Ouellette furor obscures Liberals’ economic message
QUEBEC With three days left to voting day, Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard’s attempts to put the emphasis on the province’s positive economic outlook were once again sidetracked by controversy surrounding his candidate Guy Ouellette.
On Friday, an hour after Couillard’s Quebec City press conference touting his party ’s stable economic stewardship, Ouellette, MNA for the Laval riding of Chomedey, published a personal Facebook post saying Quebec’s crown prosecutor’s office advised him search warrants levelled against him “were not valid.” Quebec’s anti-corruption police force, UPAC, confirmed the report Friday.
The Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP), Quebec’s crown prosecutors office, issued a statement Friday saying it had decided not to contest the Liberal MNA’s request to invalidate the search warrants that allowed police to seize his cellphone and computer in October 2017.
Ouellette was arrested in February in connection with an investigation into leaks of evidence to the media. He was never charged.
UPAC has been investigating Ouellette as the possible leak to media of sensitive police information. It did not say Friday whether its investigation is ongoing.
While the announcement came as a minor victory for Ouellette, it represented another distraction from Couillard’s efforts to paint his party as the only one capable of maintaining a stable, prosperous future for the province as the election heads into the final stretch.
The news about Ouellette came as a poll, released Friday by La Presse and Global News, showed Coalition Avenir Québec with 32 per cent of voter intentions to 31 per cent for the Liberals. If the numbers hold true, it could signify a CAQ minority or even majority government.
Ouellette drew a possible link between the new revelations and allegations that surfaced this week that he leaked embarrassing information to opposing political parties while serving as a Liberal MNA.
“This represents a huge victory for parliamentary democracy,” Ouellette wrote on Facebook.
“Does this decision explain the attacks I was subjected to this week, for which the motivations remain obscure? I don’t know.”
LEAKED EMAILS
On Wednesday, the Quebecor network reported that emails from two different addresses belonging to Ouellette were sent to the CAQ.
Ouellette told reporters he didn’t remember sending the emails, and speculated that UPAC may have sent them by hacking into his computer. CAQ Leader François Legault told reporters Thursday Ouellette was the source of the leaks, suggesting that he was upset about partisan appointments. Couillard has responded that his candidate still had his full support and would be welcomed into caucus.
The 2016 emails allegedly related to Liberal Party organizer Pietro Perrino — who was named to head the Société québécoise du cannabis, the marijuana division of the Société des alcools du Québec.
The emails apparently gave details about a government-backed investment fund on whose board Perrino sat. The fund was shut down after an investigation by the auditor general found the funds were improperly used.
Asked if the attention over the Ouellette affair was hijacking his election campaign, Couillard said his team was still on track.
“The campaign has not changed, the message is the same thing, the message is the economy and the labour shortage.” The party is running long days in the final stretch, even flying to the Iles-de-la-Madeleine for the second time in the campaign, on Saturday.
At a press conference earlier in the day, Couillard cautioned against switching to a party offering a “draft copy” change in economic policy.
“We are taking care of the economy, because it’s the economy that makes everything else possible,” Couillard said. “Because you need to be a government of the economy in order to be a government of quality.”
He pointed to a recent report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer that found Quebec is the only province in Canada whose fiscal policies were sustainable over the long term.
Meanwhile, no economists, business leaders or chambers of commerce have supported the CAQ’s economic vision, Couillard said.
“I think this needs to be stressed three days away from election day.”
Soon afterward, the latest news about Ouellette broke.