, which means further study.
On Day 2 of the campaign in another opposition-controlled riding, Drummond Bois-Francs, Marois tried to steer conversation to the theme of the day, integrity.
She announced the PQ candidate, which the party lost to the Coalition Avenir Québec in 2012, will be Daniel Lebel, the former president of the Quebec order of engineers.
But journalists had other questions, such as the French Language Charter, sovereignty, and why the govern- ment did not respect the fixed date election law, adopted last year.
A news conference that was supposed to last 10 minutes stretched to 50 after the president of the Quebec press gallery — speaking on behalf of the media — complained it was the first time since 1976 a sitting leader had called an election without a news conference.
Boxed in, Marois denied she was avoiding the media, or that the numerous hand- lers running her campaign were trying to bubble-wrap her campaign to avoid gaffes and pitfalls.
“It has always been my intention to meet the media — every day of the campaign,” Marois said. “Allow me to reassure you of this.”
Marois confir med the new PQ election platform will resurrect Bill 14, the bill toughening up the Charter of the French Language.
But there’s a nuance. New language legislation will not, as initially planned, prevent allophones and francophones from attending English-language CEGEPs.
The platform is to be adopted Saturday when party members from across the province gather in Laval.
There has been widespread opposition to the CEGEP restriction plan, pushed mostly by language hawks who fear what they see as galloping bilingualism.
After arguing the other way in 2012, Marois said the CEGEP ban is out.
“There have been significant advances in ensuring anglophones in English CEGEPs master French better and there have been advances in French CEGEPs, so those who attend them can better master the language of Shakespeare,” Marois said.
“We are going to stick with this orientation.”
But Marois, who conducted her first political ‘walkabout,’ at a St-Hyacinthe shopping mall — a sign she wants to counter the impression her campaign is too scripted — had to stickhandle at least one angry voter, a woman who blasted her for calling the election and walked off in a huff.
Later, to much surprise, Taillon MNA and minister of education, Marie Malavoy, announced she would not be a candidate in the election.
Denying she was forced out because of her age as some Liberals have been, Malavoy, 65, said she agree to step aside “to allow the party to present a high quality candidate.”
“I leave with the feeling of having accomplished my duty,” Malavoy said at a news conference.
A PQ fortress riding that was once represented by René Lévesque, Malavoy’s departure opens up a prime spot for a PQ star.
Marois heaped praise on Malavoy — a close friend — in a statement but gave no hints who has been picked to replace her.
And Marois laid rest to the possibility there will be an English-language leader’s television debate. The answer is no.
“I am able to speak in English, and I think I have improved my English, but I don’t think I would be very comfortable in a debate explaining my specific point of view,” Marois answered, in English.
And later Thursday, the Marois campaign made its first foray onto the very Liberal red island of Montreal, stopping in the riding of Verdun.
The campaign buses took the Champlain Bridge.
In a speech to about 150 PQ militants, she tried to embarrass Liberal leader Philippe Couillard by reading statements from economist, now Liberal candidate, Carlos Leitao, who said positive things about the PQ budget.