PQ hopes Blanc can turn orange riding back to blue
It may be an uphill climb for the Parti Québécois to win the Mercier riding on Oct. 1 but try telling that to Michelle Blanc.
“My team is so good, it knocks me on my ass just thinking about it,” said Blanc, who’s running in the Plateau-area district. “I feel like we’re shaking things up. We’re rattling the competition, I can see it on social media. It’s getting nasty.”
The plain-spoken candidate paced outside her St-Denis St. campaign office Friday — with her poodle, Charlotte, in tow — waiting for a visit from PQ chief JeanFrançois Lisée.
A woman and her child stopped to pet the shaggy dog. “Charlotte draws them in and I beg for your vote. It’s a good system.”
Just as the leader’s psychedelictinged bus pulled up to the office, a bus belonging to the rival Québec solidaire party sputtered past. Long believed to be a PQ stronghold, the riding was snatched by the QS 10 years ago.
But Lisée says he believes Blanc is the candidate to steal it back; she is a well-travelled LGBT activist, a digital-marketing expert who’s appeared on the popular TV show Tout le monde en parle and she has an infectious sense of optimism.
She is also one of the few transgender candidates to run for elected office in Canadian political history.
Some of the sovereignists who lean to the centre have abandoned the PQ for the CAQ and its promise to balance budgets and cut taxes.
On the party’s left flank, the QS has drawn voters with promises of free dental care, free university tuition and a more generous social safety net for the working poor.
“The PQ built the Quebec that we know today, one that has fewer inequalities than in the rest of Canada,” said Lisée. “We’re ceding nothing here, this is us. If others are interested on those issues, welcome to the table.
“We set the tone in Quebec for a more equal society.”
For Blanc, who is running for the first time, she’s excited at the possibility of turning her party’s fortunes around.
“We’ve got some super cool digital announcements coming up,” she said. “We can energize people, we can win this thing.”