PQ leader admits to misstep
Pierre Karl Péladeau conceded Tuesday that he still has things to learn about the business of being a politician.
Péladeau agreed he wasn’t clear enough Sunday when he was asked — twice — to explain his views on the partition issue sparked by the presence of First Nations leader Ghislain Picard at a Parti Québécois national council meeting in Sherbrooke.
This time he said what he didn’t say Sunday — that a sovereign Quebec would keep its existing borders.
“It’s clear I don’t have the political experience of many MNAs,” Péladeau told reporters as questions about his leadership and knowledge of the sovereignty plan swirled through the halls of the legislature.
“You know very well I only entered politics 18 months ago, I was elected leader of the PQ six months ago. So yes, certainly, to use your expression, I still have a way to go.”
Over the weekend, Péladeau found himself mired in controversy over the presence — at the PQ’s invitation — of Picard, chief of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador.
Picard gave a big speech. Although péquistes applauded loudly when he said he was a sovereignist (an Innu sovereignist), his presence and subsequent comments reopened the debate over First Nation demands and partition in the event of sovereignty.
On Sunday Péladeau refused to repeat the traditional PQ line on the issue: that if Quebec becomes sovereign, it would be with its existing borders. At one point he said the issue would be “open for dialogue.”
It was not until late in the evening that the party issued a clarification on the issue.
The incident renewed questions about Péladeau’s leadership with criticism coming — for the first time publicly — from inside the ranks of the PQ, specifically former PQ leader Pauline Marois’s former speech-writer, Claude Villeneuve.
“Seriously, I am not the only one who thinks this guy should return to look after something he actually knows (the world of business),” Villeneuve wrote on his personal Facebook page. “Privately, even his entourage is starting to admit it, ‘Ya, he’s not very good.’
“In public, I will take a step further (and say it). It’s true, this guy is not in the right place.”
Villeneuve, who worked for Marois from 2008-14, and now is a political blogger for the Journal de Québec, says while all Quebec leaders have different visions, “never, never,” would any of them give credibility to the hypothesis that Quebec could be carved up.
In his view, “such amateurism (by the leader) is not allowed in the PQ.”
His attack came on the same day that three prominent political columnists questioned Péladeau’s political skills and knowledge of the party’s program after seeing him in action Saturday.
“The question we hear more and more in the parliamentary press gallery is the following: Will PKP still be leader of the PQ for the 2018 elections?” wrote Le Soleil columnist Gilbert Lavoie after calling it a “black weekend” for the PQ.
On Tuesday, most PQ MNAs arriving for a meeting of the party’s caucus wouldn’t talk about the Villeneuve attack.
But Rimouski MNA Harold Lebel rushed to the defence of his leader.
“It was a good national council (meeting),” Lebel said. “So I have a lot of trouble with someone who was not there and is sitting at home with his feet on the couch casting judgment,” Lebel said.
“The leader is liked by the militants,” Lebel said. “We were all mobilized with our leader and we’re all working together.”
Péladeau dismissed Villeneuve’s attack as one opinion among many.
But pressed on the matter, he said he’s learning that there’s a difference between the political world and the business world he grew up in when he was a media mogul.
“There’s no such thing as black and white,” Péladeau said.
“There are many things that are, I would say, what’s the name of the book, shades of grey.”