Assembly will have many new faces
Liberals not getting star candidates
With a provincial election approaching, Quebec’s political parties are bidding adieu to veterans, naming new candidates and moving others around because of changes in the electoral map.
This week, Norm MacMillan, the Charest cabinet’s blunt-spoken junior transport minister and a Liberal stalwart for 23 years, announced he will not run again in his Outaouais riding of Papineau.
Another Liberal minister, Yvon Vallières, who was National Assembly speaker at the start of the 39th legislature and is now intergovernmental affairs minister, said he will not run again. He has represented Richmond riding in the Eastern Township for 34 years.
Three other Charest ministers are rumoured to be thinking of resigning but have not confirmed:
Michelle Courchesne, 59, was first elected in 2003, after serving as a Quebec deputy minister, where she gained intimate knowledge of the working of government. She now is deputy premier, president of the treasury board and education minister. Her Fabre riding in Laval is being contested by Dominique Anglade, president of the Coalition Avenir Québec.
Monique Gagnon-Trem- blay, 72, was first elected in 1985 and has served as deputy premier, acting finance minister, treasury board president, intergovernmental affairs minister and in other portfolios. She represents Saint-François, adjoining Premier Jean Charest’s Sherbrooke riding.
Julie Boulet, 53, who as transport minister named Jacques Duchesneau to probe allegations of collusion to fix construction prices, has represented the Laviolette riding since winning a byelection in 2001.
Since the last election, in addition to MacMillan and Vallières, the Liberals have lost seven ministers. (See web-link)
In the last year alone, Charest has lost two deputy premiers. Nathalie Norman- deau resigned last September to get on with her life and Line Beauchamp, who was embroiled in the stillunresolved tuition dispute with Quebec students, left in May as the premier was on the verge of authorizing the controversial Bill 78, which aimed to end the dispute but failed.
Beauchamp suggested she couldn’t go along with Charest’s plan, saying when she left that she was “no longer part of the solution.”
Philippe Couillard, who was health minister and a star candidate in the 2003 election when Charest came to power, resigned before the 2008 election.
But with an election expected as soon as Sept. 4, Charest, seeking a fourth straight mandate, has not announced any fresh faces in his lineup.
No Quebec premier since Maurice Duplessis has won four consecutive elections, and with polls suggesting more than 70 per cent of Quebecers are dissatisfied with the Liberals, dynamic new recruits are not lining up for Liberal nominations.
Backbenchers Daniel Bouchard and Vincent Auclair have announced they will not run again.
Former ministers Lawrence Bergman, Yvon Marcoux and Henri-François Gautrin are in their 70s or would be in a new term, as will backbencher Charlotte L’Écuyer.
Thirteen of the 51 MNAs elected as Parti Québécois members in 2008 will not run again.
Not running again are Sylvain Simard, Claude Pinard, Martin Lemay, Danielle Doyer, René Gauvreau and Louise Beaudoin.
Lisette Lapointe and Pierre Curzi, now sitting as in- dependents, are not seeking re-election.
Camil Bouchard and François Legault resigned in 2009.
Jean-Martin Aussant, elected as a PQ member in 2008, left the caucus in 2011 and will be running again for his own party, Option nationale.
Former Péquistes Benoît Charette, François Rebello and Daniel Ratthé are running for Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec, which also includes as candidates six MNAs elected as Action démocratique du Québec MNAs in 2008.
Legault has more former ADQ MNAs on his roster, as well as newcomers chosen for the strength of their CVs, but with little or no political experience.
The PQ has been in the news lately for recruiting Pierre Duchesne, a former Radio-Canada National Assembly correspondent.
Jean-François Lisée, who as a candidate would lose his current job at l’Actualité magazine, is still reflecting on whether to run for the PQ in Rosemont riding.
The PQ president, Raymond Archambault, who used to read the morning news bulletins on RadioCanada radio, is running in Groulx riding.
Other star PQ candidates are environmentalist Daniel Breton in Sainte-Marie– Saint-Jacques, Réjean Hébert, a doctor who specializes in aging, in Saint-François, and Pierre Châteauvert, a veteran of PQ backrooms, in Jean-Lesage.